Facework and resilience frameworks were employed to examine threats to, and the protection of, marital partners’ identity during divorce and as they relate to outcomes associated with divorce. Divorced participants (N = 103) reported on the communicative face threats and support during divorce, reporting greater positive face threat and negative facework during divorce. The non-initiator experienced negative outcomes, including negative face threat and negative emotion, but reported no differences in stress when compared to the initiator or mutual decision makers. In addition, positive face threats and facework during divorce predicted post-divorce relationships. Specifically, low positive face threat and high positive face support were related to divorcees’ inclination to engage in positive interpersonal relationships after the divorce.

Face and resilience in divorce The impact on emotions, stress, and post-divorce relationships

We report a decade review of studies conducted to investigate the relationship between forgiveness and mental health. The salutary effects of forgiveness among victims of offense are summarized according to four propositions: (1) Unforgiveness is a stress-reaction related to poor mental health, (2) Forgiveness is a coping strategy related to improved mental health, (3) Individual differences moderate the impact of forgiveness on health, and (4) Psychological states mediate the impact of forgiveness on health. In addition, perpetrators of offense who seek and receive forgiveness as well as perpetrators who forgive themselves experience better mental health. We conclude that empirical evidence supports the application of forgiveness as a mechanism to promote better mental health among victims and perpetrators of interpersonal harm.

Forgiveness and Mental Health

Traditionally, self-forgiveness has been framed as a process that helps facilitate psychological as well as physiological well-being following wrongdoing. In the present paper, we outline the limits and boundaries of this presupposition. Specifically, we outline contexts in which self-forgiveness might yield negative consequence that include, among other things, a continuation of the wrongful behavior. First, we provide evidence that self-forgiveness for ongoing, wrongful behavior (e.g., smoking) alleviates negative feelings associated with acknowledged wrongs committed by the self, which does little to motivate behavioral change. We then discuss the complication that is pseudoself-forgiveness – a situation in which people shift some responsible away from the self for wrongs committed by the self. This outward shift in responsibility lets the self “off the hook”, which increases the likelihood that the wrongful behavior will continue. Drawing on these discussions, a path model for behavioral change that places self-forgiveness at its core is offered. Although we present some pessimism regarding the outcome of the self-forgiveness process, this paper points to situations and attributions that maximize its positive effects.

Self‐forgiveness: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Families and Forgiveness: Healing Wounds in the Intergenerational Family.

This study evaluated a 1-day workshop combined with postintervention journal writing designed to help divorced parents forgive their ex-spouse. Participants (N = 99) were randomly assigned to a workshop with gratitude journal condition (WG), the same workshop with daily events journal condition (WDE), or a wait-list comparison condition (WAIT). Participants completed measures of forgiveness, well-being, and parenting at pretest, posttest (i.e., after the workshop but prior to journaling), and 1-month follow-up (i.e., after the journaling). Consistent with hypotheses, forgiveness of an ex-spouse and dispositional forgiveness were positively related to coparenting, and forgiveness of an ex-spouse was related to better mental health. Participants assigned to WG improved more on situational and dispositional forgiveness as compared to other conditions. Contrary to hypotheses, participants in WG and WDE did not improve over time more than WAIT participants on mental health or parenting measures.

Evaluation of an Intervention Designed to Help Divorced Parents Forgive Their Ex-Spouse

The role of forgiveness and affect was investigated in relation to divorce adjustment. Ninety-one participants separated from their ex-spouse less than 30 months completed a background questionnaire, the Enright Forgiveness Inventory (EFI), the Self Forgiveness Scale (SFS), the Center for Epidemiological Studies–Depression Inventory (CES–D), the Spielberger State–Trait Anger Inventory (STAXI–2), and the Fisher Divorce Adjustment Scale (FDAS). There were significant relationships between depression and the capacity to forgive and between being in an angry feeling state and harboring a lack of forgiveness toward the ex-spouse. The relationship that emerged as the most powerful was that between trait anger and lack of self-forgiveness. Forgiveness intervention that occurs early in the divorce adjustment process is implicated, particularly in relation to the self.

The Role of Forgiveness in Divorce Adjustment and the Impact of Affect

In this paper, the archetype of the Child is considered as a psychological presence that fosters creativity and relationality for individuals and groups. The capacity for integrating the shadow aspect of human nature is a crucial psychological solution for reducing harmful biases and projections that negatively impact the subtle and emergent potential of the archetypal presence of the Child, along with the experience of actual children. A working hypothesis is that attentive listening to the voice of the divine child within each person supports processes of personal growth and spiritual transformation, in so doing mending the woundings of colonization and traumas inflicted by families and cultural systems. A Jungian perspective reveals a wound: the forgetting, through abuse or neglect, of the human relationship with the divine child archetype. The problem, from a Jungian perspective, becomes perilous, psychologically speaking: A person cut off from the child has no access to the bridge back to the Self, which cannot be discovered without the animating presence of the divine child. With the re-membering of the archetypal child in mind, the paper places emphasis on engaging with transpersonal forces that serve what Jung believed to be the religious function of the psyche. Jungian practitioners in community-based endeavors strive through arts-based practices to facilitate the integration of shadow aspects, as well as methods that seek to decolonize minoritized and marginalized frameworks and promote multiple ways of knowing.

Juliet Rohde-Brown

Papers

The Role of Forgiveness in Divorce Adjustment and the Impact of Affect

Shadow and Society