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Incorporating the Developmental Considerations in a Proposed Forgiveness Education Intervention for Suicidal Adolescents

Jiahe Wang Xu
Shih-Tseng Tina Huang
Robert D. Enright
All your life you’re told forgiveness is for you. But we’re never told why it’s for you. It means you’re working on owning your life.
Shani Tran
Therapist and Founder, The Shani Project
Forgiveness is nothing less than the way we heal the world. We heal the world by healing each and every one of our hearts. The process is simple, but it is not easy.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu
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Incorporating the Developmental Considerations in a Proposed Forgiveness Education Intervention for Suicidal Adolescents

Jiahe Wang Xu
Shih-Tseng Tina Huang
Robert D. Enright
NO. of participants
Date
2024
Type of Evidence
Type of Paper
Empiricism
open access
Yes
No
sample size
521

This paper first explores the risk factors associated with adolescents’ suicidal thoughts, attempts, and behaviors within different developmental domains and in the environment, using the developmental systems theory (DST). The most frequently identified risk factor for suicide, psychological pain, is examined in terms of its nature, expression, and possible cause. This pa-per criticizes the current empirical research of suicidal adolescents’ interventions on two issues:(1) lack of concern for fundamental issues in lifespan development and (2) inadequate treatment of the emotional needs resulting from the psychological pain in adolescents. Finally, this paper proposes forgiveness education intervention as targeting the emotional needs, particularly psychological pain ,for suicidal adolescents.