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The thesis combines qualitative and quantitative methodology to broaden the research into forgiveness. The first part of the thesis uses predominately qualitative methodology to gain information about the understanding of forgiveness and the forgiveness issues of ten mothers who are residing in a six-month drug and alcohol rehabilitation centre. The women provided written life histories and standardised measures to enable psychometric profiles to be generated. Semi-structured interviewing and interpretative phenomenological analysis (Smith, 1996) was then used to discover the forgiveness experiences and their meanings for the ten women who took part. Forgiveness issues relate to the forgiveness triad, and the themes to emerge are, intimate relationships, domination, pseudo-forgiveness, the value of forgiveness, process of forgiveness, remorse, instantaneous forgiveness, attitude towards the aggressor, unforgivable, family as forgivers/blood is thicker than water, desire for forgiveness from their children, forgiveness without truth is impossible, forgiveness doesn't always feel good, allowing oneself to be the victim, parenting issues, prostitution, and not to blame. Although there are striking similarities in the forgiveness issues of the women, the study also touches on how individuals can conceptualise forgiveness very differently. This study goes some way to showing that we are all individuals with our own meanings, ideas and realities. People make their own decisions about what forgiveness is and what it means to them. The second part of the thesis uses standardised psychometric tests with student and non-student samples n a series of studies. Some of the studies focussed on variables that seemed to be theoretically relevant from the qualitative studies, in the first part of the thesis, while others followed up theoretical issues suggested by the wider literature on forgiveness. As gender differences in forgiveness have not been studied in great detail in previous studies and the evidence is equivocal all the studies explore for sex differences. No significant sex difference is found with regard to forgiveness of self. However with forgiveness of others the results appear more complex. Females are found to be more forgiving of others than males in two of the studies, while no difference is found in the remaining studies. Failure to forgive self is found to be to be associated with higher anxiety and depression and less hope in males and females and higher somatic symptoms in males. In females failure to forgive others is accompanied by higher anxiety and lower scores on the hope scale, Further, forgiveness of self is found to be more strongly associated with measures of psychological well being than forgiveness of others. In relation to Sukhodolsky et al.'s (2001) 4-factor model of anger rumination many of the anger rumination sub-scales correlated with forgiveness of self and forgiveness of others therefore a series of multiple regressions were performed. Anger memories are found to be the most important aspects in forgiving oneself, and dealing with revenge thoughts are found to be crucial with forgiveness of others. Further, forgiveness of self is found to share a significant positive correlation with emotional intelligence, self-liking, self-competence and optimism among males and females. Also, forgiveness of others shares a significant positive correlation with emotional intelligence among males and females. With forgiveness of self, multiple regression suggests that self-liking and emotional intelligence account for the unique variance In scores among males and optimism and self-liking account for the unique variance in scores among females. With regards to parenting and forgiveness, males forgiveness of self is not significantly correlated with any of the parenting styles of either parent, but forgiveness of others has a significant negative correlation with permissive parents. In females there is no correlation with forgiveness of others and any of the parenting styles. But with regards to forgiveness of self there is a significant negative correlation with the father's authoritarian parenting style. There is a significant positive correlation between democratic father's parenting style and forgiveness of self.

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The last decade has witnessed a growing interest in theoretical and empirical studies into the construct of forgiveness. While research interest has focused on the application of forgiveness to therapy and counselling, the moral and ethical implications of forgiveness have been debated in philosophy and psychotherapy. However, there has been less interest in making a clear distinction between the content of forgiveness and the process of forgiving. This thesis explored the content, that is, a person’s understanding or cognitive representation of the construct in the role of forgiver and forgiven. Finally, in the literature forgiveness is viewed as either a undimensional or a multidimensional construct. Research into the content of the construct would clarify the issue of dimensionality. A series of studies using an undergraduate population was conducted to establish the components of forgiveness in the forgiver and forgiven modes. Seven components were identified (Healing, Condoning, Relationships, Religious, Legal, New Beginning, and Guilt Reduction) and confirmed by factor analysis. This was a robust structure; gender, religiosity, willingness to forgive, and severity of transgression had a minimal influence. A cross cultural study confirmed the same seven factor structure in both modes but indicated differences in variable loadings especially for the Condoning and Legal components. The final study showed that the profiles of the components were different across scenarios, indicating a multidimensional construct and that the type of forgiveness situation i.e., type of transgression and type of relationship, had a specific effect on responses to focus statements measuring the components. The results show it is important to separate the content of forgiveness from the process of forgiveness in order to identify the effect of variables on an understanding of the construct.

This thesis explores the research question of how and why people forgive. The aim was to form a grounded theory based on participants’ interview accounts of the experience of having forgiven another person. Fifteen men and women who considered that they had forgiven another person who had transgressed against them were interviewed and the data was analysed using grounded theory as the framework. The data revealed a process of forgiveness that involved the following themes: a condition of process (emotional pain experienced in relation to another), a motive and process aid (realisation of effect of pain on oneself), forgiveness process consisting of three main categories (understanding and changing perspective; acceptance and letting go; emotional processing and building selfworth) and an outcome of process (emotional relief and strength in self). The findings of the study suggested that forgiveness was a process that was primarily driven by intrapersonal motives including a wish to let go of anger and move on. This motivation aided the process of forgiveness through allowing the participants to gain a broader understanding of themselves and others, accept and let go of unrealistic wishes and build on their sense of self-worth. The outcome suggested that participants experienced a sense of relief and strength within themselves following this process. These findings add to the understanding of how forgiveness is processed through approaching the topic from a theoretically neutral angle. The findings may be used to further research the categories proposed in this study as well as develop therapy interventions that can be of help in situations where a client wishes to work on issues surrounding forgiveness.