9UNP0162SD_Robert Enright_WordPress

- Thank you so much for coming and joining us this evening. I'm Margaret Lewis, the Executive Director of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters. And for those of you who may be your first visit to a Wisconsin Academy Evening, this will give me a little chance to tell you a little bit about what the Academy is about. We're so pleased to welcome you here, to hear Dr. Enright's presentation on the "Power of forgiveness." Wisconsin Academy is an independent, nonprofit organization that's been around since 1870, when it was chartered by the legislature. And it's purpose is really to connect people and ideas for a better Wisconsin. And with all the conflict in all of our lives, it's wonderful to have this opportunity to talk about how we get passed many of those things. I'm pleased tonight that we are also joined by a number of the Wisconsin Academy council members. 

I know our president Tom Boldt is here. Jim Perry, Linda Ware, Jim Armstrong are all here with us. And we're very happy to have them. I'd like to also talk a bit about the Academy's job, which is to bring the public together with some of the leading thinkers in our state to shed light on important issues in a wide range of areas, the sciences, arts and letters, thus our name. We try to offer the very best knowledge available in a respectful, agenda-free environment. In addition to this lecture series, we have an art gallery in our home under the dome, right here in the Overture Center, which is currently featuring the Wisconsin Visual Arts Lifetime Achievement Award Winners. So you might want to take the opportunity to see that exhibition that is here until June 8. We also have an award winning magazine called, Wisconsin People and Ideas, which highlights some of our state's leading thinkers, authors and artists. We also have a public policy program called the Wisconsin Idea at the Wisconsin Academy. So you can see that our work crosses many boundaries. 

And as you learn more about us, I hope you'll consider becoming a member, so that we can continue to offer these free programs to the public. Also very important to us, are your suggestions, you've all gotten a card that makes you eligible for some drawings, one of which is "Forgiveness is a Choice," by Dr. Enright. So we hope you'll fill those cards out and share your email with us, so that we can notify you that you're a winner, and also share your suggestions for future speakers and topics. I also want to most certainly thank our most generous sponsors, starting with the Pleasant T. Rowland Foundation, which is a sponsor of all of our Academy Evening events. There are many other sponsors that we also appreciate their support for single programs. The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, the John and Sally Mielke Family Fund, UW Health, Reinhart Law Offices, Edgewood College, and a number of individual donors that are here in the audience tonight. 
(applause)
 Thank you, all! 

For our friends and supporters who could not join us this evening, we thank Wisconsin Public Television and City Channel 12 for making this and other presentations available on the Internet and for rebroadcast for people around the state. So now I would like to introduce Laurie Dies, the Wisconsin Academy's Director of Special Events, who will introduce our speaker. And thank you again, all of you, for joining us. 
(applause)

- Thank you, Margaret. And thank you everyone for joining us this evening. Regarding tonight's program, there will be time for questions for Dr. Enright. So that is a good thing, and there are a lot of people here who want to ask him questions. Robert Enright, who earned his bachelor's degree in psychology at Westfield State College, and received his Ph.D. 

from the University of Minnesota, is a licensed psychologist and is a Professor of Educational Psychology at UW Madison. He's the founding member of the International Forgiveness Institute, and is the author of more than 100 publications, including four books: "Exploring Forgiveness," "Helping Clients Forgive," "Forgiveness is a Choice," and a children's book called "Rising Above the Storm Clouds." Dr. Enright has been a leader in the scientific study of forgiveness and its effect since 1985. His work on the subject has appeared in Time, McCall's, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, and the Los Angeles Times. He's appeared on ABC's 20/20, NBC's Nightly News, and many other television and radio shows. Dr. Enright is a recipient of the Chancellor's Distinguished Teaching Award, and the Wisconsin Student Association Teaching Award. He's also a recipient of the UW Madison's Hilldale Award, focused on excellence in research, teaching and public service. Currently, Dr. 

Enright is working on forgiveness education programs for primary school children in Milwaukee Central City, and if Belfast, Northern Ireland. It has been said that Robert Enright and his colleagues may be as important to the treatment of emotional and mental disorders, as the discovery of drugs and penicillin has been to the treatment of infectious diseases. We are so pleased that Dr. Enright has joined us this evening to present "The Power of Forgiveness." Please welcome Dr. Robert Enright. 
(applause)

- Thank you, Laurie. Thank you, Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters. And thank you all for coming out to chat with me about the topic of forgiveness. 

I've been a faculty member at the UW for 30 years. I blinked and 30 years went by. I don't know how that happened. And for 24 of those years, I have been scientifically studying forgiveness. Think about that for a moment. Scientifically studying forgiveness. Some have said that's like trying to drink coffee with a fork. 
(laughter)
 How do you do that? Science deals with the bricks and mortar of life that can be observed. 

And then there's this ephemeral stuff over here called forgiveness. And to put the two together seems nigh impossible. But it is possible. And that's why we're here tonight, to talk about how one can wed, so to speak, a topic as amorphous, vague, slippery, as forgiveness, with the rigors of social science for the direct purpose of helping people. I did not get into this topic of studing forgiveness to be an esoteric academic egghead, which I could of done, actually, and the UW probably would not have been embarrassed about that. 
(laughter)
 But I'm particularly interested in helping people. That's why I began studying forgiveness scientifically, because I thought in my heart of hearts, that forgiveness is something that every one of us here, and on this planet has to confront at some time or another in their lives. They don't have to embrace it. They don't have to even try it. 

But there comes a time when each one of us has been hurt by others, by their injustice. And it's time to do something about it, for healing within and between and among. And that's why I started studying forgiveness. I didn't realize it at the time when I began studying forgiveness in 1985, that none of the social sciences even had a literature on this topic. Forgiveness had been, I don't know if it's too strong a word, but I'd say basically shunned from the academy. And I didn't know it at the time, I only began to realize that as I began to study it. And I heard the whispers and saw the sneers. And I thought, "What have I gotten into here?" I consider myself one of the least controversial people I know. 
(laughter)

 And all of a sudden, I was embroiled in this controversy, because I was studying a topic that the academy was basically saying to me doesn't deserve to be studied because it's not hard headed enough. I'm just strong-willed enough to say, "Oh, yeah?" And I've been at it for 24 years. And while the academy, and I'm talking about the academy, meaning universities worldwide, will occasionally still laugh at the idea of wedding forgiveness and social science. Fewer and fewer people are laughing anymore. And it's because, I think, our science has been done correctly, and our findings are interesting. So what I'd like to do today is to simply share with you what I've learned about forgiveness, as best I can, in this next hour and a half, and sift and winnow with you, as we like to say at the UW, because I'm still learning about the topic. I still feel like I'm a neophyte regarding the topic, because there's still so much to learn. But I think I have learned something in the 24 years that is still open to correction, still open to growth. I have not yet hit the target of forgiveness. 

And so I want to learn from you as much as I hope you will learn from me. One thing I have learned in trying to understand science is that you have to know your term first. If you're going to study light, you have to know the term. If you're going to study how people behave civilly toward one another, you have to know what this word "civility" means. And so if we're ever to do scientific work on the topic of forgiveness in the hopes of creating a better world, we have to know the term. And one thing I have learned in 24 years is that there has been very little discourse, publicly, on the topic of forgiveness, but all of us know the term to some degree. But because it has been so infrequently explored, we all come to a gathering like this, with different assumptions, different ideas, and there might be some truth in our ideas, There might be some errors in our ideas. But I'm thoroughly convinced that there is something called forgiveness that is unwavering. There is something called forgiveness that has been on this planet before you and I were born. And there is going to be the something called forgiveness long after you and I are gone. 

