Journal of Marital and Family Therapy doi: 10.1111/j.1752-0606.2011.00234.x October 2011, Vol. 37, No.

4, 491502

THE CONSTRUCTION OF A MODEL OF THE PROCESS OF COUPLES FORGIVENESS IN EMOTION-FOCUSED THERAPY FOR COUPLES
Catalina Woldarsky Meneses and Leslie S. Greenberg
York University

This study explored how forgiveness unfolds in the context of emotion-focused couples therapy (EFT-C) in eight cases of women betrayed by their partners. Forgiveness was dened as a process involving the reduction in negative feelings and the giving out of undeserved compassion. This was measured by changes in the pre- and posttreatment scores on the Enright Forgiveness Inventory, the Unnished Business Resolution Scale, and a single item directly asking respondents to indicate their degree of forgiveness. A task analysis was performed to rigorously track the steps leading to forgiveness using videotapes of therapy sessions for eight couples. The performance of the four couples who forgave were compared with each other and then contrasted with the performance of another four couples who did not reach forgiveness at the end of therapy. Based on these observations, a model of the process of forgiveness in EFT-C and a process rating system were developed. Forgiveness is clearly important for therapeutic work, particularly with couples. As such, understanding the unfolding of forgiveness in therapy could provide useful insights for clinical work. Forgiveness can be understood as a process involving the transformation of a negative emotional state (e.g., anger; the desire for revenge) to an afliative stance characterized by compassion and empathy toward the perpetrator (Malcolm, Warwar, & Greenberg, 2005; Worthington, 2005). Although forgiveness is not the optimal path for the resolution of all conict, and pressure to forgive in individual or couple therapy can be counter therapeutic and lead to a type of blaming of the victim, forgiveness in couple therapy has garnered much attention (Akhtar, 2000; Gordon & Baucom, 1998; Gordon, Baucom, & Snyder, 2000; Worthington, 1998). There is empirical data highlighting the value of forgiveness in couples and linking it to an increase in marital satisfaction and psychological closeness, as it serves to rebuild trust and rebalance the couples power distribution (Fincham, Beach, & Davila, 2004; Friesen, Fletcher, & Overall, 2005; Gordon & Baucom, 2003; Greenberg, Warwar, & Malcolm, 2010; Makinen, 2004). The purpose of this study was to explore how the process of interpersonal forgiveness unfolds based on the intensive analyses of eight couples: four who were able to forgive and four who were not. This was a discovery-oriented study with the objective of constructing a model of the process of forgiveness and developing a measure of this process based on observations of the videotaped sessions of couples who were in therapy to redress emotional injuries that had occurred in their relationships. The context was emotion-focused couples therapy (EFT-C) as advanced by Greenberg and Goldman (2008), where the motivational systems of attachment, identity, and attraction are considered to inuence the couples interactions (i.e., each partners eorts to regulate emotions and fulll adult needs). This approach builds on the original EFT-C framework developed by Greenberg and Johnson (1988) and oers a comprehensive view of couples dynamics that is not solely focused on the domain of attachment (see Johnson, 2004).

PROCESS MODELS OF FORGIVENESS IN COUPLES THERAPY

A number of models capturing the process of forgiveness in couples have been proposed, and two that have some empirical support are summarized below. While they represent
Catalina Woldarsky Meneses, MA, PhD Candidate, Department of Psychology, York University; Leslie S. Greenberg, PhD, CPsych, Department of Psychology, York University. Address correspondence to Catalina Woldarsky Meneses, Department of Psychology, York University, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 Canada; E-mail: cjw@yorku.ca

