There was a time when the field of medicine, psychiatry, or even psychology was uncomfortable with looking too closely at the issue of forgiveness. Forgiveness is often perceived as an issue of faith. But today, forgiveness has become a widely studied topic in the mental health clinical field.
In the late 1990s, there were only 58 published clinical studies on forgiveness. Today, there are even more than 1,500 clinical studies on it. It's a huge leap for the clinical role of forgiveness in psychotherapy and mental health. There is even a foundation called Campaign for Forgiveness Research.
In an article by NEWSWEEK, a statement was made similar to the truth the psalmist in Scriptures knew long ago: "Persistent unforgiveness is part of human nature, but it appears to work to the detriment not just of our spiritual well being but our physical health as well."
Science and medicine is now accepting that unforgiveness, resentment, anger, and guilt all have physiological/medical effects on the person. They can produce distress and illness; a state of "bones wasting away" (Psalm 32:3).
If you wish to be well, the mental health Rx is to forgive. When you forgive someone else for something he or she did to you, you change your physiology and your psychology.
Dr. Angelo Subida is a clinical psychotherapist, author, and speaker. He is author of books "Inner Healing," "Secrets Of Your Self," "Chess and Life," among others, blogs, and articles. He has appeared frequently as an expert on psychotherapy/life recovery issues on national television, radio broadcasts, print media, and webcasts, including GMA 7, TV 5, ABS CBN 2, Q-11, 700 Club, Radyo Veritas, Inquirer Radio, Smart Parenting Magazine, Business Mirror, among others, and has served as resident therapist/counselor for parents and kid-artists in the highly popular ABS-CBN 2 Voice Kids TV singing reality show. Dr. Subida is an eclectic, multidisciplinary therapist and originator of his own revolutionary high-tech, high-touch counseling plus model. His areas of specialization include parent-child therapy, clinical infidelity treatment, relationship/marital counseling, separation/divorce therapy, anger management, depression, addictions, psychotherapy-spirituality integration, and innovative chess therapy. For more of Dr. Subida, you can find him at www.drsubida.com.