And you and I do not construct this idea of forgiveness and breathe reality into it, just because we think about it. Forgiveness is something more powerful than I am. And it's something more powerful than you are. And I think you need to respect this idea of forgiveness, every bit as much as respecting such exalted and revered concepts as love, and justice, and patience and other moral virtues. Because to start with the idea of the term, I think forgiveness is, and it's not my idea, it goes way back, at least to 355 B.C. with Aristotle, it is a moral virtue. Forgiveness is a moral virtue. And forgiveness is a certain kind of moral virtue, where you are free to choose to exercise this moral virtue whenever you wish. You may withhold forgiveness from those who hurt you whenever you wish. You may offer it whenever you wish. You may change directions and shut the door on it whenever you wish. 

But forgiveness is one of the unusual moral virtues, where it's not demanded by society as justice is. Justice is demanded. Try breaking certain rules in society and see what happens. We take justice so seriously, you could be imprisoned. We take justice so seriously, we have entire schools within universities dedicated exclusively toward its exploration. Law schools, as an example. There will never be a law in any land ever, I think, in the history of humanity and the history of all cultures, will there be a law saying you must forgive. Because forgiveness is something that's more akin to mercy rather than justice. It's something you give to someone as a gift, freely given, out of the goodness of your heart, whenever you wish, and that's what I like about it. I like that about forgiveness, because it doesn't impose. 

It's not thunderous. It even, forgiveness has a quality that goes against the title of my talk. "The Power of Forgiveness" might not be the right title. The gentleness of forgiveness might be more accurate. Forgiveness is a gentle, quiet presence in the world that could heal, seems to be more accurate regarding what this term forgiveness is. But let's think of it at least as a choice. And so I am not up here preaching you. I'm not up here persuading you. I will not ever twist your arm to say you have to, or you should forgive. I think my job is to let you know what the term is, as far as I can, in my very limited knowledge, let you know what I think it is; let you see what our science is; Let you see the road map that we have built on forgiveness; and then decide whether you want to go ahead and try it. 

But forgiveness, properly understood and practiced is very important to me. Forgiveness improperly understood and practiced poorly gives forgiveness a black-eye, and I don't care for that. If one is to reject forgiveness, let's reject it rightly. Because we understand what it is. We know a pathway to forgiveness, and we say that's not for me. But to say that forgiveness is what it is not, and then to reject it, I consider that very sad. And when it comes to issues of the peace movement, and we're moving full speed ahead into the peace movement with forgiveness, I think it's tragic. So with that basic introduction and holding a definition loosely in our hand, for now, that it is a gentle response of mercy to someone who has hurt you. Let's take a look at the handout. And Laurie has a few more handouts for those of you who missed them. 

Does anyone else need a handout? Okay, I guess we'll have to share. Thank you, Laurie, on that. I'm going to be working from a handout, not Power Point. I'm a klutz at Power Point. And some educators have told me if the students know more about it that you, you don't have to use it. And boy was I glad to hear that. 
(laughter)
 So this is what I go by, handouts. Let's take a look at point 2 of page 1. 

We will have three pages we will get through tonight. But the outline is on page 1, and we are already on II. What is person to person forgiveness? I've already said it's a moral virtue that has a gentle quality to it, of offering mercy to someone who has hurt you unfairly. And it's up to you to choose it whenever you wish, and whether you want to or not. The oldest preserved account of which I am aware regarding the term "forgiving," and this is with regard to people, person to person forgiving, comes to us from the Hebrew culture, from the Hebrew Bible, and the Hebrew word, Salach, which is a putting aside of offense. It's a wiping away of offense. And we see one of the first preserved accounts in the history of humanity in the Hebrew Bible's Genesis. And there are over ten chapters that center on Joseph forgiving his ten half brothers and his one brother. Many of you are very familiar with this story. 

Joseph was the favored son, the ten half brothers and brother were jealous. They threw him down a well, wanting to murder him, changed their mind, pulled him out, sold him into slavery in Egypt. And he got into all kinds of trouble there. Finally, rose to be quite powerful in the governmental hierarchy there. And along come his ten half brothers, starving, because the Hebrew nation is in famine. He recognizes them. They don't recognize him. And now we see forgiveness put into action. And what does he do? He doesn't forgive. 

He throws them into prison. He plays tricks on them. He's angry. But as you read the story, you see that he does weep twice. He's softening his heart. He's having a gentle response to them, as well as this thunderous, "let's throw them into prison" response. And on his third weeping, he embraces his half brothers and his one brother, Benjamin, who's now with them. And he reveals himself as Joseph and they never knew that. He understand who they were. They didn't understand him. 

They never apologized. They never said sorry we threw you down that well and wanted to kill you. He embraced them gently. He loved them. He fed them. He gave them oxen. His forgiving saved the Hebrew nation. Have you ever thought about that? Those of you who know the Hebrew story of Joseph in Genesis. If Joseph hadn't forgiven his ten half brothers and his one brother, I wonder what would have happened to the Hebrew nation. 

That was one of the first recorded actions of forgiveness, the first one I know of that's of any length. And it had a profound consequence. It didn't just bind him back to his ten half brothers and one brother. It saved a nation. That got my attention when I realized how important forgiveness has been for thousands of years. So as an egghead academic, I started looking at everything I could from the ancient texts, as long as it was translated into English. I'm an American. I know English, and that's it, and I'm ashamed of it. But that's the best I could do, was to look at the ancient texts as translated in English. We had a group in the very beginning in 1985, who would look at some of these writings with me. 

David Easton is one of them, and he's here tonight. So a tip of the forgiveness cap to David Easton, who has been with me for many years. He got one of the first PhDs in the nation on the topic of forgiveness in our Counseling Psych Department here at the UW. Thank you, David, for being with me on our very early journey, when we didn't have a clue. Thank you. David gave me many insights, and I hope I gave him a few as well. But we then looked at the Christian views, and the Muslim views, and the Confucian views, and the Buddha views, as best we could. And I have to admit that I am ignorant. I stole that line from Socrates. I am ignorant. 

I know nothing. And I've done my best with the ancient texts and their subtleties. Some of these ancient texts you know more about them than I, but I am open to learning. I am still hungry for learning on the topic of forgiveness. But here's one thing I have learned in looking at these preserved documents from the ancient world. Every one of these philosophies or religions or world views, with their preserved writings from thousands of years ago, have made room for the topic of forgiveness. There is not one ancient document I have ever read that said forgiveness is ridiculous. Every one of them that I have read has honored forgiveness at least to some degree, have said that it is virtuous, it is morally centered in goodness, and it is a form of goodness that we give to someone who does not deserve it because they have inflicted the wounds upon us. Every one of them. The first time I have read a thunderously skeptical view about forgiveness was more in modern times. 