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important contributions to the eld, they started as top-down approaches that oer theoretical descriptions of the forgiveness process rather than being constructed from observations of the actual change process. Gordon and Baucom (1998) posit that major relational betrayals (e.g., indelity) represent interpersonal trauma that results in cognitive disequilibrium, as they violate beliefs and assumptions about how the world and people operate. They propose a three-stage model of forgiveness (impact, meaning, and moving forward) within the context of integrative couple therapy that parallels the aspects of recovery from more general traumatic events (Gordon et al., 2000). There is preliminary empirical support for this model (Gordon & Baucom, 2003; Gordon, Baucom, & Snyder, 2004). An Attachment Injury Resolution Model (AIRM; Makinen & Johnson, 2006; Millikin, 2000) has also been proposed. This is predominantly a conceptual model based on emotionally focused therapys assumptions about change (Greenberg & Johnson, 1988), and notions of adult love based on attachment theory (Johnson, 2004). The AIRM was informed by clinical observations of three mildly to moderately distressed couples who received 15 sessions of therapy (Millikin, 2000). Resolution of an attachment injury is understood to occur in eight steps, grouped into four phases: aect dierentiation, re-engagement, forgiving, and reconciliation. This model, however, was restricted by being based on three couples who resolved their injuries without comparison to unresolved couples. Subsequent conrmation studies (Makinen, 2004; Naaman, Pappas, Makinen, Zuccarini, & Johnson, 2005) focused on examining the dierences between resolved and unresolved couples in terms of aliation levels and depth of experiencing. (i.e., the degree of focus on a bodily felt sense used to create meaning; Klein, Mathieu, Gendlin, & Keisler, 1969). Evidence for deeper levels of experiencing and the shift from a hostile to an afliative stance was found for couples who forgave but not for those who did not. This pattern has previously been shown to predict outcome in EFT-C (Greenberg, Ford, Alden, & Johnson, 1993; Johnson & Greenberg, 1988) and fails to capture the steps unique to forgiveness. The present study investigated the process of forgiveness in eight couples who suffered an emotional injury (EI). An EI encompasses any event that transgresses the expectations of a close relationship, leaving one partner with enduring unresolved feelings of hurt and anger because of a violation of trust. The purpose of the present study was to build a model capturing the steps involved in forgiveness, based on observation of the change process of those couples who forgave compared to those who did not forgive over the course of EFT-C. In addition, a rating measure was constructed to rate the presence of these steps, and initial reliability of this measure was established to allow for future testing of the model. Task Analysis This study used discovery-oriented task analysis to examine the process of forgiveness. Task analysis is a qualitative quantitative research tool shown to be an effective approach for building models of change in psychotherapy and developing measures of the change process (Greenberg & Foerster, 1996; Greenberg, Heatherington, & Friedlander, 1996; Greenberg & Malcolm, 2002). This approach holds that change in therapy occurs in a sequence of subtasks that build upon themselves and lead to the resolution of a particular task. In this case, the task of interest was the resolution of couples EIs by forgiveness. The discovery-oriented phase of task analysis involves a six-step procedure with the aim of describing the process of task resolution and organizing this into sequences of actions to build a model of the process of the successful resolution of the event. This phase begins by generating a rational model (i.e., a theoretically informed model of what one expects task resolution to entail; see Figure 1). This is put aside while conducting the empirical observations of the actual process of change in psychotherapy, which are then summarized in the empirical model. In this context, the term rational is used to suggest that the model is based on conjecture and theoretical assumptions, whereas the term empirical, true to its etymological roots, means based on observation (see Greenberg, 1984, 2007). The rational and empirical models are then compared and synthesized to form a nal theory-informed observational model describing the specic micro-processes involved in resolution and their possible relations, as viewed through a particular theoretical lens. A measure is then developed to capture the change process. The
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(Adversarial, I withdrawn-distant) N J Understand/ U Listen empathize R (failing other vs. importance to E other) R

Negative Cycle

Acknowledge pain Elaborate on own experience

Accept responsibility
(Emotionally engaged)

Empathy/ regret & remorse

(Apology)

Caring

I N J Attachment U impact of R injury E D

Differentiate emotions
(anger, sadness, fear, hurt)

Fuller articulation of injury Express grief/ fear at loss

Need for comfort/ caring support

Empathy

Forgive/ let go

Reconcile/ new narrative Positive Cycle

Figure 1. Rational model of couples resolution of emotional injuries. The injuring partner engages in components along the top rows, while the injured partner engages in components along the bottom row and both partners engage in reconciling, constructing a new narrative and positive cycle.

model is ready to be tested during a second, validation phase, by relating successful and unsuccessful resolutions of the problem, as measured by the newly constructed measure of this process, to therapeutic outcomes (Greenberg, 1991, 2007).

