Ask Dr. Forgiveness
In Chapter 2 of your book, Forgiveness Is a Choice, you make the claim that if I try to forget offenses against me, then this is unhealthy. Why do you say that? Isn’t it healthy to put the past behind?
Yes, it is healthy to put the past behind if one does not deny the anger inside of oneself. My point in saying that trying to forget is unhealthy is this: So often we still remember the deep injustices against us. It often is unrealistic to completely forget what happened. We do not develop a kind of moral amnesia when we forgive. Instead, we remember in new ways, without the build-up of strong anger. We need to be gentle with ourselves when we remember details of cruelty against us. Such remembering does not mean that we have failed to forgive.
I am not overly angry with anyone who has treated me unkindly. Does this mean that I should not consider forgiving? In other words, do I forgive only when angry or in pain from what a person did to me?
You are free to forgive whenever there is injustice toward you and you have pain to any degree. In other words, you do not have to wait until you are fuming with anger to forgive. At the same time, if you have no pain whatsoever then you need not forgive because, as the philosopher Margaret Holmgren points out, forgiveness is in the context of both unfair treatment and injury of some kind.
Have you found that it is harder for men or women to forgive?
When we study differences between men and women on reliable and valid scales of the degree to which they forgive, we tend to find no differences between men and women. When we do interventions to help people to forgive, we tend to find that both men and women can go through the process of forgiving. Yet, when we hold workshops, far more women than men attend. Women, in this kind of case, seem to be more drawn to forgiveness or at least to attend meetings about it.
What is emotional imprisonment toward oneself?
Sometimes we harbor deep resentment over a long period of time because we think we are somehow getting back at those who have wronged us as we keep the anger deep inside. Yet, in my own experience, those who hold onto that anger are punishing the self more than the other, who may not care that you are so angry. When a person deliberately keeps such anger inside, he or she is keeping the self in an emotional prison which eventually could rob that person of happiness. Forgiveness is one important way of letting that anger out, which then can increase happiness.
Do you use the same forgiveness model when working with people of faith, such as Christians? Especially, those who believe you are to forgive immediately? Also, what is your approach to self-forgiveness? Or do you believe self-forgiveness from a Christian perspective? These questions are based on Biblical scripture Matthew 18:21-35
Our process model of forgiveness can be used with people of faith by adding themes common to that faith. For example, suppose a client is in the Work Phase of the forgiveness process. The task is to see the inherent worth of the one who offended. The counselor could ask, “Is the person who hurt you made in the image and likeness of God?”
There is no Christian imperative to forgive immediately. When Paul tells us not to let the sun go down on our anger, the Greek is parorgismos, an intensive kind of anger that could include revenge-seeking. He is not telling us to forgive immediately.
