Forgiveness: a review of the theoretical and empirical literature

This paper reviews the published literature addressing forgiveness as a therapeutic issue. The review revealed four major themes. These included: diverse attempts in the literature to define forgiveness; the presentation of models of intervention; resistance among theoreticians and therapists to examine forgiveness as a therapeutic construct, and empirical evidence of forgiveness intervention applied to clinical settings. These theoretical and empirical publications are described and critiqued. An evaluation is made as to the current state of the research, and suggestions for future directions.