METHOD
Couples The eight couples in this study were drawn from a data set of 20 couples who took part in the EI Project (Greenberg et al., 2010). Couples were provided with 1012 sessions of EFT-C at the York University Psychotherapy Research Clinic with the aim of resolving an EI that had occurred with the current partner, at least 2 years prior to the beginning of the project. The inclusion criteria for the larger study required for both partners to be 18 years of age or older; for one partner to be experiencing unresolved anger or hurt; and for both partners to express a desire to stay together. Each couple was asked to identify only one EI at intake, which became the central focus in the therapy. The couples were recruited through advertisements in local newspapers, and then screened and excluded if any of the following were present: evidence of violence in the relationship, suicidal ideation, substance abuse, and psychosis. All subjects gave their informed consent to participate in the larger study and to be video- and audiotaped, as well as to ll out session and outcome questionnaires. Following the completion of treatment, outcome measures and therapists notes were used to identify couples as either resolved through forgiveness or unresolved. Four couples from each group were then selected for this study based on their forgiveness scores at the end of treatment. In terms of their demographics, all eight couples were heterosexual, middle-aged (mean age of 39.8 years, SD = 3.28), married (seven couples) or cohabitating (one couple) for a mean of 13.67 years (SD = 2.74), and the average of their combined income was $78,200 (SD = $26,216). All couples had children, the average being two per household. In terms of the participants highest educational level, two had high school degrees, four had college
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degrees, eight had bachelors degrees, and two had postgraduate degrees. The ethnic makeup of the sample included three individuals who identied as being Black (Caribbean descent), one who identied as Asian, one who identied as Middle Eastern, and 11 who identied as being White (European descent). Three individuals identied as Christian, four as Jewish, and one as Muslim. For all of the eight couples studied, the injured partner was female and the injuring partner was male. All female partners had previously been in individual therapy, and three of the couples had previously been in couples therapy (two of the resolved and one of the unresolved cases). The resolved group consisted of two couples who had experienced extramarital affairs and two couples where the female partners felt they had been pressured to have an abortion by their partners. The unresolved group consisted of two couples where the husbands had engaged in cyber-affairs and viewed pornography on the Internet, which was experienced as indelity by the wives. The other two unresolved couples had injuries involving a sense of abandonment by their partners: one wife felt emotionally abandoned by her husband after their children were born, whereas the other wife felt abandoned by her husband at the time of her fathers death. Therapists Eleven therapists were involved in the larger study: two men and nine women. All therapists had at minimum 1 year of basic EFT training and 1 year of experience as a therapist. All therapists received 30 hr of specialized training in EFT-C based on a treatment manual for resolving EIs, which was developed for this project. They received weekly supervision throughout the study to promote adherence to treatment (Greenberg et al., 2010). Six therapists were involved in the sample in this study: one man and ve women. Two of the therapists were registered psychologists, two were advanced doctoral students, and two were marriage and family therapists. Measures The following measures were used to track preposttreatment changes in the couples forgiveness levels and to distinguish the resolved from the unresolved cases: The Enright Forgiveness Inventory (EFI; Enright, Rique, & Coyle, 2000). This is a 60-item self-report measure of interpersonal forgiveness with items equally divided among six subscales measuring affect, behaviors, and cognitions in both positive and negative terms. The respondent is asked to have one person in mind and is asked to endorse each item using a 6-point Likert scale with 1 being strongly disagree and 6 being strongly agree. Scores range from 60 to 360, with a high score representing a high level of forgiveness. Internal consistency has been reported in the range of 0.900.98, testretest reliability in between 0.67 and 0.91, and high validity has also been documented (Enright & Fitzgibbons, 2000). Forgiveness measure (Enright et al., 2000). This single-item measure is derived from the EFI and directly asks clients to what extent they have forgiven the person who injured them. Responses are indicated on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = not at all, 5 = completely). Given that the term forgiveness does not appear in the EFI, this item was used to address this directly. Unnished Business Resolution Scale (UFB-RS; Singh, 1994). This 14-item scale was developed for the purpose of assessing the resolution of unnished business (i.e., lingering, unresolved negative feelings) with an identied other. The respondent is asked to have this person in mind when completing this measure and is asked to endorse each item using a 5-point Likert scale with 1 being not at all and 5 being very much. Higher scores on this scale indicate a higher degree of resolution of negative feelings with the identied other. Procedure Determining resolved and unresolved cases. A cutoff score of 4 on the single-item forgiveness measure was used to classify partners as having either forgiven their injurers or not. The two groups were found to differ in their gain scores (prepostchange) on the Enright Forgiveness measure and on the UFB-RS (see Table 1).
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Table 1 Means and Standard Deviations of Outcome Measures for Injuring Partners
Pretreatment Group Resolved (n = 4) Outcome measure Enright Forgiveness Inventory Forgiveness Item UFB-RS (Emp & Accpt)a UFB-RS (Feel & Needs)b Enright Forgiveness Inventory Forgiveness Item UFB-RS (Emp & Accpt)a UFB-RS (Feel & Needs)b M 274.75 2.50 18.25 18.00 247.75 2.25 15.25 18.00 SD 29.80 1.00 3.59 6.48 38.40 0.96 5.50 2.45 Posttreatment M 347.75 4.50 29.25 34.00 264.66 3.67 17.75 21.75 SD 9.64 0.58 0.96 2.58 50.85 1.15 7.41 8.26

