The Treatment of Substance Abuse Disorders by the Psychological Forgiveness

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore the effect of Enright forgiveness intervention with substance abusers who have been hurt in domestic interpersonal relationships. In this study, the researcher examined the relative merits of Enright's forgiveness intervention and an alternative treatment intervention for adults. The researcher recruited 12 experiment and 12 alternative treatment participants. The participants were administrated these six measures at pretest, posttest, and follow-up test: the Enright Forgiveness Inventory, the Beck Depression Inventory-II, the Coppersmith Self- Esteem Inventory, the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, the Spielberger State-trait Anger Scale, and the Lin Vulnerability to Drug Use Scale. The results showed that the experiment group had significantly greater gains in forgiveness, and self-esteem, and greater decreases in depression, anxiety, and vulnerability to drug use from pretest to posttest. Furthermore, the experimental group had significantly greater gains in forgiveness, and self-esteem, and greater decreases in depression, anger, anxiety, and vulnerability to drug use from pretest to a 4-weeks follow-up. The level of forgiveness was significantly negatively correlated with depression, anger, anxiety, and vulnerability to drug use, and positively correlated with self-esteem at posttest.