Intentional Forgiveness in Experiential Education: A Technique for Reconciling Interpersonal Relationships.

Abstract

Experiential education, the process of acquiring knowledge through direct experience, has the power to positively affect individuals. Does it have the ability to positively affect society? We believe it does. We believe experiential education has a role in helping our society become one in which love, tolerance, peace, and reconciliation are practiced values. In this article, we introduce a technique rooted in psychology called intentional forgiveness, a technique that focuses on reconciling interpersonal relationships. We illustrate how this technique (a) parallels the basic methodologies of experiential education and (b) is well suited to be learned in an experiential setting.

Introduction

A primary objective in experiential education is a student's learning new skills and insights that will transfer to the student's succeeding in the future (Gass, 1995). Kimonen and Nevalainen (1994) suggest the ultimate purpose of education is "to influence reality and to change it, in order to make the world a better place for us" (p. 22). Alan Ewert (1996) points out the need for connecting how "the life-changing experiences our programs offer can also impact larger issues such as crime, families under stress, and health related stress" (p. 8). The lessons available through experiential education have the potential to make a real difference in not only the lives of the students (and instructors), but society at large as well.

In recent years, a call has been made for collaboration between experiential education and related fields (Horwood, 1996). Responding to this call, this article introduces a technique called intentional forgiveness. The technique gives specific guidelines for interpersonal reconciliation and is rooted in counseling psychology, a branch of psychology often focusing on the quality and depth of relationships between people.

Education has an important role in shaping what society will become. In the effort to build a free, fair, and just society, Berv (1998) recommends that we "educate our students so that they are able to contribute to that society" (p. 123). The contributions students can make to society are often limited by the options available to them. Ed Raiola (1986) notes that "the more options you have available, the greater your ability to influence" (p. 23). We believe that making available to students the concept of forgiveness is an important and meaningful consideration for transforming society.

Manifestations of intolerance, hate, and vengeance are prolific in our society. Exploring the use of forgiveness in experiential education and emphasizing the transference of forgiveness as an option for all aspects of life may increase our students' ability to have a positive impact on society. We believe society can be strengthened by those equipped with the understanding, willingness, and ability to practice forgiveness. Forgiveness is grounded in "the virtues of mercy, moral love (agape), and/or generosity" (Gassin, 1997, p. 3).

Intentional forgiveness was originally designed as an intervention in individual, marriage, and family counseling (Ferch, 1998). The technique is framed as a deliberate action in which an injured party is encouraged to face both their emotional injury and the offending party, releasing the perceived need for revenge and retribution. This process is firmly rooted not in the adage of "forgive and forget," but in the progressive notion of "forgive and remember."

Proper use of intentional forgiveness as a deliberate action does require skill. We believe one context in which this skill can be best learned is through a cyclical process of listening, practice, reflection, and application. In short, we believe that an experiential setting is one of the best settings in which this skill can be developed. In what follows, we explore the parallels between the intentional forgiveness intervention and the basic methodologies of experiential education.

The Intervention and its Major Components

Major components of the intervention include the concepts of vision and presence. Vision is the process of determining the direction, aim, or goals of a given relationship; presence refers to an individual's commitment to resolving conflict with self and others. In addition, intentional forgiving involves seven learning points in which participants gain understanding on what forgiveness might mean for their relationships, and nine elements of face-to-face interaction in which participants actively choose to forgive one another.

Vision

In the experiential education setting, a facilitator must be designated who will direct the completion of this technique. When warranted, the designated facilitator will direct two estranged participants to change destructive relational behaviors and move toward forgiveness and reconciliation. The designated facilitator begins by helping the participants form a vision of relating that reopens, redefines, and invigorates the wounded relationship. Vision can help develop in people a new understanding of what meaningful relating can be.

Presence

Presence is defined as a way of relating in which a person maintains humility, integrity, and intimacy with self and others. A person with presence consistently and appropriately resolves conflict within the self and in relation to others. Presence allows one to create meaningful relationships with self and others on a daily basis.

Seven Essential Points of Intentional Forgiveness

First, the designated facilitator frames intentional forgiveness as a choice (Hope, 1997).

Second, the designated facilitator frames the choice to forgive as immediate, but the process of forgiveness as a complex, often arduous journey (Enright, Eastin, Golden, Sarinopoulos, Freedman, et al., 1992).

