Virginia Commonwealth University

Everett Worthington, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU; the largest state university in Virginia). He is also a licensed Clinical Psychologist in Virginia. He has published over 30 books and over 350 articles and scholarly chapters, mostly on forgiveness, marriage, and family topics. He frequently discusses forgiveness, marriage, and family in media. He is a Past-President of the American Psychological Association Division 36 (Society for the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality), and a fellow of the Association for Psychological Science and two divisions of the American Psychological Association. He won VCU’s annual top award in recognition of teaching, research, and service—VCU’s Award for Excellence—in 2009 and several organizations’ top awards. He also has been awarded a Doctorate of Humane Letters from Pepperdine University.

He became interested in forgiveness through his practice in couple counseling, and he began conducting research on forgiveness in 1990 but writing about its clinical uses in the 1980s. In the last 25 years, he has studied forgiveness, justice, faith, and a variety of virtues under the general rubric of positive psychology. He became interested in their relationship after his mother’s murder and brother’s subsequent suicide. Get free resources on promoting forgiveness at www.EvWorthington-forgiveness.com.

He has studied a variety of topics relevant to positive psychology, the branch of psychology dealing with virtue for self and other. These include forgiveness, altruism, love, humility, mercy, marriage enrichment, and religion and spirituality. He attributes much of his success to the many wonderful students and colleagues he has had the privilege of working with.