Author Archive: directorifi
What Is Forgiveness Therapy?
Forgiveness therapy is a way for both client and therapist to examine those situations in which the client was or is treated unfairly for the express purpose of helping the person to understand the offender; to learn to slowly let go of anger with this person; and, over time, to make a moral response of goodness toward the offender or offenders. This process may require many months or even years.
Forgiveness therapy does not ignore the client and his or her needs. On the contrary, the paradox is that as the client or patient takes the light of scrutiny off of self and places it in a moral way on the offenders in his or her life, it is the client who is healed. As readers will see, our emphasis on a “moral” response is vital for understanding forgiveness therapy. There is nothing novel about forgiveness therapy if it reduces simply to “moving on” or “adjusting.” There is much that is novel about it when the therapist challenges the client to “have compassion” and “do no harm” regarding a person with whom he or she is angry and frustrated.
Robert
Enright, Robert D.; Fitzgibbons, Richard P. (2014-11-17). Forgiveness Therapy (Kindle Locations 164-171). American Psychological Association (APA). Kindle Edition.
My mother robbed me of trust when I was a child by her continual neglect. I never have experienced a mother’s affection and this is affecting my adult relationships. I do not trust others very readily. How can I establish affectionate relationships now when I did not learn this as a child?
First, I am very sorry that you have had such a difficult childhood. Your thought about affection now being a challenge for you is very insightful. A key is to start, when you are ready, to forgive your mother. Let a sense of compassion for your mother come to you, even if this develops slowly. Try to see how emotionally wounded your mother was to have not given you affection.
As you see her woundedness, try to be aware of even a small amount of compassion building in your heart for her. This compassion, emerging out of forgiving your mother, can be the building-block for compassion toward other adults now in your life. That compassion will help you to build stronger, more trusting relationships. If you think about it, you now have the opportunity to be a deeply compassionate person because of your past pain.
How can a little anger be beneficial to someone?
When you have anger that is temperate and not excessive, you are showing yourself and the one who offended you that you are a person worthy of respect. You are showing the other that you are aware that he or she was unfair to you and so you are giving him or her a chance to change. Excessive anger can consume your energy and your happiness and destroy relationships. Anger within reasonable bounds and expressed reasonably is good and should not be suppressed as something bad. I am presuming that such anger is short-lived when I use the word “reasonable.”
Israeli President says “A society without forgiveness is not a humane society.”
The Jerusalem Post, Jerusalem, Israel – The Ofek detention center at Sharon Prison is Israel’s only detention facility for offenders under the age of 18. Now, thanks to the incorporation of forgiveness and repentence, the center is touting its successful rehabilitation strategy.
At a recent “celebratory seminar” held at the home of Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, three boys from bad neighborhoods and poor families spoke of how someone suddenly taking interest in them, and noticing them and their needs, had made each of them rethink his options for the future.
They said they regard Ofek as more of a school than a detention center, and they are grateful to their teachers and social workers for their patience and faith in them, and for instilling them with hope and motivation. For those imprisoned with minimal schooling, Ofek staff helps them complete high school.
President Rivlin observed that while the concept of forgiveness is wonderful, it is not easy to ask for forgiveness, nor is it always easy to forgive. “And yet, a society without forgiveness is not a humane society,” he said. “It is a society in which we are doomed to be forever chained to the past, without the possibility of looking to the future.”
Youth justice policy in Israel is a problem-solving, individual-treatment, adopting welfare model. While in many Western countries juvenile justice has moved from a welfare approach to a punitive model, policies in Israel have modified and changed while retaining the traditional view that juvenile delinquents are to be treated and rehabilitated rather than punished.
On page 39 of your book, Forgiveness Is a Choice, you say, “Forgiveness is free, trust must be earned.” Doesn’t forgiveness come with a cost? It is hard work. How is it “free”?
Forgiveness is free in that the one who forgives may do so unconditionally whenever he or she is ready. There is no need for the offending person to apologize or to make recompense of some kind before you allow yourself to forgive. If you had to wait for the other to show remorse or to say certain words, then forgiveness is not freely given…….and then you are trapped in unforgiveness until others decide to do what you think they need to do to set you free. Is this not another injustice against you? You are bound in unforgiveness until the other lets you out of that cage of resentment. So, you are right that forgiveness is hard work and that is the “cost” to which you refer, but forgiveness is “free” in that you may do so when you are ready.