Friedrich Niezsche. In Germany, 1887, the "Genealogy of Morals." He basically said forgiveness is for the weak. You and I forgive when we have no other recourse. We forgive the boss to keep the job. But if we had another job, we'd lower the boom on the boss. And so that's why forgiveness is for the weak. He called it a Monkish virtue, which for him was no virtue at all. It was a power play. Nietzsche centered forgiveness on a power relationship. 

And we forgive when we say put your boot heel upon me again, because I want something from you. But what confuses me about that is that Joseph could have put his boot heel on his half brothers and brother and he chose not to. Instead of having a power position of one-upmanship, he lowered himself in humility to allow them to live, when they weren't allowing him to live those many years before. So I see contradiction between some of the modern thunderous critiques of forgiveness and what I see when I read the ancient texts. I'm not sure Niezsche had it right that forgiveness is a power play, as opposed to a moral virtue. But what encourages me when I look at the term forgiveness across a variety of ancient philosophies and religions, is that they all basically, fundamentally agree that forgiveness is goodness toward those who have hurt us. There's got to be something really important about that, don't you think? Humanists say the same thing. It's not all about people of faith, we have found. Humanists have the same kind of philosophy, goodness toward other human beings. 

And I'm thoroughly convinced that we could have a board meeting of an orthodox Jewish person, and a reformed Jewish person, and an evangelical Christian, a liberal Christian, a Catholic Christian, Muslim of various views, Hindu, Buddhist of various views, atheists who have humanistic views, and we could all sit down at a table and basically agree on what forgiveness is. And that's pretty amazing to me, because there's very little in this world we could really agree on, it seems. But we could agree on the gentleness of forgiveness toward others who have hurt us. And it seems to be a pretty good thing. And so from our learnings in the ancient texts and that encouragement, that bit of encouragement, that forgiveness sweeps across a wide variety of very respected faiths and philosophies that have withstood the test of time. We then tried to come up a formal definition of forgiving. And we're on now III. And here's a formal definition of forgiving that I don't think would do violence to any world view, but if it does, I'm open to correction. Because I am going to stick with my Socratic notion that I am ignorant. I'm staying with that. 

You're not going to shake me out of that. I am still learning. And I'm still open to learning. So my definition is not codified. I'm not etching it in stone. I'm saying this is our living, breathing, potentially changing view as we get more wisdom. But our group has tended to define forgiveness this way. It's always in the context of unfair treatment from another person. That's invariable. And when a person has been treated unfairly, and they choose to forgive, remember it's not demanded in a moral sense, then the one who forgives does two things, at the very least. 

One, you get rid of the negative toward the person. Resentment is one negative that you struggle, you struggle to get rid of the negative, such as resentment. And you struggle, again, forgiveness is about struggle. You struggle to offer something good to the other person who's hurt you, even though they might not deserve it. Because it's in the realm of mercy, remember. Where you are giving someone something that they have not earned. Just like Joseph did so many thousands of years ago now. So what is forgiveness? It's always in the context of unfairness. You struggle to get rid of resentment and to offer goodness toward the one who has hurt you. 

And because it is a moral virtue, you have to practice it. And it takes time. And we don't always have perfect expression of this moral virtue as we begin. And the target is always farther away from us than we had hoped. And as we struggle to understand and practice forgiveness, we learn more and more about it and grow more deeply in our sense of what it means to be a moral person toward others, especially those who have hurt us. And it is the struggle that helps typify forgiveness for me. We're still on number three. And we're going to go through B, C, and D, here, about what forgiveness is not. Forgiveness is not to condone or excuse. Well, why not? 

Condemnation and excusing are not moral virtues. All right? Condemnation and excusing are pushing something under the rug because someone might have a good excuse. Someone steals your car. You think ill of them until you realize, as an example, they borrowed your car to take a bleeding child to the hospital. Ah-ha, I excuse that. Because what the person did was not unjust. It was a very humanitarian thing. I excuse it. But I'm not practicing a moral virtue when I do that. 

I'm letting it go. You never let go the injustices that happened to you when you forgive. You simply respond to them in a new way. Forgiveness is not forgetting, because forgetting is not a moral virtue. If I forget to pick up the orange juice at the store, I have not engaged in a moral virtue. I simply have to turn around and get it, because I'm imperfect. Sometimes we say "forgive and forget." I say forgive and remember in new ways. Because I've never seen anyone literally forget what has happened to them. We don't develop a moral amnesia when we forgive, so that someone can continue walking on our face. 

Forgiveness is not about walking on our face, because Joseph didn't do that with his brothers. And forgiveness is not the same thing as reconciliation. Reconciliation is not a moral virtue. Reconciliation is a negotiation between two or more people coming together in mutual harmony and mutual trust, after there has been enough evidence that trust is reasonable. I can forgive someone who is abusing me and walk away from the relationship. I can forgive someone who is so abusive to me that they're affecting my health. Because forgiveness is an internal quality, that's what a moral virtue is, where I can be gentle toward them, and offer a cessation of resentment and offer goodness toward them, while I say, if they're my boss, I've got to get another job. If their my spouse, I can even say, this isn't much of a marriage. It isn't a true marriage, because you don't understand what it means to be in such an intimate relationship with another person. I am a person. 

And you're not seeing that. And I'm going to forgive that in you, but I'm not going to reconcile because I can't trust you. You don't want to change. You don't see the necessity to change. People can forgive and not reconcile. I don't think the reverse is possible. That's one of my challenges to you. I don't think it's possible to truly reconcile with people who have been unfair to you without forgiving. Sure, you can get back together, but it's going to be guarded, superficial. It's going to be on the surface, how you share with that person. 

If you have been treated unjustly, the pathway back to true reconciliation is forgiving and receiving that between and among peoples. So that's the term, forgiving. It's a matter of choice. It's a moral virtue. It's gentle. It's always in the context of injustice. When you forgive, you never, ever say it wasn't unjust. You never ever say, oh, now that I've forgiven it, it's okay. What has happened to you was unfair, it is unfair, and it will always be unfair. And forgiveness has a response of gentleness and goodness toward the other person anyway. 

Maybe Nietzsche had a point, you know? My being good to the other when they are walking on my face. What kind of a sap am I? What kind of a weakling have I become? No. One more point and then we'll get to the science. Forgiveness and justice are not mutually exclusive. One can seek justice and forgive at the same time. If someone's continually disrespecting you, you are a person, you are a human being, you are precious. You can demand something of them and forgive. 

Someone smashes your car? Forgive the man and present them with the body shop bill. Nothing wrong with it. 
(laughter)
 I think we get in trouble when we think in either/or terms. Either we forgive or we seek justice, but we can't do both. Where in the rule book does it say that? So we can forgive and we can stand firm and ask for justice. And if we realize that, then Nietzsche has to think through his philosophy a little bit more. Let's take a look at IV. 

We're now in our scientific realm. And I'm a little nervous talking about the scientific realm, because I think you're going to misunderstand me. I think if we're not careful, I am going to give you the impression that I am a utilitarian philosopher, where I think forgiveness itself is useful because it's been shown to be useful scientifically. That's not my point. My point is to show that when we exercise this moral virtue, good things happen to the forgiver. That does not make it self-centered. It does not make it self-seeking. It does not mean that forgiveness is for me, who forgives. Just because we in the scientific realm, examine the consequences of forgiving, which is what we do, for the forgiver, does not make forgiveness a utilitarian philosophy, that's only value is that it's useful. And it is not a self-centered philosophy, presuming that when you forgive, your doing it for yourself. 

