NCT04373954

Proposing Forgiveness Therapy Within Prison

Completed NA Last updated 25 May 2022

What this trial tests

NA trial testing Forgiveness Therapy in Forgiveness in 24 participants. Completed in 6 September 2019.

Timeline

13 July 2018

Primary endpoint
6 September 2019

6 September 2019

Quick facts

Lead sponsor	University of Wisconsin, Madison
Phase	NA
Status	Completed
Study type	INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation	randomized
Design	crossover
Masking	single
Primary purpose	treatment
Enrollment	24
Start date	13 July 2018
Primary completion	6 September 2019
Estimated completion	6 September 2019
Sites	1 location across United States

Drugs / interventions tested

• Forgiveness Therapy
• Carey Guides

Conditions studied

• Forgiveness — all drugs for Forgiveness →

Sponsor

University of Wisconsin, Madison

Who can join

Eligibility, male only, with Forgiveness. Patients with the condition only — healthy volunteers not accepted.

Sponsor's own description

Previous studies found that a large number of prisoners experienced unjust treatment from others, which can lead to deep inner pain or anger, prior to criminal perpetration. Such unresolved anger can deepen and linger, be turning to resentment (excessive anger) or rage (very intense, potentially violent anger), compromising one's psychological health and behavior and even contributing to their choice of crime. However, Forgiveness Therapy, as an empirically-verified treatment, can help reduce and even eliminate the excessive anger. Its positive effects have been scientifically supported by numerous studies within diverse populations. Therefore, in the prison context, similarly, the investigator hypothesizes that Forgiveness Therapy will lower rates of anger, depression, and anxiety and raise the levels of forgiveness, empathy, hope, and self-esteem for the experimental (Forgiveness Therapy) group as compared to the alternative treatment control group. This is based upon numerous studies that demonstrate the efficacy of Forgiveness Therapy with comparisons to other treatment methods. Further, the study team expects behavioral change by the men within the correctional institution, as measured by officers' observations as well as the number of misconducts in conduct reports on each participant and the time spent in restrictive housing.

This study is the second part of a two-tiered research project to propose a novel approach--Forgiveness Therapy--to corrections and aims to demonstrate the effectiveness of Forgiveness Therapy in reducing resentment and other negative psychological symptoms such as excessive anger, anxiety, and depression for the prison inmates.

A random sample of 24 participants, who have not participated in forgiveness workshops or forgiveness therapy, were taken from the Study 1(the investigator's previous research from the maximum-security prison of Columbia Correctional Institution "Examining Prison Inmates' Attitudes and Internal Emotional States"). These participants became 12 matched pairs (matched by the type of abuse, the severity of the abuse, and age at which the injustice occurred) with each member of the matched pair randomly assigned to the experimental group or control group. Each inmate participated voluntarily in this study.

Since this study is a continuation of Study 1, the investigator named this study as Study 2.

Publications & conference data

No peer-reviewed publications indexed yet for this trial. Completed trials usually publish results within 12-18 months.