Unresolved (n = 4)

Notes. aEmpathy and Acceptance subscale of the Unnished Business Resolution Scale (UFB-RS). bFeelings and Needs subscale of the Unnished Business Resolution Scale.

The empirical analysis. At the core of this study was the observational analysis, where the focus was on identifying the subtasks that the couple must complete to attain forgiveness. This involved identifying actual components of the forgiveness process from videotaped therapy sessions and nding a way to describe these observations in measurable terms. This began with a review of the notes made by three research assistants, blind to outcome, who were asked to watch all of the videotaped sessions for each couples therapy and to note moments involving discussion of the EI and its resolution. They were informed of the nature of each couples EI and then were instructed to review the tapes of all sessions and to indicate the location of these moments on the videotapes, including moments that the original therapists identied as containing episodes relevant to forgiveness in their postsession notes. No formal training was provided for these research assistants. The principal investigator (PI) then reviewed all episodes that were extracted by the research assistants and examined the content of the exchanges, while also considering the nonverbal cues that signal change in each of the partners experiential interactional states (e.g., identifying shifts in a partners perceived level of emotional arousal, emotional experiencing, and vocal quality; noting how this impacts the interactional stance between them). These observable experiential interactional states came to represent units that were then grouped together into categories and labeled according to the clients language, for example, expressing sadness or feeling neglected by husband. These low-level abstraction categories were then collapsed into more abstract higher-level categories. This is a form of qualitative analysis designed to develop a set of categories that reect an observed process. The couples were studied individually, beginning with two resolved cases and then two unresolved cases. Then, the remaining cases were studied. The categories developed in the resolved cases were compared progressively to each other and then to the unresolved cases to see which process categories discriminated resolved and unresolved cases. This was done until an initial empirical model that captured the components to the path of forgiveness in the resolved couples was constructed. In an effort to integrate the theoretical underpinnings of this work with the actual observations made, the empirical model was compared to the rational model to examine how the newly discovered components t with the steps postulated. This process of comparing and contrasting the models gave way to a synthesized model that was loyal to a bottom-up approach as it captured the PIs empirical observations of the couples performances as seen through the lens of the rational model (see Figure 2). This ended the discovery-oriented, model-building aspect of the study and paved the way for the measurement construction aspect where the emphasis is on developing a measure to t the phenomenon of interest (Greenberg, 2007). The Degree of Forgiveness in Couples (DFC)
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I N J U R E R

Tolerance & acceptance for expressed anger/hurt Nondefensive acceptance of responsibility for EI S H A R E D Empathic response to other Shame/ Empathic Distress Heartfelt Apology Acceptance of forgiveness, relief, or contrition

Expression of need

I N J U R E D

Expression of blame, complaint, or hurt

Expression of 1ry emotion/ disclosure of idiosyncratic impact of EI

Shift in view of other

FORGIVENESS Assuming responsibility for relational conditions that led to EI

Figure 2. Synthesized rational empirical model of resolution of couples emotional injuries. The injuring partner engages in components outlined in the top rows, while the injured partner engages in components outlined in the bottom row and both partners engage in components depicted in the middle row. Highlighted boxes denote components that distinguished the resolved from the unresolved couples.