Because what is forgiveness? It's offering goodness to the one who has hurt you. It's you, who's been hurt, shining the light on the one who hurt you. It's not shining the light on yourself. It's offering mercy to the other. So, let's not get all twisted around, because we're not getting into the realm of science and conclude from this talk tonight that forgiveness is something I do for myself, and forgiveness is not a moral virtue centered on the other. I think that would be confused thinking. Although we can talk about it. Let's take a look at page 2, that lists some of our scientific studies. It doesn't list all of them, because we academics tend to be very compulsive. 

We tend to do a lot of whatever our niche is, and I'm a quintessential academic. I tend to do a lot of what my niche is, and my niche is forgiveness. And my particular niche in forgiveness is to actually do educational programs for deeply hurting people, bringing them through a road map of forgiveness, and see if they can be emotionally healed. And my colleague Thomas Baskin, who is a professor in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, does some of these studies with me. And he is over-- He was over here. Oh, he's right there. He switched on me. He moved from the cheap seats. 
(laughter)
 And a tip of the forgiveness cap to you, Thomas. 

I would be nothing without him, because he razzle dazzles me with the statistics. I sit there and say, oh, okay. It's like a Bob Dylan song. I don't get it, so it's profound. 
(laughter)
 So thank you very much for dazzling me with the statistics Thomas, I greatly appreciate it. I would be nothing without you. And I have an arm's length list of some of our studies. And I'd like to go through those briefly with you to give you a sense of what we do. Here's the gist of what we do. 

We randomize people to an experimental group that has forgiveness therapy or forgiveness education. And then we have a control group that does something else that isn't forgiveness. And we have carefully chosen measures of emotional health that we give before the program, right after the program and very importantly, in a follow-up, months, or in one case 14 months, over a year, after the program was over. And the reason we have these follow-up tests is because there's one bug-a-boo in the social sciences that we call the wash-out effect. Whenever anyone tries to change others for the good, you often times can get reasonable results in the short run. But once people are no longer in the program and they go about their everyday lives, there is a tendency to go back to the same old way of feeling and experiencing the world that you did before you ever had the program. We call it the wash-out effect. And so you can't start clapping for yourself when you do science and say, how wonderful am I, until you do the follow-up tests. Believe me, the social sciences are hard enough where you never will be clapping for yourself. It's hard work, because it's hard to replicate what we have found in the past. 

But it's very important that you do follow-up testing to show that it is stuck like glue to the people, whatever the good stuff is that we happen to impart, in this case, in forgiveness education or therapy. I'm just going to go through some of these, and you can read others on your own. I'm going to highlight some of them. But the first one in the bold letters is incest survivors. And my good friend Suzanne Friedman, who is a professor at the university of Northern Iowa in their Educational Psychology Department, did an extremely courageous study here at the UW for her doctoral dissertation. She randomly assigned 12 courageous female incest survivors, to either a forgiveness condition, or waiting until their counterpart, she paired people, until their counterpart finished the forgiveness education, and then the other person started it. So the control group hung around until the one person finished and then the other person started. And this was one-on-one. Suzanne Friedman, each week for about an hour, to an hour and a half, with six of the incest survivors, working with them with a treatment manual, basically, "Forgiveness is a Choice," which is a book I've had the honor of writing. It wasn't written yet when she did it, but the gist of her manual is "Forgiveness is a Choice." 

It's a road map of how to forgive, which we're going to go through in a minute. And each one of the 12 incest survivors who were part of the program said, I'm going to really mess up your doctoral dissertation, because I'm not going to forgive the perpetrator of incest. It's too horrific. I'm not going to do it. Do you still want me in study? And Susie said, yes. And then they said, well I'm doing it for myself, because I'm hurting. And that's perfectly honorable. That's not where forgiveness ends, but that's often times where forgiveness begins. It's a life line when you're drowning in the ocean of depression, or anxiety or profound anger. 

And they said, I need the life line. This seems to be something you're offering that you seem to think is going to work. I'll try it. So Susie actually had each one of these courageous women struggle with forgiving their perpetrator. Not reconciling, necessarily, but learning to forgive. And what does that mean again? As a moral virtue to struggle to get rid of resentment, and offer goodness to that person, even if you keep an arm's length from that person, and even if you watch your own children when with grandpa, okay. It's very important that we don't think of forgiveness as foolishness, where we become blind to the other's weakness. And the first six who were part of the experimental group compared to the six who were part of the control, took 14 months on the average, one-on-one each week with Susie Friedman to forgive their perpetrator. And she stopped the program when each person said, I think I've truly forgiven them. 

She reassessed them and found that they went from clinical depression, which is a lot of pain, to non-depressed. Those who forgave, were not depressed anymore. They weren't anxious anymore. Their self-esteem rose, and their sense of hope for the future rose. What about the control group? They were still clinically depressed, anxious, low self-esteem, very little hope for the future. The control group then started one-on-one with Susie, again, 14 months. They, too, like the first group, went to non-depressed status. Their psychological depression went to practically zero. Their anxiety went to normal levels. 

They started liking themselves. And they had hope for the future. Now what about the first group though, who now had 14 months without Suzanne Friedman, without working on forgiveness one-on-one. Did they have a wash-out effect? Did they go back to depression anxiety, and low self-esteem? No. They stayed non-depressed 14 months after the program was over. They stayed with normal levels of anxiety, and they still liked themselves. One woman who was so depressed, wanted a job outside of Madison and was too depressed to take the job. She forgave her father. 

Her depression so improved, she was able to take the job and get on with her life. Another woman fed her dying father in the hospital. That was one of her ways of goodness toward him. And when he died, she said, I'm so happy I did that, because now I'm just simply mourning, where I would have been mourning with rage, and that would have been much more difficult to take. We have other stories of that. But it was a success. And to date, it's still one of the strongest studies in the whole world ever published, showing that incest survivors can heal emotionally from the horrendous act of incest, or acts of incest. And when we began this program, people were very skeptical and said you're not going to get much because the social sciences cannot offer much to incest survivors, because they're too wounded. This study was a catalyst to getting the social scientific world's attention that forgiveness is not all fluff and nonsense. It is not drinking coffee with a fork. 

All right? We did a study recently in a drug rehab unit here in Madison, a residential drug rehab. 90% of drug rehab is outpatient. We had some people who had some really tough cases. They came to us very highly clinically depressed. We randomly assigned them to the traditional drug rehab program, that's the control group, versus the traditional drug rehab program, plus forgiving someone for such serious offenses that the person said in my heart of hearts, that person was at least partially responsible for my self-medication. After the six week program, we looked at the results. And those who were clinically depressed, severely clinically depressed, that's why they were basically hospitalized for six weeks, went to non-depressed status, just like our incest survivors. Four months later, we saw the same thing. What about those who had traditional drug rehab? 

