The Saint-Bernard Foundation, a charity organisation based in Geneva (Switzerland), recently selected this project, which involves researchers from the Department of Basic Sciences, because it exemplifies a commitment to society in its goal of developing forgiveness
The Personal Strengths Research Group, led by Dr María Fernández-Capo, director of the Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology, received a €13,600 grant to implement the project entitled REACH Forgiveness Model, which revolves around forgiveness. Thanks to the financial support from the Saint-Bernard Foundation, the team will be able to adapt the Reach forgiveness intervention programme, developed in the United States by Dr Everett Worthington, a world renowned psychologist and researcher in the field of forgiveness, into Spanish.
On behalf of UIC Barcelona, Dr Fernández-Capo, along with lecturers María Gámiz, Carla Martos and Sílvia Recoder, will carry out the project, the main aim of which is to create intervention groups that help people to forgive. This initiative is the first of its kind in Spain and will be developed in the Support University Psychology and Psychiatry Clinic at UIC Barcelona, in partnership with Dr Everett Worthington (Virginia Commonwealth University) and Dr Don Davis (Georgia State University). In these groups, each led by two psychologists, the eight weekly sessions will focus on the process of decisional and emotional forgiveness.
The name of the programme, REACH, is an acronym for the five steps of the intervention process: Recall the hurt, Empathise or emotionally replace the negative emotion with love or sympathy, Altruism, Commit to the experience of forgiveness and Hold onto forgiveness.
