Forgiveness in Couple Therapy

Helping one person to forgive another is among the biggest challenges in therapy. In this video, Drs. Everett Worthington and Steven Sandage discuss how to effectively manage forgiveness within the context of couple therapy. Their evidence-based, spiritually oriented relational approach helps clients collaborate, connect, and work through conflict.

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Helping one person to forgive another is among the biggest challenges in therapy, one that may be affected positively or negatively by client religious beliefs or spirituality. In this video, Drs. Everett Worthington and Steven Sandage discuss how to effectively manage forgiveness within the context of couple therapy. Their evidence-based, spiritually oriented relational approach helps clients collaborate, connect, and work through conflict by analyzing emotional responses across three phases of therapy: uncovering personal resentment, understanding its development, and processing emotional regulation. This process can lead to a fourth phase where the hurt partner recognizes his or her own need to be forgiven. This model may be integrated into any therapeutic approach, making it useful to students and practitioners of any theoretical orientation. In this program, Dr. Sandage demonstrates this approach with a couple coping with forgiveness issues, and he and Dr. Worthington discuss the approach and analyze the demonstration session.