Ask Dr. Forgiveness
What is the difference between forgiveness and what is all over the news lately as “student loan forgiveness”?
Forgiveness is a moral virtue in which a person is good to those who are not good to the forgiver. This is a free-will decision and done for the one who was unfair. “Student loan forgiveness” is very different because the students who took out a loan did not act unjustly. Therefore, this is more like a legal pardon from a stated obligation rather than anything to do with the moral virtue of forgiving people who acted unjustly.
Forgiveness in the published literature seems to imply that it is done for the self and not for the person who acted unfairly. Am I correct?
The scientific literature often examines the effects of forgiveness on the one who forgives. This does not at all mean from a philosophical perspective that this is what forgiveness is. Forgiveness actually is a moral virtue of goodness toward those who acted unfairly. Even if one of the effects of this self-giving is that the forgiver experiences much psychological relief, this does not equate to what forgiveness is. We have to distinguish the essence of forgiveness (what it is) from some of the effects of this process (which can be emotional relief by those who forgive).
Forgiving others is being indifferent to those who act unfairly. I say that because if you forgive, what are you asking of the other in terms of growing as a fair person? It seems to me that you are asking nothing, which leads me to think that forgiving is an act of indifference.
Forgiving others for unjust behavior does not mean that you then ignore issues of justice or issues of the other growing in fairness. You can forgive and ask something of the other person. Therefore, forgiving others does not equate to being indifferent toward them.
My partner repents, means well, and tries hard, but his temper still gets the better of him. How can he change for the better?
I suggest that your partner go back in time and examine all of the people who have deeply hurt him and see if there is anger remaining in need of forgiveness. Also, consider examining the modeling effect: Were people in your partner’s family of origin overly angry and your partner observed this, imitated this, and now is bringing this pattern, which was modeled, into your relationship. If this is the case, then the insight of the connection between observing behaviors from the past and bringing them into the present may help reduce the frequent expressions of temper.
What is the shortest and the longest time you have seen someone go through the forgiveness process when the injustice is very deep? In other words, I am not talking about people who have been hurt but it is more of a passing anger and not a deeply entrenched anger from a profound injustice.
The shortest time to a successful forgiveness was observed in a scientific study of elderly women in hospice who had less than 6 months to live. They had deep hurts from family members and some of these hurts began decades ago. These courageous women only took 4 weeks to forgive the deep injustices, perhaps because they were trying their best to confront unresolved issues in need of resolution. The longest I have seen is a study of female incest survivors, who took on the average over a year to forgive. Here are the references to these two research studies:
Hansen, M. J., Enright. R. D., Baskin, T. W., & Klatt, J. (2009). A palliative care intervention in forgiveness therapy for elderly terminally-ill cancer patients. Journal of Palliative Care, 25, 51-60.
Freedman, S. R., & Enright, R. D. (1996). Forgiveness as an intervention goal with incest survivors. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 64(5), 983-992.