Aren't they there to get better anyway? They did improve. But those who were severely clinically depressed, improved in depression, but they were still clinically depressed. And the big difference was four months after they were out of the institution, the control group was still haunted by the specter of going back into drug use. That was not the case with those who also forgave people who were so hurtful to them, they were self-medicating. Not to blame someone for one's drug use, but it was implicated in it. And the counselor met, just recently, one of the participants, a year after the program was over. That participant was homeless, living on a park bench, and his comfy, cushy comforter at night was a newspaper. And he had not had a drink in a year. So these kind of programs get our attention. 

We just recently had a study published. If you look at the third entry on page 3, called Cardiac Patients. We had a study published in Psychology and Health Journal, where people on a cardiac unit were randomly assigned. And people forgave those who hurt them gravely. Four months after the program, those who forgave had more efficiently functioning hearts, in ways I don't really understand. Dr. Douglas Russell who is the head cardiology at the VA hooked people up to very expensive machines, and making my mind dizzy in what he's looking at. But all I know is that scientifically and statistically those who forgave had more efficiently functioning hearts. And it's the first study on the planet published that shows that forgiving someone has a major effect on the heart in a cause-effect relationship. I'm an academic. 

I'll leave the rest of page 2 to you as a homework assignment. 
(laughter)
 Read it, quiz tomorrow. Pop quiz tomorrow. Let's turn back to page 1. I want to be on V. What did we do with the people who were the incest survivors? What did we do with the cardiac patients? What did we do in drug rehab? What's the road map? 

How did we lead them through? It is detailed in the book, "Forgiveness is a Choice." In fact, what we do now for the experimental group that has forgiveness education, we give them this book, because it's a how-to road map that people read and work through the program. And there's journaling, and the like. But the details of this road map that have really dominated my life, and David Easton helped me put this road map together. Tip of the cap to you again, David. And in putting this road map together, we have brought this to lots of different people. This is what they work on. I'd like to go over it briefly. Remember, the incest survivors took 14 months to work this through. 

I'm going to go through it in five minutes. And that doesn't mean you're necessarily going to forgive, and I'm not going to lead you through that. But I'm going to use this as a road map and point out where you would stop, if you were going on a trip with me to the land of forgiveness. As you can see in the big, bold letters, we have five different major points. Preliminaries, Phase 1, Phase 2, Phase 3, and Phase 4. And within those, there are a series of what we call guide posts or steps. Here are the preliminaries. What we first do in this program is we ask people to think about one person who has hurt them for one offense only. With incest, that often times is patterned. It's often times not one offense against an innocent child. 

It often times is a pattern that can last for years. And so there are 100, or 200 offenses. But we ask the people to remember one. One and only one offense, because we think of forgiveness as a small, gentle, difficult, moral virtue to exercise. And it's better to do so humbly and in a small careful way, than in a grand way. And so even if you think about someone who has hurt you deeply and unfairly, what they've done is unfair, and I'm never going to ask you to move away from that position that it was okay. Forgiveness stays with that. Think of one person who's hurt you, and one incident, because that was enough for the incest survivors to be healed emotionally of psychological depression. Then we asked people to remember the event, the time, the place, what was said, what was done, your reaction, whether it was night or day. To truly re-experience that pain. 

Forgiveness is centered in pain. Why? Because injustice is centered in pain. Forgiveness is not the cause of our pain. Forgiveness is a response to it. There are bucketfuls of pain on this planet, that seem to get worse and worse and worse if we don't deal with it. Then we come to, once we have chosen a person and one unjust situation, we go to the uncovering your anger phase that has eight different points to it. And here's the gist of it. We ask people to think about whether they've been dodging the problem. Pascal, who invented one of the first computers, was also quite a philosopher. 

He said one of the major issues for human beings is diversion, getting around our pain. Doing everything we can to divert from the pain. And forgiveness asks us to look at it courageously. It's not for wimps. Nietzsche is wrong. It's to look at the pain as it is, and to look at your justifiable human response of confusion, and rage, and anger, and resentment, disappointment and mourning, whatever that is that's all mixed up inside of you. We use the word anger, but that's a bookmark word. Don't be thrown by my word anger. For you, it could be mourning. For you, it could be sadness. 

For you, it could be rage. But anger captures something very unpleasant here. And then we ask people, if that anger itself, the anger itself and living with it has complicated your life. You know what one of the biggest complications is of harboring anger? Reduced energy. Being zapped by it. Where you don't have the energy to do what you need to do. You know what another one is that we're not even aware of. Coming up with a whole new world view of how the world works, and it tends to be negative, pessimistic and it doesn't really work very well. We have trouble with a boss for ten years, and we say no boss can be trusted. 

We have trouble with a partner and we say no partner can be trusted. And we tend to call the glass half-empty instead of half-full. We slide into the negative philosophies of life, and we don't even know it. And we don't deserve that. But injustice has a way of fostering anger, which has a way of fostering low energy, which has a way of fostering world views that are not truthful. And then we examine all of this. And then we ask the person, do you see what hanging on to the resentment is doing to you? Because you see, many people have the erroneous notion that if you hang on to the anger, you're somehow getting back at the other. The other probably doesn't know how deeply you've been wounded, and often times doesn't care. I'm sorry to say, but that's how difficult the world is. 

And it's we, ourselves, who are brought down by our own anger. And once we've had a chance to explore with people how their anger, or their mourning, or their sadness, or their rage, is eating them up inside, it's the poison in their body, we ask, at the decision phase, phase 2, the deciding to forgive. What do you want to do about that which is poisoning you? Do you want to keep living with that? Have you tried to get rid of it? And has your approach worked? I think there are many ways to restore health, including going on good jogging programs and talking to a friend. And those are not dishonorable, but if they're not working. Our incest survivors tried everything under the sun and were still clinically depressed, you see. So our question is, are you willing to think about forgiveness as an option? 

Are you willing to walk a path of forgiveness? And when people say yes, we explore with them the definition. If you come with us on the forgiveness journey, you're going to be struggling to get rid of resentment, and offering goodness of some kind to the person who has hurt you, even if they're deceased. You can forgive the deceased. One Jewish woman had a very tasteful, orthodox ceremony at the cemetery for her father with her two sons present. She gave her father the gift of respect back to the family, and gave the grandfather back to the children. You can forgive the deceased. So, they know what they're getting into, that they're going to offer some goodness, even though it seems odd. And when you do that, you are then going to engage in a series of exercises with us. And the first exercise, which really is in the decision phase. 

We ask people this, Are you willing here tonight to do no harm to the person you have in mind who's hurt you? I'm not saying embrace them like Joseph did. I'm not saying give them grain and save their nation. I am asking, are you willing to make a commitment, that even if you could, you would do no harm to that person. Even if you loathe them. Even if you're afraid of them. Even if you have to keep your distance from them. Are you willing to do no harm? If so, congratulations. That's a long way into the forgiveness process. 

Then we have phase 3, where we start with understanding. We start with the head. We start with the mind, because the mind is easier to train than the heart, the emotions I mean. We have a series of exercises that we call thinking exercises, where we begin to see the other in a larger way. Here's some questions we asked our incest survivors, and I'm asking you now. What was life like for the person who hurt you while they were growing up? Were they ever abused? Were they ridiculed? Did they have love wrenched from them? A lot of times, those who perpetrate great injustice have had a lot of love wrenched from them. 

