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Most people have been harmed by another at some point in their lives. Many of these hurts linger in the lives of those who were hurt, through anger, fear, and rumination. Forgiving others, when it is safe and prudent to do so, can be one route toward healing these past hurts. Group therapy has specific strengths that might help people to effectively forgive others. One of those strengths is the creation of therapeutic factors. In the current paper we discuss how group forgiveness interventions and the development of three specific therapeutic factors (universality, cohesion, and altruism) can help to promote forgiveness. We review prior work on forgiveness interventions in group therapy, focused on effectiveness generally. We then provide an applied case study of a specific group that used Worthington's REACH Forgiveness model. In this case study we highlight the themes of universality, cohesion, and altruism to illustrate the benefit of forgiveness interventions in group therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study evaluated the dimensionality, invariance, and reliability of the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale–21 (DASS-21) within and across Brazil, Canada, Hong Kong, Romania, Taiwan, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and the United States (N = 2,580) in college student samples. We used confirmatory factor analyses to compare the fit of four different factor structures of the DASS-21: a unidimensional model, a three-correlated-factors model, a higher order model, and a bifactor model. The bifactor model, with three specific factors (depression, anxiety, and stress) and one general factor (general distress), presented the best fit within each country. We also calculated ancillary bifactor indices of model-based dimensionality of the DASS-21 and model-based reliability to further examine the validity of the composite total and subscale scores and the use of unidimensional modeling. Results suggested the DASS-21 can be used as a unidimensional scale. Finally, measurement invariance of the best fitting model was tested across countries indicating configural invariance. The traditional three-correlated-factors model presented scalar invariance across Canada, Hong Kong, Romania, Taiwan, and the United States. Overall, these analyses indicate that the DASS-21 would best be used as a general score of distress rather than three separate factors of depression, anxiety, and stress, in the countries studied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]