The Midwest Institute for Forgiveness Training is a community of independent practitioners who live, coach, and teach the model and the methods of Unconditional Forgiveness. Our Institute is an intentional learning community dedicated to upholding the integrity of this valuable body of work, and we support each other to offer it to the public in a variety of ways. This training institute is not formally incorporated; it is a world service project that is organized within the larger life works of Mary Hayes Grieco, of Minneapolis, MN.
Our mission is to free the joy of the human spirit by teaching as many people as we can, how to forgive.
Unconditional Forgiveness was first developed by Dr. Edith Stauffer, LP, PhD. who taught it as the Unconditional Love & Forgiveness Workshop between 1970 – 1995. It has its foundations in her studies with Dr. Roberto Assagioli, the founder of Psychosynthesis, a transpersonal psychology theory. Dr. Stauffer was the director of Psychosynthesis International, based in California, and she taught her forgiveness workshops around the United States as well as in other countries: England, Denmark, New Zealand, Japan, and Korea among them. When Edith (76) and Mary (31) met each other at a church retreat in the spring of 1986, Mary recognized Edith as the mentor she was seeking, to live her purposes as a teacher and a healer. Edith recognized Mary’s native talent as a healer and a leader, and she agreed to guide her in the intensive personal work and professional grooming that prepared her to inherit and advance Dr. Stauffer’s life work. Mary and Edith worked together in this intention between 1988 – 1995, when Dr. Stauffer retired at age 86. Since 1989 to the present, Mary has refined the workshop’s teaching methods, and in 2000 she founded the Midwest Institute for Forgiveness Training, and began the work of carefully developed her group of trusted teachers. Mary has brought Unconditional Forgiveness to a variety of public and professional venues around the USA, and also to Ireland, Germany, and Kuwait. Edith and Mary remained in contact as colleagues and friends until Dr. Stauffer passed away in 2004 at the age of 95.
For over forty years, this model and these tools have reliably produced a healing effect in the body, emotions, mind, and spirit for the thousands of people who have used it as recommended. Our method continues to prove itself as one which reliably produces the refreshing experience of forgiveness, and it has adapted well to other cultures and in a variety of religious and secular venues. We offer it to the public understanding as a new and universal approach to forgiveness.
Today, The Midwest Institute for Forgiveness Training continues on its path to make this work widely available in the world community. In addition to our public workshops which are open to general audiences, we teach it to professionals in the fields of psychology, social work, nursing, chemical dependency treatment, and to clergy. We are eager to share it as well with individuals, leaders, and groups who are promoting conflict resolution and peace making.
Our work stands on its own as a healing art modality, and it is also a potent adjunct to medical treatments and to psychotherapy. However the Institute and its practitioners do not claim that this method is to be used as a substitute for medical treatment or ongoing psychotherapy. It is intended to be used by people with a healthy degree of psychological integration and spiritual awareness. It is not appropriate for people actively struggling with addictions, self-destructive tendencies, or a diagnosed personality disorder.