And I'm not saying that to condone or excuse. I'm saying it to understand. What was life like for the person at the time of this one incident you have in mind? Was everything going great, or were they troubled? Were they confused? Were they messing up? Were they themselves wounded? Did they bring their woundedness from childhood into the encounter of wounding you? You see, a lot of times, we find that it's wounded people who wound others. And if we don't do something positive about it, we end up being the wounded, wounding as well. 

So think about the person who has hurt you. Did they come to that encounter wounded? I'm not saying it to excuse. I'm saying it to see a vulnerable human being. Then I have another question. If you could, would you allow that person to have a little patch of grass to stand on in this world, and a little air to breathe? Or would you rather take them by the nape of the neck, march them to the farthest reaches of the realm, let's say Middleton, 
(laughter)
 drop them off the earth and joyously hear the whistle as they pick up steam falling off the earth? Would you be willing to give them a little plot of land to live on as a human being, and a little air to breathe because they are a person? 

What does it mean to be a person? Let's think really broadly for a moment. What does it mean to be a person? Does it mean to have a certain dignity, even when we behave very badly? Is it possible that every person on the planet has what we call, and what Emmanuel Kant kind of called inherent worth? Emmanuel Kant said, "We are all ends in and of ourselves, and should be treated as such and never used." Inherent worth. Built in. Not earned. Worth, meaning precious, valuable, that's not earned. 

I just leave that with you as a challenge. Is it possible that every person has inherent worth? Or do you judge people by their actions? Forgiveness asks us to separate actions and the truth of personhood, and who we are as persons. And when we realize that every person has inherent worth built-in, when we start paying attention to our emotions and we see the weakness in those who have hurt us; we see their woundedness; we see their embattled nature; there's a slight tendency to start feeling a little bit of empathy toward them, where with we step inside their shoes and we see the woundedness, and we experience that woundedness. And when we start sensing their suffering, that's compassion. And compassion can grow in you for a wounded animal, and a wounded person, and a wounded person who's hurt you. But it takes time. And we don't all get there. But if we at least get to the point of do no harm, we've come a long way. 

We ask people to bear the pain of what happened. And here's what we mean by that. We're not saying absorb what happened to you and become depressed. We're saying something happened to you in historical time. It happened. It's part of the historical record. You cannot change it. Are you willing to say this did happen to me and I'm hurt. It makes me say ouch. And sometimes it makes me say more than that. 

But it did happen to me, and I'm going to bear up under that. But I'm not going to let the pain that I'm feeling tonight from what that person did, in ripping love from me, when they shouldn't have done that. And I'm not going to let that be the basis for my being bitter toward them or anybody else. Are you willing to say my pain stops with me here tonight? And if you don't, I have a little secret for you that I've learned in 24 years. When people are in pain, It's like one of those laws of thermodynamics I can never remember, like where energy is neither created or destroyed. I think it's the same thing with woundedness. It's not destroyed. You know what we do with our woundedness? We pass it on to others. 

If not back to the one who hurt us, you know who we tend to pass it on to? Our children. Those who are vulnerable, those who will take it, and then you know what's going to happen with our children? They're going to be in seminars like this years from now, trying to figure it out. That's what I mean by burying the pain. Someone has to stop the cycle of pain in families, and in communities, at some point and be a conduit of good. That's not my line. That's Allen Burgen's line. He's a very famous psychotherapist. He said at some point in a functioning family for it to be healthy, someone has to be courageous enough to stop the cycle of pain. 

And say it will stop with me. I'm not going to pass it on to my children. That's what it means to bear the pain. And that's what forgiveness asks of you. Will you not let your pain, your woundedness be an excuse to pull love out of somebody else. That's what forgiveness asks. I think Nietzsche is absolutely wrong. This is not for wimps. This is for very courageous people. Do you see why the incest survivors self-esteem went up and their sense of hope for the future went up? 

They were becoming conduits of good rather than letting their misery infect somebody else. It was never fair what happened to them. They were the walking wounded. And many of them said to us, I'm still angry, but my anger doesn't control me, and I don't throw it back onto others. Then comes in the work phase, giving a gift to the one who hurt you, which can be as simple as a smile or an acknowledgment, or in the case of our Jewish friend, the orthodox ceremony in the cemetery. It could be a letter sent or a returned phone call, acknowledging the inherent worth of the other. You don't have to marry them. You don't have to go back to work for them. But what I'm asking is are you willing to acknowledge the inherent worth of them, even if you get on your track shoes and run to the next company because you can't work with them because they're unhealthy for you. Are you willing to give a gift that acknowledges their inherent worth? 

And as you do that, you discover there is meaning in what you've suffered. You did not suffer for nothing. Victor Franco who survived concentration camp during World War II, a psychiatrist, said there are two kinds of people who survived concentration camp. Those who found meaning in what they've suffered who went on well, and those who found no meaning and found the suffering meaningless, and were destroyed. What meaning have you found in the suffering you have experienced? That you're a stronger person than you thought? That you understand the sensitivity of others and you understand their woundedness? Think about it. Your suffering wasn't for nothing. Find the meaning. 

Let's learn from Victor Franco. There's something very wholesome and good about his wisdom. People realize they need to be forgiven. They realize they're not alone. They develop a new purpose in life. And then often times, they are released from emotional prison. And that's where science comes in. That's where we see that people get lower in anxiety, anger, depression, higher in self-esteem and hope, and even their relationships can get better. And now to my final point, number 6 on the first page. Where do we go from here? 

Well, we've been working with adults for so many years we thought, why shouldn't we bring this kind of thing to children. After all, if 26-year-olds are in a partnering relationship, and all of a sudden, it's going badly, to make your way to forgiveness at that time and for the first time, can be very disconcerting and difficult. It's like asking someone who's been sitting on the couch being a couch potato for 26 years to all of sudden start running a marathon. Who's going to be the better marathon runner? The couch potato up to age 26, or the child who's been in training for that since age 6. No brainer. The child who's been training for it, and becoming fit, athletically fit, since age six. What about becoming forgivingly fit? What about that? I wasn't surprised when the Amish of Lancaster, Pennsylvania forgave. 

I got a lot of calls from the media, they said to me, the first question out of the media's mouth was, "They're faking it, aren't they?" And I said, "Absolutely, positively not." Because they knew this was going to happen. They didn't know when. They didn't know what. But they were ready for it, because they have forgiveness exercises in the family, daily. And so my wife Jeanette and I came up with the idea, why don't we bring forgiveness into the peace movement? Why don't we start working with six-years-olds in environments of poverty and violence, where the children are already oppressed when they come to school at age six. Where they come to school angry. Some come to school depressed. 

And they're so angry and depressed that it's roiling and broiling inside that they can't learn well. And what if we taught them principles of forgiveness at age six, and seven, and eight all the way through grade 12, with progressively more developmentally advanced and challenging curricula. And so, we started with Belfast, Northern Ireland. We've been there for six years. We've worked with thousands of children, by training their own teacher. We don't come in with our American bag of tricks and say, "I know the answer." Forgiveness is a humble thing. And it starts and ends with humanity. And we have gone into the schools of Belfast, Irish-Catholic, British-Protestant. And we said we have something new if you want it. 

