Ask Dr. Forgiveness
I am in graduate school studying to be a mental health professional. Held in high regard is the issue of insight. The point is to break down the psychological defenses so that the person now is aware of what is causing the anger or the anxiety or the discontent. How does forgiveness compare and contrast to the call for insight?
In our Process Model of Forgiveness, we have four phases. The first phase asks the client, when that client is ready, to see the amount of anger in the heart, caused by other people’s unfairness. There is more to this phase than just this, but my point is that we do make room, lots of room in fact, to explore the psychological defenses and to gradually see how current and persistent anger is connected to unfairness toward the client that might have occurred many years ago. Yet, awareness or what you are calling insight is only the beginning of Forgiveness Therapy. In other words, as a person now sees the depth of anger, what does the person now do to get rid of that anger? We find that insight is not enough. It is in deliberately reaching out to those who acted unfairly with the moral virtue of forgiveness, this has a way of softening the heart and thus reducing the anger to manageable levels. In other words, when deeply hurt by others, the inner trauma is not reduced to an important degree without forgiveness, which the client must freely choose for the self.
What advice can you offer to me about the following frustrating situation: I have forgiven my partner, offering compassion and empathy toward her. She was insensitive to me on several occasions when she was under deep stress at work. She is convinced that other people cannot know her own private world and so empathy, in her view, is unreachable. In other words, my words of empathy are hollow for her. What do you suggest that I do? I ask because she seems to think that true forgiveness, involving empathy, is impossible.
This is a very interesting situation. I say that because I have not encountered a situation like this until you brought it up. If she thinks that you cannot know her inner world, even though you are convinced that you are able to do this to a degree, then you might try a different approach. Instead of using words that suggest you have empathy for her inner world, try to focus instead on her behavior and circumstances, not to excuse her behavior but to put it in the context of her recent challenges when she hurt you. She should be able to see that you are able to concretely observe the behaviors and circumstance that increased her stress and likely contributed to her insensitive remarks. She then should be able to understand that you are viewing her as a valuable person who is more than the insensitivities she has shown to you.
I am working for a company that does not have good human relations skills. There is a subtle sense of disrespect that pervades the work environment. Do I forgive certain people or do I begin to forgive the company? If you say it is the company, how do you go about forgiving such an abstract entity?
You can forgive those who specifically have hurt you. Also, because the company is made up of persons who either explicitly or implicitly have created this norm of disrespect, you can forgive the company personnel who have established this unhealthy norm. You can forgive these persons even if you never met them. After all, they are persons and they have made mistakes in how they operate. Even if this company was established 100 years ago, you can forgive those who started the company if it seems that this norm of disrespect was cultivated by them.
Will my forgiving help me to overcome the insecurity that bad things won’t happen again?
The intent of forgiving is not to reduce in one’s mind the probability that bad things will not happen in the future. Instead, forgiveness offers this safeguard: No matter what happens that is unfair to me, forgiveness will help me to reduce resentment, not be overcome by anger, and to move forward with the confidence that I can overcome emotional distress if others treat me unfairly.
How can I handle another person’s apology when that person does not change?
You can try to forgive before speaking and then, as gently as you can, ask the person for change that is fair to you and to the relationship. As you are seeing, an apology by itself can be superficial if the other does not take steps to change the behavior that was in need of the apology in the first place.
