Forgiveness & Reconciliation
Psychological Pathways to Conflict Transformation and
Peace Building

Ani Kalayjian
Fordham University
Email: DrKalayjian@Meaningfulworld.com
www.meaningfulworld.com

Raymond F. Paloutzian
Westmont College
Email: paloutz@westmont.edu  

Forgiveness and Reconciliation breaks new ground as a volume that will enhance the work of social and peace psychologists, students, and researchers in intergroup and international relations, and peace and conflict studies.
Highlights of the coverage:
•    Reconciliation efforts in Rwanda, Darfur, India, and Pakistan
•    Restorative conferencing and its role in fostering forgiveness
•    Lessons in empathy and repentance from lifers in prison
•    Promoting reconciliation through arts and the media
•    The potential for forgiveness despite revisionism, denial, and continued injustice
•    Reconciliation in the divided society

“Forgiveness and Reconciliation” is a volume for our time.  It continues the lifelong peace and social justice efforts of Dr. Ani Kalayjian and her colleagues, in this case, Dr. Raymond Paloutzian.  We hear so often the phrase “Truth and Reconciliation” and its power to heal individuals and nations; but in this instance, the volume brings to prominence the essential act of “forgiveness.”  In this edited book of 17 chapters written by known scholars and professionals, Drs. Kalayjian & Paloutzian have brought together a rich and comprehensive understanding of  the importance of  ‘forgiveness” for our individual and collective lives.  It is a volume for a time, with a timeless message that “forgiveness” is the heart of healing body, mind, and spirit.  Read and be changed. Read and change others. Read and change the world.
Anthony J. Marsella, Ph.D.
Past President, Psychologists for Social Responsibility 2007-2008

Book overview

Forgiveness can enable people to move beyond the burden due to the deep pain, anger, hatred, grudges, and misunderstanding that are often the result of trauma, whether it is human-induced or the result of natural causes.  Although there are numerous books on the market that counsel people in the arts of forgiveness and reconciliation, most are addressed to the individual and suggest prayer, meditation, or other spiritual exercises as a way to begin to forgive and overcome anger, hatred, or alienation. Some of them are couched in terms of a specific religious tradition.  Others are more psychological in their approach. Many of the books focus on reconciliation of a specific issue such as healing a couple’s relationship after an affair or forgiving one’s parents. Several books address forgiveness at the communal or societal levels and suggest ways to overcome racial and ethnic strife.  In our examination of the available titles, we did not find texts that that deal with the healing of trauma through forgiveness that were comprehensive in scope or sufficient to talk about it at the intrapersonal, interpersonal, familial, communal, and societal levels.  Only a broad examination such as this can reveal the similar patterns that occur at all levels.  We propose just such a book.

The emphasis of this book is on the larger units of analysis, placing it squarely and properly within the context of a peace psychology series.  This means that special attention should be paid to the cognitions and behavior of people in their unique social, historical, and cultural contexts in a way that facilitates our understanding of the structural properties of aggregates of people that promote systemic violence and that show the possibility of changing to promote systemic peacebuilding.  Forgiveness and reconciliation are useful elements in this systemic peacebuilding effort.  One useful contribution of this book to the peace psychology literature would be to demystify the idea of forgiveness in the minds of scholars and policy makers, i.e., it would no longer be necessary for the idea of forgiveness to be seen as a head-in-the-clouds, lofty ideal that is too far removed from reality to be put into practice.  Instead, we hope to illustrate concrete examples of how people can cognitively reframe their interpretation of reality in a way that is both realistic while at the same fosters peace-promoting values and promotes socially just outcomes.  Part of the peace building process will require a step by step enhancement of mutual trust, and the processes that nurture trust include those that nurture forgiveness, reconciliation, and occasionally their boundaries and limits.  The Journal of Social Issues issue on Peace Psychology recently edited by Christie (2006) serves as a springboard from which to draw these connections; in addition to the classis work of Viktor Frankl in Man’s Search for Meaning (1946).

The multitude of conflicts currently wreaking havoc across the globe and the continuing reports of violence in communities and estrangement within families suggest that despite a saturated market, the message that forgiveness and reconciliation are a necessary foundation to communal living and thus to human survival has not yet gotten through.  We think it is time for a novel approach to learning how to move beyond trauma and to forgive.  The inclusive, multidisciplinary, multiethnic, multigenerational, and international perspectives and the pathways towards healing trauma that are suggested in the proposed volume are intended to provide such an approach.  The authors represent sufficient disciplinary and cultural diversity and the depth and breadth of experience to undertake this groundbreaking effort.

Although the book is multi-authored, it is designed so that the material is synthetic and integrated.  Each chapter will have a research base and will extend that so that it can be applied in practical ways to concrete situations.  Various aspects of case studies will be included for illustrative purposes.

Christie, D. (2006). Post-Cold War Peace Psychology: More Differentiated, Contextualized, and Systemic. Journal of Social Issues. 62(1).
Frankl, V. (1946). Man’s Search for Meaning.
Kalayjian, A. (1999). Forgiveness and Transcendence. Clio’s Psyche. 6(3)116-119.

** This is an overview of a book that was published by Springer Publishing on Aug 4 2009 at APA.  Springer.com, $129 papercover ($24.99), p.318. Peace Psychology Book Series. Call Springer toll-free 1-800-Springer, e-mail: orders-ny@springer.com.

For a review copy kindly contact Dr. Kalayjian at DrKalayjian@meaningfulworld.com, or www.meaningfulworld.com