And we will train your teachers for free. And we will stand with your teachers, so that the teachers can put their own cultural, ethnic and religious nuances into the program. We will write the curricula, you give us feedback, and we will revise accordingly. And we have done so. That has become our life's work. We have committed 20 years to it. We're now also in Milwaukee's central city. We're working in some communities in Madison. We're working in Taiwan, Korea, Brazil, Croatia, we're beginning to work in Guatemala. I got an email two weeks ago from Malta, okay. 

Where's Malta? It's off of Africa. I got a call from the United Nations. Little me, sitting in my own little cubicle at the UW. 
(laughter)
 Looking up at the people from the UN, saying we want to work on forgiveness education with you. Okay... 
(laughter)
 So, we are now in negotiations with the United Nations, of all places, to start this in Africa. 
(applause)

 Yeah, isn't that cool? That's pretty cool. 
(applause continues)
 I find it very cool. Who would have imagined that? We are starting the negotiation because they have seen from our published research that this kind of thing matters. US Aid, another governmental organization, wants this in the Guatemalan schools. And what we basically do is we start small. We start with stories, Horton Hears a Who. We start with the Dr. 

Seuss curriculum in first grade, because we don't want to go to children and say, spill your guts to us about all the petrol bombing in Belfast. Because the children don't see it, actually. When we asked children in Belfast what the greatest hurt they've ever experienced as six-year-olds, you know what they say? Johnny pushed me down and skinned my knee. And we know for a fact that petrol bombs go off nightly. There is paramilitary activity in the communities in which we work. We work in the interface areas, Irish Catholic, British-Protestant in close proximity. Yet, the children don't see it. So we're not going to ask them to forgive the trouble. We're going to say let's look at Horton forgiving those who tied him up in the jungle. 

And let's see what Horton does and let's learn from Horton. And then if you want to talk about your skinned knee, that's fine too. But we want them to see forgiveness in a joyous, light way. And the best way to do that is through story. And we talk about inherent worth. "A person's a person no matter how small." What a beautiful way to capture inherent worth. A person is a person no matter how small. Little do these little ones know that if they can keep that idea in their mind through 12th grade, they're going to eventually have to conclude, they're going to have to, that the other side is a person, no matter how small, no matter how vile, no matter how dangerous. And then they'll become less vile and less dangerous. 

We're playing this, in the peace movement, not for first grade, although we get good results of anger reduction in first grade. We're playing it for the long haul. And we want two generations of children in Belfast and other places, two generations through our developmentally more progressive curriculum. We hand out, as reminders, little Hortons. So these are often times the very first stuffed toys the children of Belfast have ever had, because it's the poorest area of the United Kingdom. So when they look at this, they realize a person's a person no matter how small. And by the time they graduate from school, they're going to have to confront reality that the other side are persons, with inherent worth, precious, that has had love ripped out of them for 400 years. And are they going to throw a petrol bomb? The scientist in me says we'll have to wait and see. I can't imagine they will. 

So what we're trying to do now is preventive work, so when the storms of life come at 26, and we ask them to run the marathon of forgiveness, they will be forgivingly fit. We are in this for the long haul, we'll see what happens. I'd like to now open it up for questions and discussion. 
(applause)

- Have you thought about approaching the U.S. government and the military?

- Have I thought about approaching the U.S. government and the military? I'm waiting for the next regime change. 
(laughter and applause)
 If someone's receptive, we surely would.

- How would your model work when the person that has caused the injury is not even identified? 

The example would be a woman who was raped by a stranger.

- What about the perpetrator not identified. A woman raped by a stranger, someone who has their leg blown off in a land mine, okay. What we try to do is concretize as best we can who that person is. We try not to make is vague, but we try to make it specific. Because there is a person who planted the bomb, or who engaged in the hideous act of rape. Or, if someone has a problem with an institution. It's the same thing. We try to at least find someone in the institution to make it as concrete as we can. We still go through the road map and it works. 

Because people do have a little more difficult, but they can go through this and they can heal emotionally. And we try to make it as concrete as we can. They know what the incident is, they're just not quite sure of the person. But they can think of this person and their anger, and their fuming, and their disrespect, and their utter confusion as to what a person is, and it works. It's a really important question. Way back there.

- What if you're asking for forgiveness from somebody and it's eating away at you that they won't forgive you?

- What if you're asking for forgiveness and they won't forgive. We do discuss that in "Forgiveness is a Choice," and here's my answer as best as I can give it to you. When you ask for forgiveness, there is going to be some suffering involved in the asking, because it's a humble act. 

And you have to realize that that person, who has been offended, might not be quite at the same level of readiness as you are. And part of receiving forgiveness is waiting in the hope that the other will change. And even if they don't, and you've done the best you can. Well, let's reverse that. What if you try to forgive someone, and you don't have to go to the person, remember. A lot of this is an action of the human heart. But what if the person thinks you're overreacting, that you're being silly, "I never did anything like that." You're still doing the best you can. And if that person isn't ready to receive that, I think you can go in a certain peace knowing that you've done everything that you can. It's not going to work out perfectly when another person or another community is involved. 

But I think that's the beauty of the moral virtues. Moral virtues ask you to exercise any give virtue to the best of your ability, and what happens, happens.

- Do you work with anyone that has the person that they need to forgive the most is themselves?

- What about self forgiveness. That is one of the most frequently occurring questions. I am fundamentally a coward, and have tried to avoid that idea, and I have been on the fenced on that for many, many years on that topic. And here's why. Here's why I'm a fence sitter on it. When you self-forgive, you become both the one who has been injured and the one who injures. And we have to be careful with that. 

Although, I think self forgiveness is a very legitimate issue. But we have to be careful that we don't play tricks on ourselves. Because when we have injured ourselves, it's rare that we haven't also offended others. If we go 90 miles an hour around deadman's curve in the middle of the night and we break our leg, well others are involved in that. The insurance companies. I'm going to miss some work. And maybe my family. I'm of the opinion that if you go to others who have suffered because of your poor choice, and square it with them, and seek forgiveness from them, then self forgiving is a very legitimate enterprise. But if I'm a compulsive gambler and I keep squandering the family fortune, and I forgive myself and say, whew, I'm glad I'm done with that, here's another hundred I'm going to Vegas. 
(laughter)

 We're not dealing with this correctly, so if we can square it with others, try very hard, we're going to be imperfect, to not do that again. Then what are we doing? We're offering gentleness to yourself. You are trying to get rid of the resentment and offering goodness, which is welcoming yourself back. And that, I think, is a very good thing to do. We have not done studies of self forgiveness. But I see no reason why you cannot apply the road map to yourself to a very good end. Yes?

- You talked about cardiac.

- Yes, the cardiac study.

- Have you done any work with neuroscience and brain scans?

- We have not done any work with brain scans, but others have. There's a woman, and I forget where she is, but she does brain scans where she asks people to consider forgiving, and sees that brain patterns alter. But really what it is, the brain scans, in all likelihood, will be what we call a surrogate for some kind of emotional release. And so, we tend to study the emotional release head on. She looks more at the physiology of it. And good for her. She does that. We do not. But I think we come up with similar kinds of conclusions. 

When you forgive, you see a pattern that does not suggest agitation. She also looks at blood pressure fluctuations. Not hypertension, but the idea that when you are recounting a story of deep hurt, and you have not forgiven, there's a spike in the blood pressure. So that kind of work is happening, but not in our own lab. Yes?