scale was developed to capture the process of forgiveness and used to examine whether the components of forgiveness could be reliably identied by trained raters. The DFC measure included 15 components based on the empirical observations derived from this study. In addition to verbal descriptors, criteria from existing process measures were incorporated to dene the components. For example, interactional codes taken from the Structural Analysis of Social Behavior (Benjamin, 1974) were used to describe components in which the couples behavioral interactions were important. Where appropriate, the components of forgiveness were also described in terms of depth of experiencing (using criteria from the Experiencing Scale [Klein et al., 1969]), degree of emotional arousal (using criteria from the Emotional Arousal ScaleRevised [Warwar & Greenberg, 1999]), and vocal quality (using criteria from the Client Vocal Quality measure [Rice & Kerr, 1986]). (Contact the primary author to access the DFC measure.) Selecting segments for ratings. Three of the best possible examples of each component of the model were selected from each couple by the PI. The segments of dialogue were transcribed and submitted to two raters trained on the DFC measure along with the video clips to see if the steps reliably discriminated the process of the forgivers from the nonforgivers using the criteria of the DFC measure. Video segments deemed to best exemplify a given component (golden moments segment) were assessed rst. If the golden moment segment failed to meet criteria for a forgiveness component on the DFC measure, all possible segments related to the EI identied by the three research assistants were tracked, transcribed, and rated until it was judged that a given component was not to be found in any of the couples interactions. This method of segment selection (from best to worst) has been used previously and found to be a reliable method of identifying components in other model-building studies using task analysis (Greenberg & Foerster, 1996; Greenberg & Malcolm, 2002). Training the raters. One graduate student in clinical psychology and one senior psychology undergraduate student were trained together on the DFC measure by the PI over the course of multiple weekly meetings until reliability was achieved (accumulating to 8 hr). The agreement between the two raters was high, with a Cohens Kappa (Cohen, 1960) of 0.90 by the end of training. Throughout the rating phase, the PI and the raters continued to meet weekly (for a total of 4 hr) to discuss any diculties raters had with particular video clips. It should be noted
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that these two raters were not the same research assistants mentioned earlier who were involved in the initial reviewing of the videotaped therapy sessions. Ratings. Using the DFC measure, the two trained raters, who were blind to couples classication, independently determined the presence of the components of forgiveness. Inter-rater agreement was conducted to establish whether the observed components were reliably observable. The raters viewed selected video clips from the eight therapies in random order (ranging between approximately 1.5 and 3 min) to determine whether a video clip represented a component in the DFC measure and if so, to then identify the component. Multiple components of forgiveness could occur in the same video clip, and in such cases the raters were required to identify them all.

RESULTS
Establishing the Presence of Distinguishing Components The two raters viewed a total of 190 segments that had predetermined start and end times (set by the PI). Eighty-two segments came from the resolved group (n = 4; mean of 20.5 segments from each couple) and 107 segments came from the unresolved group (n = 4; mean of 29 segments from each couple). Proportionately more segments were considered for the unresolved couples to ensure that possible components were not missed. Inter-rater agreement was high, with a Cohens Kappa of 0.84 (Cohen, 1960) for the nal ratings. Five components shown in Figure 2 were identied as occurring in all of the resolved couples but in none of the unresolved couples. The components of forgiveness that could be reliably identied as occurring exclusively for the resolved group were the injurers Expression of Nondefensive Acceptance of Responsibility for the EI, Expression of Shame Empathic Distress, Heartfelt Apology and the injured partners Shift in the View of Other, as well as the injurers Expression of Acceptance of Forgiveness, Relief, or Contrition. A general sequence was also observed among these components beginning with the injuring partner rst Assuming responsibility for the EI, then expressing either Shame empathic distress or Offering an apology (these were interchangeable) and lastly Accepting Forgiveness. The injured partners Shift in the View of the Other was variable in this sequence; in some cases it followed the injurers Acceptance of Responsibility, whereas in other cases it followed the injurers Expression of shame and or the Apology. Differences within and across the groups were also observed for other components. Expressing Empathy for the pain associated with the EI was observed in all the resolved cases (by all injurers and two injured partners) and in one of the unresolved cases (by one injurer and one injured partner). Four of the injured partners in the resolved group Expressed a Need, as did two of the four injured partners in the unresolved group. In addition, two of the four injured partners of the resolved couples Assumed Responsibility for the Role in the Relational Conditions That Led to the EI. Finally, two components were observed exclusively in the unresolved couples and involved the injurers Pressure to Forgive and Competition of Hurts.

