Professor Fred DiBlasio, PhD, authored a chapter in the new book Handbook of the Psychology of Self-Forgiveness. The chapter explored Self-Forgiveness and Treating Personality Disorders.
Abstract
Given that people who have personality disorders (PD) have major life pervasive and maladaptive patterns of thinking and behaviors, it is hypothesized that they will differ from the normal population in how they reach self-forgiveness. This chapter explores this possible difference by drawing hypothetical suppositions derived from existing neurobiological research on PD subjects, and known information about certain structures and functions of the human brain, and the author’s practice experience. One central supposition suggested is that PD patients do not have sufficient insight and healthy guilt for their offenses which in turn acts to impede their ability to achieve self-forgiveness. This deficit is hypothesized to be the result of brain abnormalities related to emotions and interpersonal relationships. It is argued here that one way to help PD patients to achieve self-forgiveness is to help them along on a journey of accepting their diagnoses and to work on creating new brain pathways. A PD case study is used to bring the suggested treatment to life that includes the patient’s own account of his journey to self-forgiveness. The chapter ends with some guiding questions for future research development and emphasizes the need for future psychological research on self-forgiveness to include neurobiological integration.
CITATION: DiBlasio F.A. (2017) Self-Forgiveness and Treating Personality Disorders. In: Woodyatt L., Worthington, Jr. E., Wenzel M., Griffin B. (eds) Handbook of the Psychology of Self-Forgiveness. Springer, Cham