- I'm so sorry, I have a lot of questions. But I can't decide which one to choose.

- Okay, I'll help you out with them. Why don't you throw them at me.

- The first one, I guess is more philosophical. 

So the definition of forgiveness being a moral virtue.

- Yes.

- I think suggests that it's selfless.

- That it's selfless. Okay, forgiveness as a moral virtue, she is saying, suggests that it is selfless.

- I was looking at a couple of religions, largely eastern ones, that require forgiveness in order to obtain nirvana. Can we really separate our need for something, for forgiveness, from our motivation to forgive? Does it need to be selfless?

- Okay, does forgiveness need to be selfless as a motivation. I'm a developmental psychologist, so I'm going to give you a developmental answer. 

And if I evade what you think is the answer, I want you to tell me. I think it does not have to be selfless in the beginning. Because as a virtue, we grow into it. And we don't realize we're growing into it. Most people think we know everything there is to know about forgiveness right now. And five years from now, we realize we only were scratching the surface. Let's go back to our incest survivors. Every one of them said, "I am forgiving for myself." The motivation was self-preservation. And it was honorable. 

But at the end, once they switched the spotlight from themselves and onto the other, onto the perpetrator, they started giving good gifts to the perpetrator, even if that was a compassionate understanding of their weakness, not condoning what they've done. And so, they moved into a greater selflessness, but they didn't start there. And it seems to me that as we become forgivingly fit, we do see that quality that you are calling selflessness, and it becomes a natural part of what forgiveness is, but not initially. So what would be your next one?

- I have a question about experimental design.

- Okay, experimental design, the scientist in me.

- I'm looking at, this came up with quite a few of the studies you cited, but I'm thinking primarily of the drug rehabilitation studies.

- Yes, the drug rehab studies.

- I was wondering, did the counselor make the link between forgiveness and substance abuse? Like were they, the people, the experimental group that was being, because all of the outcomes measured was that drug use declines substantially.

- The fear of going back into drug use. We actually couldn't measure drug use, because they'd be thrown out of the institution if they said they were indulging. So it was an artifact of the institution where we couldn't even ask that.

- Did the counselor make the connection between the need and forgiveness, or was this something that this subject came up with themselves?

- Okay, did the counselor make the direct link in the drug rehab study of forgiving the perpetrator and that injustice that he or she experienced, be implicated in the drug use. It was more of a partnership. But ultimately coming from the participant, with the counselor having it in the back of their head. It was Dave Mack, from our community, who had it in the back of his head, and eventually would bring it up if the participant did not. Everyone brought it up. So it actually emerged from the participants, but we had that clearly as an agenda if it didn't come up. 

Do you have a response? Is that good or bad? I mean, what do you think of that?

- I was wondering if we were looking at causal relationships, or just correlations.

- We're definitely looking to causation. Because the reason we do our experiments is we do not want to be left in the no man's land of saying, well, forgiveness relates to positive emotional development, but it could be that because we have positive emotional development and we're feeling better, we're more forgiving. No, no. When we have experimental and control groups, we start with people who are all low in forgiving. We put one group through forgiveness. So that is the causal mechanism directly. 

And if at the end of that, we have changes in emotional health not being shared by the control group, then social science will allow us to make the claim that with our limited study, without generalizing to other groups, but keeping within that group, that yes, we have a cause and effect relationship between struggling to forgive successfully and becoming healthier. Absolutely. What do you think of that? Does that sound okay? Let's go back here.

- About the children in Belfast, that situation, and some schools in this country, which have been introducing projects in the lower grades that teach things around the problems of violence, conflict resolution, mediation, bullying, whatever words you call it. It's not, to my knowledge, forgiveness. But some of these concepts or constructs are related.

- That's absolutely correct.

- Love, gentleness and forgiveness.

- Absolutely.

- Here's my question about science of these activities in American schools, which are voluntary and you know, not experiments as far as I know. Is the evidence about the effect on young children, in American schools, of these kinds of projects, teaching conflict resolution, mediation, and so forth. Is the evidence convincing you that these projects are warranted without further research?

- What about, rather than forgiveness, conflict resolution programs that are very hot in America. What's my opinion of them. I think anything is better than nothing. But we can do much more than what people are placing into our elementary schools. Here's basically, and this is a broad brush stroke stereotype, and correct me if I'm overdoing it. But what basically happens with conflict resolution is it stays on the surface of communication. 

If we're having trouble, we stand up to one another and we say certain things. Sometimes that's somewhat scripted. Then we go our way and supposedly everything is fine. What does forgiveness do? It goes into the human heart and looks at the level of anger, or disappointment, or rage. I can definitely talk civilly to you, and you to me, when our teacher is watching. But as we turn away from each other, and we harbor hatred in our hearts, that conflict resolution program is going to amount to nothing. It's going to be a band-aid and it's going to be superficial. What we try to do is get into the plumbing of the heart, the emotions of the heart, and change that first. And then we think the communication is going to flow more naturally without it being forced by a script. 

They have, in Belfast, something called Education for Mutual Understanding. They call it EMU. And it's the same kind of thing, where you bring the kids together for a discussion. And they go back to their own places and still hate each other and call each other names. We have to change the heart. EMU is failing as we speak. And the counter part in America is conflict resolution. We're so enamored with behavior in the social sciences in schools, that we miss the heart. Forgiveness gets to the heart of the matter. And without it, without forgiveness being a part of the programming, I fear for our children when they're 16, 26 and 66. 

We must do something to change the heart and the anger. Because the anger can build up terribly. When we did a study of anger in first grades in Milwaukee, Madison and Belfast, Milwaukee central city and Belfast had clinical levels of anger in the average child at age 6. What are you going to do with that? So you've got to do something about it. If you simply ask them to speak civilly to one another, no way. We've got to do more. Behaviorism is superficial. I know that's a stereotype, but that's a challenge to behaviorists. Let's see, why don't we take one more.

- I had the opportunity to teach your forgiveness curriculum to my third-graders.

- You taught it to third-graders?! 
(applause)

- I'm scared!

- It was incredibly effective. It had a profound effect on my classroom.

- Tell me more! 
(laughter)

- And it's her birthday!

- I didn't pay her to be here. 

(laughter)

- And I was working with students in the inner city of Birmingham, Alabama. And my question is, for teachers who would be interested in teaching the program, or for teachers in the United States that don't necessarily know about it, are there any efforts being made to provide materials for teachers to download, or for more teachers to use them?

- Okay, what are we doing for teachers who don't know of the program. Our next goal in America is a knock 'em dead Web site. We're fund raising for that as we speak, in the Milwaukee area, to be used nationally and internationally with all of the curricula. We have them built from first grade through sixth. And Jeanette, my wife, is building the seventh grade as we speak, marching up through 12, plus providing support for teachers who do that. And ideally, we'd like to provide enough support for the curricula materials, like Horton and the books, as well. But if we can build that site, advertise, we could be in Warsaw, Poland. 

I'd love to be in Warsaw, Poland. But I also want to be in Los Angeles, New York and Boston. The next step is the Web site. It's absolutely got to happen. Will it? I don't know, but I hope so. Thank you very much. 
(applause)