DISCUSSION
The purpose of this investigation was to construct an empirically grounded model capturing the steps that lead to couples forgiveness and to develop an instrument to measure these components. It was found that raters trained on the DFC measure could reliably distinguish between DFC components and that ve components were unique to the resolved couples. Future investigations will benet from using this measure to test the validity of the model by assessing whether these process steps relate to outcome. No claim is being made that the validity of this model has been established; this is a tentative, preliminary model needing further testing. However, the measurable identication of the steps in the process of forgiveness represents a starting point in a research program to develop a model of the process of forgiveness in EFT-C. Implications of the Model of the Forgiveness Process The expression of the injured partners secondary (i.e., reactive) anger served as the starting point for our analyses. As Wade and Worthington (2003) argue, anger maintains unforgiveness
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and unless it is fully processed, forgiveness will not be reached. The ability of the injuring partner to tolerate and respond to the injured partners anger and pain is at the heart of the couples forgiveness process. This ultimately involves the injurer nondefensively accepting responsibility for the pain caused and expressing shame or empathic distress for the harm done. Not shifting the blame onto the injured partner is key to signaling that the injurer accepts responsibility for the EI. This can be a challenging process and it is best illustrated by contrasting the expressions of responsibility from two injuring partners, one from each group. For example, in the rst session with one of the unresolved couples, Robert, who was overinvolved in child-rearing and emotionally neglected his wife for years, unhooks himself from responsibility of the EI by insisting he was not an active agent in this process because of his depression. In a defense for his position, Robert states that his depression prevented him from really connecting with his wife. He further questions her right to be angry by bringing up his intentions: If I were her Im sure I would feel a lot of anger too; maybe not to that degree but its like somebody accidentally shooting youyou still get hurt but it wasnt intentional. The message his wife receives is that she has no right to feel so angry or hurt because he had nothing to do with his role as perpetrator of the neglect. Not surprisingly, invalidation of the injured partners pain seems to interfere with the forgiveness process. A very different attitude is assumed by George, the injuring partner of a resolved couple who assumes responsibility for the fact that he was indeed adamant that his wife abort their second child. Fearing that his wife could attempt to convince him that they should have the second child and that his lifelong dream of starting his own business would vanish, George was rm and adamant that she had to have an abortion. He recognizes this and provides the context for his reaction, without ever making it seem like a justication of his behavior: All the plans I had for our life were attached to the idea of starting the business. . . . I was so focused on that and I wanted to avoid any possible chink in my armour that could be seen as weakness so I was probably too rm and detached. I really was in mortal fear of the vision for us disappearing. Once responsibility has been assumed, the injuring partner shifts from expressing otherfocused regret (apologizing for the injury to repair the relationship) into self-focused regret, which is expressed as shame and or as empathic distress. In our study, shame was expressed only by the men who had engaged in extramarital aairs and not by those who had inuenced abortion decisions. For the latter, expressing empathic distress rather than shame seemed a necessary step that served the same purpose. Empathic distress, which has been dened as a form of guilt (Homan, 2000), involved the injurer expressing both empathy for the pain caused to his partner and hurting from having instigated this pain. In the context of repairing a relationship in which one has violated a sacred value such as delity, expressing shame is not for the purpose of self-agellation (reecting a core, maladaptive view of the self as worthless), nor is it an instrumental pull for being consoled. Instead, shame and empathic distress serve to communicate that having hurt the other had a tremendous impact on the way the injuring partner views himself. Suffering and deep remorse are vividly expressed with a high degree of emotional arousal. In essence, our empirical investigation revealed that the injurers expression of shame or empathic distress seems to be central to forgiveness. This was not anticipated in the rational model. To illustrate the distinction between an expression of shame and one of empathic distress, two excerpts from resolved cases are presented below. The following is an expression of shame that emerged in the fth session of a couple dealing with the husbands extramarital affair: I still cant believe I did it becauseI always thought of myself as a very moral person (T: mm-hm) and religious and you know, I carried around these values with me. (clears throat)I betrayed my own values, so I betrayed myself (T: mm-hm) and now I have to live with that.I let myself down and I let her down. While shame involves questioning ones sense of self and trying to understand how one could behave in a certain manner, empathic distress involves experiencing the pain that comes

