mpirical evidence has demonstrated a direct correlation between the value of restorative response and the healing process and was first conducted, in the criminal context, by Caroline Angel of the United Kingdom. At its core, the process enables a reduction of the trauma experienced by victims if a direct face-to-face meeting is conducted with the offender. The dialogue between transgressor and victim served beneficial in several regards, in terms of the psychological and sociological benefits to encourage repair rather than revenge in the victim, and for the offender in terms of minimising the likelihood of a repetition of an incident. Any way one views the evidence, it can be safely said that such controlled confrontation aids in making repair of the well being of a victim possible.
The face-to-face dialogue offers the victim an opportunity to receive respect and to be heard by the offender. This empowers a victim to ensure a better mental health outcome compared with a victim that is denied such an experience. For the most part, an apology, or other similar emotional reparation, is helpful to the victim’s recovery as it paves the way for the victim to reach a point where forgiveness is possible. Forgiveness, as mediated by the benevolent attributions and positive emotional reactions experienced by the victim, permits a strengthening of self-esteem and hope, and serves to limit the impact of anger and anxiety.
Strang, in her work entitled “Repair or Revenge” cites that restorative response is “a process whereby all the parties with a stake in a particular offence come together to resolve, collectively, how to deal with the aftermath and its implications for the future”. And there is an aftermath, perhaps, at times, much to the consternation of the offender!
Psychologists encourage restorative response through what has been termed by popular television personality, Dr. Phil McGraw, as Minimal Effective Response, or MER. Once again, like Restorative Justice in criminal scenarios, the concept of MER seeks to satisfy the need for resolution of the emotional upheaval perpetrated by someone who has deeply betrayed another's trust, while still conserving the victim's resources. MER is, at its very least, action taken to facilitate an explanation and an apology ~ a necessary beginning to the healing process and emotional closure. A closure to the associated pain of betrayal. McGraw recommends that a victim identify its MER by asking the following questions:
1. What action can I take to resolve this pain?
2. If I were successful and achieved this action, how would I feel?
3. Does the feeling I will have match the feeling I want to have?
Identification of MER, minimal effective response, and its subsequent deployment is crucial for proper healing to occur.
And that is exactly what I had set out to do.
Contrary to the claims of many members of the ILW newsgroup, when DF disappeared I didn’t seek revenge, I didn’t seek his removal from the country by the immigration service, nor had I launched the separate civil action with the principle purpose of recovering that which had been stolen from me (I had little confidence that anything in the way of monetary assets that he availed himself of in 2002 and 2003 would remain by the time the civil action was underway in mid-2004, anyway). No, I engaged in the action to be heard, to have one day, one opportunity to confront my offender so that I could repair the damage inflicted upon me during his systematic and deceptive acts and his treatment of me as an "inanimate object”.
With regard to the second incident, and learning that my online friend “Doug” had also betrayed my trust, I'd become a personification of “Vox clamantis in deserto”. I was but a voice crying out in the wilderness, and to date completely ignored and unheard.
The face-to-face dialogue offers the victim an opportunity to receive respect and to be heard by the offender. This empowers a victim to ensure a better mental health outcome compared with a victim that is denied such an experience. For the most part, an apology, or other similar emotional reparation, is helpful to the victim’s recovery as it paves the way for the victim to reach a point where forgiveness is possible. Forgiveness, as mediated by the benevolent attributions and positive emotional reactions experienced by the victim, permits a strengthening of self-esteem and hope, and serves to limit the impact of anger and anxiety.
Strang, in her work entitled “Repair or Revenge” cites that restorative response is “a process whereby all the parties with a stake in a particular offence come together to resolve, collectively, how to deal with the aftermath and its implications for the future”. And there is an aftermath, perhaps, at times, much to the consternation of the offender!
Psychologists encourage restorative response through what has been termed by popular television personality, Dr. Phil McGraw, as Minimal Effective Response, or MER. Once again, like Restorative Justice in criminal scenarios, the concept of MER seeks to satisfy the need for resolution of the emotional upheaval perpetrated by someone who has deeply betrayed another's trust, while still conserving the victim's resources. MER is, at its very least, action taken to facilitate an explanation and an apology ~ a necessary beginning to the healing process and emotional closure. A closure to the associated pain of betrayal. McGraw recommends that a victim identify its MER by asking the following questions:
1. What action can I take to resolve this pain?
2. If I were successful and achieved this action, how would I feel?
3. Does the feeling I will have match the feeling I want to have?
Identification of MER, minimal effective response, and its subsequent deployment is crucial for proper healing to occur.
And that is exactly what I had set out to do.
Contrary to the claims of many members of the ILW newsgroup, when DF disappeared I didn’t seek revenge, I didn’t seek his removal from the country by the immigration service, nor had I launched the separate civil action with the principle purpose of recovering that which had been stolen from me (I had little confidence that anything in the way of monetary assets that he availed himself of in 2002 and 2003 would remain by the time the civil action was underway in mid-2004, anyway). No, I engaged in the action to be heard, to have one day, one opportunity to confront my offender so that I could repair the damage inflicted upon me during his systematic and deceptive acts and his treatment of me as an "inanimate object”.
With regard to the second incident, and learning that my online friend “Doug” had also betrayed my trust, I'd become a personification of “Vox clamantis in deserto”. I was but a voice crying out in the wilderness, and to date completely ignored and unheard.
What action could I take to resolve this pain? What Minimal Effective Response would be applicable in this case?
I continued to send occasional emails to “Doug” through late summer of 2006 hoping that one would prompt him to offer me answers. Answers that had become crucial by this time, after encountering "Doug" and becoming a victim of his failure to accept responsibility for his actions. No matter whether it had been simply an accident or a delberate attempt to deceive, his reluctance to now acknowledge my existance, let alone the reprecussions that I was experiencing, was more detrimental to me than the initial charade. In the 28 months that had ensued, I found myself unable to trust anyone, unable to believe anything uttered to me, unable to speak, communicate or even consider spending time with a member of the opposite sex.
I reflected on the feelings I had when I first met my online friend, "Doug", hopeful and ready to embrace people that were honest and caring. Now, as fall 2006 approached, some two and a half years later, I found that in order to look upon the future with any enthusiasm at all, more than ever I need an explanation for why he chose to strip me of the only thing of value that I took with me from my divorce ~ Hope.
"Hope" is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tunes without the words
And never stops at all ~ Emily Dickinson
"Hope" is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tunes without the words
And never stops at all ~ Emily Dickinson
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