Two Paths to Forgiveness, Tested With Students in Ghana

Holding a grudge is exhausting. The hurt lingers, the resentment simmers, and letting go can feel impossible even when you want to. But forgiveness can be learned, and researchers in Ghana set out to compare two well-known programs to see which could help students release an old hurt. We tend to think of forgiveness as something that either strikes you or does not, a feeling you have to wait for. But a growing body of work treats it instead as a skill, something you can be walked through step by step. This study set two of the best-known step-by-step methods side by side to see how they compared.

What the researchers wanted to know

Forgiveness interventions have become a respected tool in counselling psychology for helping people deal with interpersonal hurt. Two structured approaches are especially well known: the Enright Process Model and the REACH Forgiveness Model. But the researchers noted that evidence comparing these two within the Ghanaian college context was limited. So they explored how each model affected forgiveness among college education students in the Ashanti Region of Ghana, a setting where this kind of comparison had not been well studied.

How they studied it

The study used a quasi-experimental pre-test, post-test control group design. From second-year students across three Colleges of Education in the Ashanti Region, 60 students who reported experiencing interpersonal hurt were selected and randomly assigned into three groups of 20: one group for the Enright model, one for the REACH model, and one control group, each with 10 men and 10 women. Forgiveness was measured with the Enright Forgiveness Inventory, and the researchers also conducted semi-structured interviews. They analyzed the numbers with a statistical method called ANCOVA and examined the interview responses thematically.

What they found

Both programs worked. The Enright Process Model and the REACH Forgiveness Model each significantly increased participants' levels of forgiveness compared with the control group, and the statistical analysis confirmed meaningful differences in post-test scores. The interviews backed up the numbers. In their own words, participants described real emotional healing, greater empathy, and less lingering resentment. In other words, two different roads led to a similar, more peaceful destination, which suggests the act of working through a hurt may matter as much as the exact path taken.

What this means for you

The heartening message here is that forgiveness is not only something that either happens to you or does not, it is a skill that can be practiced and taught. That both structured approaches worked suggests there is no single right way to let go of a hurt, and what matters is intentionally working through it. You can borrow the spirit of these models in everyday life by trying to understand the other person, acknowledging your own pain honestly, and consciously choosing to release resentment rather than rehearse it. The payoff participants described, empathy, healing, lighter feelings, is worth the effort, mostly for your own sake. One quietly reassuring detail is that both roads led somewhere good, which suggests you do not have to find the one perfect technique to benefit. What seems to matter most is the willingness to actually work through the hurt rather than sit in it. In everyday terms, that can mean genuinely trying to see the other person as a whole, flawed human being, letting yourself feel the pain honestly instead of burying it, and then making a deliberate choice to stop rehearsing the grievance. It is worth being clear that forgiveness, in this sense, is something you do largely for your own peace. It does not require the other person's apology, their presence, or even their knowledge that you have let go.

The honest caveats

Keep the context in view. This study involved a specific population: second-year college students in one region of Ghana who had experienced interpersonal hurt, so the findings speak most directly to circumstances like theirs. It was also a relatively small study with 60 participants, and a quasi-experimental design, while useful, is not the strictest possible test. Forgiveness here was cultivated through structured programs, not simply willed into being alone. And forgiving someone does not mean excusing serious harm or reconciling with someone who is unsafe, that is a personal judgment, and for deep wounds a professional's guidance can help. None of this is medical advice. What travels beyond the study is a gentle, freeing idea: forgiveness is less a feeling you must wait to arrive than a skill you can practice, and you are allowed to work toward it at your own pace, and mainly for your own peace of mind.