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with recognizing one has deeply wounded another person. This process is illustrated in the excerpt below, taken from the sixth session of another resolved couple. Here, the injuring partner comes to appreciate the deep hurt he caused his wife, who wept earlier in the same session while revealing the idiosyncratic impact of having aborted her second child. Im nally seeing that you carried the sadness with you every day. Its this thing that you regret and feel powerless about. So it wasnt about how I forced you to do it, it was afterwards howI guess unsympathetic; not that I didnt feel sympathy but just my inability to express sympathy in a way that was helpful to you. (sighs) I know I cant take away all of the pain and the sadness(T: mm-hm) but I wish I could. The expression of shame and or empathic distress serves as a stepping-stone for the rebuilding of trust, as it demonstrates the injurers deep remorse for the injury and signals that the impact of taking responsibility is so deep that it evoked a change in the injurers identity. The link between shame and forgiveness has also been explored experimentally. Using selfreports in response to vignettes about friendship ruptures, Hareli and Eisikovits (2006) showed that the willingness to forgive increases when the injured party knows that the injuring partys apology was motivated by shame or guilt rather than by pity. A signicant interaction between shame and gender emerged in a second study, with women reporting higher levels of forgiveness when they knew an apology was motivated by shame. This was not the case for men, whose forgiveness ratings did not vary with the knowledge that shame motivated the apology. Hareli and Eisikovits (2006) conclude that the impact of shame is more pronounced for women than for men in this context. It should be noted that the dominant view in social psychology emphasizes guilt over shame when it comes to the realm of moral emotions and forgiveness. Specically, guilt is associated with apologizing and attempts to repair the relational damage, whereas shame is associated with avoidant behavior and is therefore viewed as interruptive of the forgiveness process (see Tangney & Mashek, 2004, for a full discussion). The observations of the present study suggest that shames adaptive function in promoting interpersonal forgiveness is based on the severity of the violation in the injury. If two people are dealing with a relatively mild injury (e.g., one partner forgetting to pick up the others dry cleaning), a shame-based response would be excessive and could involve the injurer collapsing into self-blame and avoiding responsibility for his or her actions, as some researchers suggest (Tangney & Mashek, 2004). However, the cases studied here involved a sacred violation of trust that resulted in a deep sense of woundedness. It seemed that witnessing the injuring partner express shame and or empathic distress was critical for healing and forgiveness to unfold, as it signals that the injuring partner is hurting as a result of having damaged the relationship, which serves to rebuild the sense of trust in the couple. Our observations about the transformative power of shame in situations involving serious transgressions echo the ndings from empirical research exploring the distinctive impact of guilt and shame. Giner-Sorolla, Castano, Espinosa, and Brown (2008) explored participants reactions to a ctitious ecological incident involving a chemical spill for which the companys director apologized, expressing either guilt or shame. Respondents were signicantly less insulted when shame was expressed rather than guilt and also reported signicantly higher levels of respect and satisfaction in the shame versus guilt condition. Keltner and Harker (1998) reviewed emotional expression research and concluded that shame has its origin in the appeasement system, involving a distinct nonverbal display associated with submissiveness and decreased aggression, which promotes social reconciliation. While the experience of shame is painful and even debilitating, its expression is more eective when it comes to repairing a serious transgression than an admission of culpability and regret (guilt). The heartfelt apologies offered by the injuring partners in the resolved group went beyond Im sorry. All four men in this group expressed sincere regret in a manner that reected a deep understanding of the EI and its damage to the relationship and to the injured partner. The apology also involved offering amends for the damage done (rather than attempting to bargain for forgiveness) and in this way communicated that the injurer had in some way changed and would ensure that the injury never be repeated.

