Forgiveness interventions to promote physical health

Forgiveness and unforgiveness have been linked to short-term physiological responses. This information provides the basis to hypothesize, if not conclude, that chronic and continuing unforgiveness may present a risk to human physical health, and/or that forgiveness interventions may have a role to play in reducing these physical experiences. This chapter describes how unforgiveness and forgiveness are experienced physically; summarizes the impact that forgiveness interventions are recognized to have on human physiology and health conditions; proposes a model describing these relationships; and identifies a research agenda to move this scholarship forward. The analysis presented here suggests that future research will be able to document the use of forgiveness therapies to address and heal the consequences of stress-related health experiences. It is exciting to recognize that these interventions can have enormous personal and public health impacts.