Third, the designated facilitator teaches participants to forgive and remember.

Fourth, the designated facilitator teaches participants to forgive for the sake of self, not for the other.

Fifth, forgiveness is framed as involving both mercy and justice. The designated facilitator speaks bluntly with the wounded participant stating if he or she chooses to forgive without holding the offender accountable for hurtful actions, the offender will likely repeat the hurtful action.

Sixth, the designated facilitator speaks to intention versus impact. Participants identify one of their own behaviors that are destructive to the relationship. They are then directed to ask each other about the impact this behavior has on the relationship. Though painful, this process, if done without defensiveness, often energizes the empathy and compassion of both participants.

Seventh, the facilitator frames forgiveness as viable and learnable. Forgiveness is a very difficult task involving a continual openness to personal humility and a recurring long-term baffle against pride, defensiveness, and resentment.

Face-to-face Interactions

The inability (due to death) or the unwillingness (due to denial, pride, or other factors) of an offender to admit wrong and admit the need for forgiveness may be more an obstacle to reconciliation (Enright, et al., 1992) than to forgiveness. Certainly a participant can choose to forgive without the offender's presence or participation; however, when those in a relationship mutually desire reconciliation, there are nine elements of face-to-face interaction for the designated facilitator to include in intentional forgiving:

* Evaluate areas in which intentional forgiving may prove valuable,

* Promote reconciliation when appropriate (McCullough & Worthington, 1994),

* Direct participants to maintain eye contact and have open body postures,

* Direct the offended participant to name the impact(s) of the offender's behavior (this often works best in response to a direct request by the offender),

* Direct the offender to verbally repeat the impact(s),

* Direct the offender to ask "will you forgive me for (the destructive behavior and its impact)?",

* Direct the offended participant to respond "yes, I forgive you",

* Coach participants in a highly directive way until participants learn forgiving behaviors, and

* Work toward independence: that participants are able to intentionally forgive each other without the mediation of the designated facilitator.

Parallels in Methodologies

While recognizing the emergence of many authors who have articulated a methodology of the experiential education process, the scope of this article limits our exploration to a reduced collection of authors: Kolb (1984), Joplin (1995), Priest and Gass (1997). These authors were chosen because of the parallel nature between their methods and that of intentional forgiveness.

Based on his interpretation of Lewin, Kolb (1984) describes a cycle of four stages as a model of experiential learning: concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualization, and active experimentation. Observations and reflections are organized into an abstract conceptualization (theory) that helps develop a new hypothesis for testing. The testing of a hypothesis leads directly to an immediate concrete experience.

Intentional forgiveness is a process for clarifying boundaries and providing feedback between the offender and an injured party. The goal of intentional forgiveness is to dismantle debilitating emotions and restore functionality to previously damaged relationships. Because this process requires education, reflection, growth, and change, Kolb's (1984) cyclic model of experiential learning appears to share four similarities with that of intentional forgiveness. First, what Kolb describes as a concrete experience can be understood as the offense: an event or behavior that negatively impacts a person (injured party). Second, Kolb's reflective observation is the point where the involved parties (the injured and the offender) decide that the relationship is more important than the negative impact and choose to reconcile. Third, Kolb's next step, abstract conceptualization is the injured party describing the impact and the offender acknowledging the impact. Fourth, Kolb's hypothesis testing is the injured party's choosing to forgive and clarifying boundaries to be respected by the offender.

Joplin (1995) outlines five steps to experiential learning: focus, action, support, feedback, and debrief. First, the attention of the learner is directed to the subject of study (focus). Second, the learner is placed in a situation where he or she is faced with the responsibility of solving a challenging problem (action). Third, while confronting the problem, the student receives timely and helpful support and feedback from his or her instructor, peers, or both. When the student has attempted to solve the problem, the instructor then engages the student in a debriefing of the experience in the attempt to identify and evaluate that which was learned. This final step is a reflective opportunity for the student and instructor to articulate what needs to be done next time. The debriefing leads quite naturally into the focusing step to restart the cycle of experiential education.

As seen through the lens of Joplin's (1995) methodology, there are many parallels with intentional forgiveness. The first step of intentional forgiveness is preparation. The injured party, their offenders and the facilitator of the forgiving process must recognize the value of and need for forgiving. Forgiveness must be conceived as a choice immediately available that can free the involved parties from debilitating emotions and resentment-filled relationships. This step has similarities to Joplin's focusing step.