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Our observations indicate that once the injured partner has experienced her partner respond to her pain, has witnessed his suffering and remorse, she experiences a shift in her view of him. That is, she learns to integrate both the positive and negative aspects of him and no longer see him as a monster but rather as a multidimensional being capable of acting in different ways. This promotes a rebuilding of trust based on a certain degree of certainty that the injury will not reoccur (because the injurer does not wish it) and facilitates forgiveness. Maintaining Unforgiveness Perhaps the most instructive lessons about the process of forgiveness are found in the processes of the unresolved couples. Overall, the responses of the injuring partners in the unresolved couples were marked by a pervasive sense of emotional unresponsiveness toward the injured partners. As W. M. Malcolm (pesonal communication) posits, one cannot take responsibility without being responsive to the others pain. That is, the two Rs of responsibility for the EI and responsiveness to the other exist in a dialectical process where one process shifts into the other, and back again. Given that the injuring partners in the unresolved couples were unable to assume responsibility for their actions, they could not be responsive to their partners. This lack of responsiveness was observed in this study, taking two forms: pressure to forgive, marked by expressed intolerance for the injured partners emotions around the EI, and competition of hurts, marked by a dismissal of the injured partners hurt and a request for attention to the injurers experience. Both of these processes involved the injurers unwillingness to confront himself, an avoidance of expressing any vulnerable feelings, and a tendency to blame the injured partner rather than to express some degree of compassion for her hurt. As forgiveness is not always attained, one has to wonder if it really is necessary for healing a relationship: can betrayals be resolved in other ways? While the follow-up data of the couples who did not reach forgiveness revealed a grim picture of persistent anger and hostility for two couples that stayed together, (the other two couples separated following the end of therapy), anecdotal evidence suggests that there are couples who reconcile despite never forgiving past EIs. Clearly, more research is needed in this area. We hypothesize that some couples may resolve their past injuries by accepting that an unforgiveable injury took place in the relationship, creating a shared narrative that captures this, deciding to not focus on it further (putting it in the vault), and committing to moving forward with their relationships. Acceptance involves genuine, noncritical interest, and tolerance for the other (Greenberg, 1994, p. 62) and requires letting go of the anger, the hurt, and the wish to change the past in order to move on, whereas forgiveness involves the additional element of sending out undeserved compassion and loving kindness to the injurer. The former may not involve the shame and empathic distress that constitute self-focused regret, which inform the forgiveness process. It seems that forgiveness represents deeper healing, as it involves shifting to a more harmonious and peaceful state than accepting. Moreover, we suggest that the art of a successful marriage involves forgiving partners for being dierent from whom one hoped or needed them to be and being compassionate to them, rather than merely accepting them for being dierent. The Current Model Versus Other Forgiveness Models in the Field The work of Hargrave (1994) and Gordon et al. (2004) is known for well-developed models capturing the process of forgiveness. The former author outlines the process as occurring in stages that individuals cycle through, whereas the latter authors describe the process as stages that build upon each other. Both of these views are reected in the present model, as forgiveness is outlined in a nonlinear fashion (i.e., it is possible to experience a component more than once) with a exible sequence of the components. All three models underscore the need for the injured partner to understand the oenders perspective to feel a greater sense of security and predictability in the relationship. This occurs during Hargraves (1994) stations of insight and understanding, during stage II (meaning) of Gordon and colleagues model, and in the present model this is captured in the injuring partners expressions of Nondefensive Acceptance of Responsibility for the EI, Shame and or Empathic Distress, and Heartfelt Apology. This study oers a unique contribution to the eld by considering the verbal and nonverbal
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elements of the micro-processes that pave the way to forgiveness and also by highlighting the pivotal role of shame and or empathic distress. Limitations of the Study The model developed in this study is restricted to this sample (women who had been emotionally injured) and the context in which they were studied (EFT-C). It is highly preliminary, as it is based only on eight couples and it did not take into account individual differences such as the degree of initial distress in each couple, which may inuence the types of interactions a couple engages in. In addition, this was a self-referred group that met specic criteria to participate in a study where they focused on one EI. Thus, how forgiveness actually unfolds in the general population, in couples where the male partner was injured and or in couples where multiple transgressions may have occurred, is a subject for further investigation. It is important to note that the model of forgiveness derived from observation of this sample was generated from an observers perspective and not that of the participants. Thus, it is not known what the partners may have experienced but not expressed. Similarly, the role of the therapist was not tracked, leaving future researchers to investigate how the therapist impacts this process. Another limitation of this study sample was the heterogeneity of emotional injuries, ethnicity, and religious background of the participants. While the original aim of the study was to capture diversity in the couples, this may complicate our ndings as the forgiveness process may vary based on the nature and severity of the injuries. We recognize that the resolved couples presented with injuries of greater trust violations in comparison with those of the unresolved group, and our model may reect the process of forgiveness for more severe injuries. Likewise, there may be cultural differences in the process inuenced by ethnicity and or religion. Future Directions Replication of this task analysis with more couples is needed to establish the models validity. Studying more couples would allow for more ne-grained analyses to be carried out, as well as to identify and study pretreatment differences, which may reveal different processes of resolution in different types of couples and problems. In sum, this study is a call to conduct more specic process research.

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