the 18th-century English poet Alexander Pope famously wrote, “to forgive divine.” But for guidance on navigating the distance between the
secular and the spiritual, you might want to check with for- giveness expert Fred Luskin, Ph.D., who has built his career on asking questions about the mechanics of forgiveness. The author of the 2002 self-help book Forgive for Good: A Proven Prescription for Health and Happiness, Luskin was a pioneer in investigating the role of forgiveness in mental and physical health. Since then, he has successfully applied his research to some of the most emotionally intractable quag- mires on the globe—including counseling groups of Protes- tants and Catholics who lost family members on both sides of the political violence in Northern Ireland. In less tragic but still messy and angst-ridden settings, Luskin applies his methods for practicing forgiveness to raising levels of health and satisfaction in marriages and the workplace. He speaks to groups ranging from lawyers’ associations to medical stu- dents to family therapists, and has seen his techniques, which he distributes openhandedly, put to use all over the world. “It has been,” Luskin said, “just astonishing.” The Bronx-born psychologist began his education by
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earning a bachelor’s degree from the State University of New York at Binghamton and a master’s degree from San Jose State University—both in psychology. “My mother was a frustrated psychologist,” he said of his early influences. But by the time he was a doctoral student at Stanford University
“If I want to get over something, then I need to live in ways, right now, that make me happier, and not spend much time or interest on the past.”
tinues to work with survivors of political violence, including an ongoing project in Sierra Leone, where the principles of forgiveness have been included in elementary-school teacher training and curricula. But forgiveness isn’t something to be deployed only for
the horrors or even the big upsets in life. The majority of Luskin’s work is with “just regular people, whose husbands were not nice or whose kids don’t call,” he told Convene. “Just normal stuff, that’s most of the work. It’s just regular folks who are struggling with life.”
In your 2001 book, Forgive for Good, you outlined nine steps to forgiveness.Are those steps still the framework for your work? It’s pretty much the framework, but it’s been modified—the nine steps have been rewritten and clarified and tightened up.
in the 1990s, Luskin had grown “quite interested—more than psychology—in spiritual questions put to pragmatic tests,” he said in a recent phone interview. “I wanted to do something that proves that a spiritual quality could be taught and measured from a secular point of view and prove to be efficacious.” In studying forgiveness, Luskin chose a topic addressed by
many of the world’s great spiritual traditions, from Bud- dhism to Christianity. And Luskin also had a handy testing ground for his theories—his own mind. As he began his research, Luskin was suffering the emotional fallout caused by a former best friend’s abandonment. Although the study of forgiveness is now widely practiced
in psychology and medicine, Luskin was entering an unclut- tered field when he began his research. “It’s gotten much more mainstream to say that forgiveness or kindness or gratitude might have health effects,” he said. “But [back] then it was weird.” However, his research, which measured the effects of
teaching individuals how to forgive, was fruitful right off the bat. Participants who underwent training in forgiveness reported not just major lessening of hurt feelings but a 27- percent decrease in the physical symptoms of stress, includ- ing backaches, headaches, and stomachaches. Failing to forgive, Luskin concluded in Forgive for Good, may be even more important than hostility as a risk factor for heart dis- ease. The methods proved effective for Luskin, too: He has long been reconciled with his friend. Luskin, who recently wrote Forgive for Love: TheMiss-
o err is human,”
ing Ingredient for a Healthy and Lasting Relationship, now conducts training for executives of major business corpora- tions. (“I adapt the language a little,” he said.) And he con-