Forgiveness and Letting Go in Emotion-Focused Therapy
This book shows how forgiveness-oriented Emotion‑Focused Therapy (EFT) helps individuals and couples process and transform distressing negative emotions by accessing internal resources of strength and self compassion.
Many individuals and couples come to therapy because of unresolved feelings of anger and hurt due to experiences of being wronged, betrayed, or violated. Over the past 20 years, Leslie Greenberg and his colleagues have undertaken clinical research to articulate a model of emotional injury resolution and map out a therapy‑assisted path to forgiveness.
This book offers step‑by‑step guides for conducting EFT and EFT for couples, along with analyses of extensive clinical case material. It shows readers how to:
- promote clients’ ownership of their emotional experience;
- empower clients to appropriately assign responsibility for harm done; and
- help clients see themselves as having the personal resources and resilience to recover from the emotional injury.
Therapists will also learn to help clients determine whether forgiveness—with or without reconciliation with the injurer—is the right path for them, or whether therapy should focus instead on letting go of negative feelings.
Introduction
- Forgiveness
- Emotion-Focused Therapy
- Emotion-Focused Therapy and Forgiveness for Individuals
- Case Examples of the Resolution Process for Individuals
- Overview of the Emotion-Focused Therapy for Couples Framework
- Emotion-Focused Therapy and Forgiveness or Reconciliation for Couples
- A Model of the Process of Forgiving in Couples Therapy
- Case Example of Forgiveness for Couples
Afterword
References
Index
About the Authors
Leslie Greenberg, PhD is Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus of Psychology at York University in Toronto. He has authored key texts on emotion-focused psychotherapy, from its inception in the 1980s through today. He has received the Distinguished Research Career award of the International Society for Psychotherapy Research as well as the Carl Rogers and the Distinguished Professional Contribution to Applied Research of the American Psychology Association.
He conducts a private practice for individuals and couples and trains people in emotion–focused approaches. Visit Emotion-Focused Therapy Clinic.
Catalina Woldarsky Meneses, PhD, is a psychotherapist who works with individuals and couples in private practice. She is also an adjunct professor at Webster University's Graduate Counselling Program, Geneva campus. She completed her doctorate in clinical psychology at York University, under the guidance and mentorship of Leslie S. Greenberg.
She is involved in supervising and training therapists learning emotion-focused therapy in North America and Europe and is one of the founding members and current vice president of the Swiss Society for Emotion-Focused Therapy. Dr. Woldarsky Meneses was born in Chile, grew up and studied in Canada, and now lives in Switzerland with her family.
"A well-written examination of the benefits of and alternatives to forgiveness…. Recommended."
—Choice
This book is a happy marriage between forgiveness practice and emotion-focused couples therapy, especially using empty-chair dialogues. Therapists and counselors working with clients who have emotional injuries will benefit from knowing that they have several options: holding people accountable, letting go, or forgiving. A great how-to book.
—Everett L. Worthington, Jr., PhD
Commonwealth Professor Emeritus, Department of Psychology, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond
Don't be fooled by the title of this book. It is not about one type of therapy dealing with one type of problem. For some clients, forgiveness is an optimal route to a more peaceful and fulfilling life, for others it is invalidating and socially unjust. As experts in the complexity of human suffering and the process of change, Greenberg and Woldarsky Meneses provide vivid clinical examples, conceptual maps, and various empirically based guidelines for moving away from emotional pain. A crucial therapeutic tool for all mental health practitioners.
—Louis G. Castonguay, PhD
Liberal Arts Professor of Psychology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park
