An educational forgiveness intervention with young adult children of divorce

The participants in this study were young adult children of divorce who were hurt by their parents divorce. The experimental group read Dr. Robert D. Enright's book Forgiveness is a Choice. The control group read Difficult Conversations by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen.;Participants were tested, pre-, post-, and follow-up for forgiveness, anger, anxiety, self-esteem, parent-child relationship, and relationship with others. Statistical significance was found for anxiety, pre-test to follow-up, favoring the experimental group. No other measures had significance between groups.;ANOVAs were calculated to determine two-tailed significance between pre-test to post-test and between pre-test to follow-up with experimental and control groups collapsed. Two-tailed significance was found for the EFI, STAI, and CSEI.;A Wilcoxon matched-pair two-tailed t-test was calculated for the EFI, STAI, CSEI, and PCRS, pre-test to follow-up for all measures in the experimental group alone and in the control group alone. Two-tailed significance was found for the EFI, PCRS, and STAI for the experimental group. No significance was found for any measures in the control group. Medium effect sizes were found for measures finding significance.;All participants spent many hours journaling about topics presented in their book. Even though significance was not found between the experimental and control groups or within the control group only, the present study assisted each participant to examine his/her relationship with his/her parent of choice.;If this study is replicated, it may be advisable to increase the sample size and increase the amount of time for the intervention with a clinical advisor available to assist participants. I also suggest that the forgiveness intervention be designed with the specific population in mind. The design would include education in such issues as enhanced self-esteem and civil, respectful communication.