Geoffrey W. Sutton PhD, Psychology and Culture

Much has been written about the power of forgiveness to help people reduce their current distress from hurts, which may have las ted for years. Studies have demonstrated that forgiveness has biological correlates related to stress. The hurts addressed by forgiveness have been called "social pain." Acetaminophen is a commonly used effective medication for physical pain. A new study by George Slavich and his colleagues looks at the interaction of forgiveness and acetaminophen on the reduction of social pain. Their article is an editor's choice selection in the current Annals of Behavioral Medicine ( December, 2019 ). Following is a quote from their article abstract. Results As hypothesized, acetaminophen reduced participants’ social pain levels over time but only for those exhibiting high levels of forgiveness (i.e., 18.5% reduction in social pain over 20 days). Conclusions These data are the first to show that forgiveness and acetaminophen have interactive eff...

MAKING PEACE WITH FATHERS When the Faith of Fathers Interferes with Relationships How do you celebrate father’s day when your memories don’t allow you to say, “You’re the Best Dad ever?” Perhaps your casual glance at social media suggests so many people had better father’s than you did. Do you notice the silent posts —people who don’t comment on their fathers and how great they were? Perhaps you knew the fathers of friends and wish your father could be more like theirs? Perhaps your father wasn’t there for you and you wonder why he was not in your life? There are fathers who only merit the name in a biological sense. I’m not writing about those. Apparently some father’s walk on water—at least that’s the impression I get from reading posts by many young women. I’m not writing about those fathers either. There are ordinary fathers who have delightful and troublesome attributes—it’s those I write about. And in particular I am writing for this blog about Psycho...

Psychology of Forgiveness and  Christian Spirituality Forgiveness has become faddish in recent years as numerous mental health clinicians became aware of the benefits of forgiveness to mental and general health. Books and seminars promise pathways to help people forgive and reap the benefits in better health. Adding to the interest is the fit of forgiveness with Christian teaching—still the dominant faith in the US where much of the forgiveness research has been conducted. The research findings are indeed encouraging but an eagerness to apply a new discovery can often lead to misapplications and exaggerated expectations. Forgiveness is not a panacea. I recently (September, 2014) summarized research on the psychology of forgiveness and Christian spirituality for the journal, Encounter . In this post I will summarize some key points. Here’s the link to a copy of the complete article, Psychology of Forgiveness , where you will find more details and complete references. ...