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Then in 1997 Bell became part of a research project conducted by Cardis under the supervision of Enright, the forgiveness trailblazer. In eight sessions over two months, they explored a radically new approach for her condition. Today, on a follow-up visit, Cardis asks how things are going. "Pretty good," Bell replies. "The other day Michael [her 14-year-old] skipped school. He didn't walk in the door until 20 minutes to 8 that night." "Did you get upset?" asks Cardis. "I did, but I tried not to." "Did you forgive him, or are you still working on it?" "Still working on it." "That's appropriate. It's a process," Cardis says. He pulls out a set of flash cards bearing positive legends such as "Choose to forgive rather than getting even." The flash cards are familiar to Bell from last year--as were forgiveness homework assignments and forgiveness refrigerator magnets and lessons from Cardis and Enright's 23-page "Strengthening Families" instruction manual. Bell points to the card headed "See with new eyes--Take another look at the one who hurt you." "I'm trying to understand Mikey," she says, "but if I stay calm, I don't want him to think I condone what he did. I told him that to keep his job, he has to go to school." Cardis nods. "If you say you forgive him," he says, "it doesn't mean that you are letting him do whatever he wants. Forgiveness is not about forgetting the wrong." He smiles. "But deciding to forgive is a pivotal point."
The change in Bell is palpable. Where once she was silent and confused, she is direct and focused. This is all the more remarkable since, as she calmly informs Cardis, last October she underwent surgery for breast cancer. In the days before her forgiveness sessions, such a setback would have sent her into a vortex of helpless rage, and she admits, "At first I wanted to blame someone." That passed, however. The cancer has apparently not spread, and she values her new composure. "I can buy another breast," she explains. "I can't buy another life."
Bell, a paid research subject, signed up for Enright's project with no expectation of a breakthrough. But citing a similar study with incest survivors, Enright says, "People who came to us with moderate psychological depression--and that is a lot of pain--all ended up being not clinically depressed and retained that over 14 months." He and his students have also applied his forgiveness "intervention" to elderly parents angry at distant children and men hurt by the abortion decision of a partner. His latest project is with sex offenders in a Madison mental-health facility. Enright feels that by helping them forgive the abusers in their own past, he may awaken empathy for their victims and decrease their recidivism.
Forgiveness has even wider social applications. An unusual coalition of liberal lawyers and religious thinkers has pioneered something called the restorative justice movement, whose favored instrument is conferences between crime victims and jailed perpetrators. There are now more than 300 such programs in prisons country-wide, including a $1 million religion-based juvenile-justice initiative in Florida.