Q: What got you interested in forgiveness?
A: Partly personal experience. When I was 16, I discovered my father virtually in flagrante with two young women in our home. I've wanted to understand not just what happened to me, but how I reacted to it. I never set out consciously to forgive; what I wanted was to free myself from my own anger toward him and my mother. Then, too, in 25 years as a psychotherapist, I've seen many people struggling with both intimate betrayals and our culture's insistence that forgiveness is the only "right" resolution. The pressure everyone feels to forgive everything and everybody is responsible for a proliferation of false forgiveness.
Q: How do real and false forgiveness differ?
A: Forgiving is hard work. It takes time, and involves pain. It's not just a simple declaration or automatic, reflexive action. False forgiveness is going through the motions without anything changing on the inside. It's lip service, and it actually interferes with authentic resolution and estranges people from their real feelings.
Forgiveness should be a capacity to be exercised when the situation warrants it, not a compulsion to be applied indiscriminantly. And no one--including a parent, a mental health professional or a member of the clergy--has the right to dictate how a betrayal should be resolved. Unfortunately, most therapists have been brainwashed to believe that forgiveness is the only correct solution, and naturally they encourage their patients to do it, out of genuine, if misplaced, concern for their mental health.
Q: What should therapists be doing?
A: They should help their patients come to terms with the past in whatever way is right for the individual. Often, people need permission not to forgive. Pushing an agenda of automatic absolution leads many to secret despair. Therapy should teach people to think for themselves.
Q: What's the role of religion in forgiveness?
A: Forgiving is a strong element of the Judeo-Christian tradition. But forgiving need not be related to religious conviction; for some it's a matter of ethics. But the religious imperative to forgive makes many people feel guilty if they don't or can't. They're told that they are being vengeful.
Q: Is vengeance distinct from not forgiving?
A: Absolutely. Vengeance is holding onto rage and bitterness, letting a sense of victimization rule your life; choosing not to forgive involves profound self-examination, just like forgiveness--only with a different conclusion. Vengeance is actually more closely related to false forgiveness than it is to genuine nonforgiveness. There is a difference, though: pseudoforgivers cannot wait to change the subject, and the vindictive cannot stop talking about it.
Q: What does resolving an intimate betrayal require?
A: It's a three-step process. First, you must reengage with the hurtful relationship. Then, you have to recognize its emotional impact. Finally, you have to reinterpret its meaning from a broader perspective. In my own case, I consulted the diaries I kept as an adolescent, and realized how much I had buried and misinterpreted.
Q: Did you forgive your parents?
A: Yes, and myself, for what happened between us. But it's important to recognize that another daughter with a similar history could have legitimately decided not to forgive. There is no one-size-fits-all solution.
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