Next, the act of forgiving involves both parties in a very challenging task, somewhat analogous to Joplin's (1995) action step. This process prepares the offender to take responsibility for the impact he or she has caused, regardless of intention. For the injured party, the act of forgiveness is an opportunity to honor and release debilitating emotions, develop personal growth and establish personal boundaries.

Joplin's (1995) support and feedback steps are very important aspects to the forgiveness process. While engaged in the act of forgiving, the involved parties will need continual support and feedback from the facilitator. Facilitators can make statements of encouragement that reduce defensiveness and help the parties in mastering the process; for example "Excellent phrasing," "Good eye contact," "Good posture," "Clear statement of impact," or "Nice change of voice tone, well done."

Concluding the intentional forgiveness process involves the concept of "forgive and remember." The injured party should be able to express in a positive tone his or her willingness to forgive and the need to have clearly-articulated boundaries respected. The offending party should be able to state the impact he or she has caused and his or her commitment to modify behavior to respect the boundaries established by the injured party. This debriefing exercise is similar to Joplin's (1995) final step in the experiential cycle.

Experientially Learning to Intentionally Forgive

Priest and Gass (1997) define experiential education as "learning by doing combined with reflection" (p. 136). It is a process where individuals are "placed as close as possible to the experiences for learning" (p. 136).

Priest and Gass stress the importance of dissonance: one's positioning outside of her or his zone of comfort. Placing individuals in a challenging situation creates eustress, a constructively motivating type of stress, which encourages students to establish a new state of acquiescence. Placing of participants outside their area of comfort is both a risk and a necessity in the intentional forgiveness process. Being too far outside one's comfort zone may inhibit a person to move forward with the process. Not stepping beyond one's comfort zone may not allow reconciliation to materialize.

In their definition of experiential education, Priest and Gass (1997) concentrate on a balance between listening to learn (didactic) and learning by doing (interaction). To learn the intentional forgiveness process both styles should be employed. By the very nature of learning how to reconcile a relational crisis, traditional pedagogy must give way to experiential paradigms. Facilitators must remember that the participants are learning how to intentionally forgive themselves and others while interacting on both cognitive and emotional levels with what they are learning.

Transferring the Technique

When using intentional forgiveness as a technique in experiential education, the intended result is that participants master application of the technique in their own personal lives outside the experiential education setting. Some understandings about transferring the technique are listed below.

* Individuals who have experienced a successful intentional forgiveness process have the potential to consider forgiveness as an option in the future.

* Forgiveness is not done for the sake of the offender; it is done for the sake of the injured party. The "forgive and remember" concept embedded in this process has many transferable applications to a student's life beyond a formal experiential setting.

* Participants may be influenced by the exploration of the difference between impact and intention.

* Teaching students the value of honoring, exploring, and releasing debilitating emotions can be a positive and continual experience if practiced in all aspects of life.

* The identity strength required for a participant to formulate, articulate, and fully engage in an intentional forgiving process can be a lasting part of personal development.

Conclusion

We have attempted to demonstrate how the methodology and applicability of intentional forgiveness has many parallels with experiential education. We suggest that an experiential setting is ideal for learning how to forgive with intention. The force behind this thesis runs much deeper than parallel methodologies and similar application. The force that drives forgiveness is the potential social significance of the act of forgiving. Forgiveness is rooted in moral love, kindness, and generosity--characteristics that mn contrary to the violence, despair, and increasingly rapid pace of modern society.

The intentional forgiveness process offers many skills that can contribute to conflict resolution and group building in an experiential setting. The greater goal of the process is to encourage people to consider forgiveness as an option to harboring harmful emotions.

The impetus for constructing this article is based on the observation that hate, intolerance, rage, vengeance, and anger are prodigious in our society. Experiential education has the power to positively affect individuals. We believe education has a role in the shaping of our society to become one in which love, tolerance, peace, and reconciliation are practiced values. Intentional forgiving, when combined with the intensity and depth found in experiential education, can become a potent way to help heal the heart of humanity.

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Matthew Mitchell is a graduate advisor at Prescott College and a Ph.D. candidate at Gonzaga University. Shann R. Ferch is an associate professor of doctoral studies at Gonzaga University and a marriage and family psychologist.