Forgiveness Intervention Manuals
Available for Download

Links to manuals will open Word documents in new windows.

REACH Forgiveness Groups—20 Hours of Exercises for Secular and Christian Groups
The Five Steps to REACH Forgiveness and Becoming a More Forgiving Person is a psychoeducational small group program available for anyone's use (requiring citation and proper acknowledgement, but requiring no fees). There are two versions in Word documents to permit you to modify and tailor the groups to your own setting:

• Leader Manual and Participant Manual for Psychoeducational Groups for Becoming a More Forgiving Person for Use in Secular Groups.
• Leader Manual and Participant Manual for Psychoeducational Groups for Becoming a More Forgiving Christian for Use in Groups Tailored to Christians.

The above manuals have over 20 hours of exercises for the psychoeducational group format, and people who download the materials can cut and paste exercises pertinent for the amount of time and type of attendees.

REACH Forgiveness Groups—6 Hours Christian Groups
At present, Ev is conducting a multi-site study in 16 explicitly Christian colleges (funded by the Fetzer Institute), and within that study, explicitly Christian groups are conducted for 6 hrs. Thus, the Leader-6-Hour Manual and Participant-6-Hour Manual reflect what Ev considers the best exercises to use within a focused 6 hr psychoeducational group. Feel free also to download these.

DVD for Leading Christian Forgiveness Groups - to demonstrate how to lead these groups, Ev has made a DVD. The DVD is 2 hrs that condenses a 6 hr group plus discussion with the people who are in the group about how to lead effective groups. The DVD is free, but please send a request by US Mail with a check made to VCU Department of Psychology for $4 to reimburse postage and handling costs. Send the check to: Everett L. Worthington, Jr., Department of Psychology, PO Box 842018, Richmond VA, 23284-2018.

REACH Forgiveness Workbooks to Help People Forgive (Secular)

The Forgiveness Workbook takes about 6 to 7 hours to complete and people have reported even more success at forgiving than when they attend pschoeducational groups. We have an in press article reporting the efficacy of the first of those with a secular sample. (Two other studies—another bigger one using a secular sample is under review and one using a Christian-tailored workbook with a sample from communities of Christians—are submitted, but have not yet been accepted.)

The Hope-Focused Approach to Couple Enrichment
Hope-focused Couple Approaches, for couple enrichment or therapy, is composed of a Forgiveness and Reconciliation through Experiencing Empathy (FREE) portion and a communication and conflict resolution portion (Handling Our Problems Effectively, HOPE). Here are:

• Leader Manual (and Cue Sheets) and Participant Manual for being a consultant to a couple who wants to improve their marriage through learning Forgiveness and Reconciliation through Experiencing Empathy (FREE).
• Leader Manual (or graphics-free version of Leader Manual) and Participant Manual for being a consultant to a couple who wants to improve their marriage through learning Handling Our Problems Effectively (HOPE) for Use with Couples.

Resources on the Hope-Focused Approach (Print-based)

Here are Assessment Instruments and an example Assessment Report, complete with permission to adapt.

We have a forthcoming book.

Resources on the Hope-Focused Approach (Web-based)
For additional resources on the Hope-Focused Approaches—such as training videos, written and other resources for lay people and professionals—see the Hope Project web page, created by Dr. Jennifer S. Ripley.

Updated: 02/03/2014