Forgiveness Therapy with Parents of Adolescent Suicide Victims

Abstract

This paper presents a modified version of the Enright et al. (1991) forgiveness intervention model for familv psychotherapists to use with parent survivors of adolescent suicide. This model consists of 17 units designed to increase survivors' awareness of the injury due to their child's suicide, cope with the injury, and heal the injury. Preliminary studies on this intervention model reported psychological gains including increased self-esteem, lower anger, higher hope, and less depression, anxiety, and guilt compared with control subjects among parentally love-deprived adolescents, incest victims, and neglected older adults. Based on this earlier research, the forgiveness model is modified and proposed for use by psychotherapists. Results reported by psychotherapists combined with those collected from preliminary studies can be developed into a theory-based intervention with victims of trauma.