Tagged: “Couples”
Sharing the Good News of Forgiveness!
Our founding board member, Dr. Robert Enright, has been busy with media interviews on forgiveness over the past months. Here is a listing of his interviews since December, 2023, starting with the most recent:
Live interview, The Drew Mariani Show (national), Relevant Radio, on the topic of betrayal, forgiveness, and self-forgiveness, March 27, 2024.
Interview with Darcy Sterling, “We Need to Talk” podcast, March 15, 2024.
Dr. Robert Enright
Interview with Julie Cruz, Well Wisconsin Radio Broadcast, March 13, 2024.
Interview with Laura Hearn, Flip It podcast, London, United Kingdom, March 12, 2024.
Interview with Rebecca Randall for a report in the John Templeton Foundation newsletter, March 4, 2024.
Live interview with Liz Saint John, KCBS radio, San Francisco, California, on the topic of forgiveness, December 27, 2023.
Interview with Julien Manuguerra-Patten, BBC’s Sideways program, United Kingdom, on the topic of holding grudges and forgiveness, December 11, 2023.
Live interview with Andy Moore, WORT-FM radio, Madison, Wisconsin, on the topic of forgiveness, December 8, 2023.
Live interview with Kate Archer Kent, “The Morning Show,” Wisconsin Public Radio, on the topic of forgiveness, December 6, 2023.
If you do a simple Google search for ‘Bob Enright Interview’, there are hundreds of thousands of hits! There are plenty of video, podcast, audio, and written interviews with Dr. Enright easily accessible across the internet and each of them helps shed light on forgiveness and its power to bring authentic peace and healing to people, communities, and the world. Check them out!
Dr. Enright discusses ‘Forgiveness is a Choice’ on Relationship Podcast
On April 2, 2024, Dr. Enright appeared on a one-hour podcast on YouTube, We Need to Talk with Dr. Darcy Sterling. Dr. Sterling is a New York City-based relationship therapist and host of E! Network’s Famously Single, who specializes in working with high-performance women who want to prioritize love and relationships.
Sterling describes her forgiveness journey that led her to interview Dr. Enright as follows on the YouTube video description:
“Years ago, I was gutted by a falling out with one of my siblings. It quickly became clear that we were on the verge of estrangement, and that impending loss brought me to my knees — I had just recovered from PTSD and was terrified of getting sucked into the black hole of trauma that I’d just come through.
Frantic for help, I found myself Googling a solution, and up came the term Forgiveness Therapy.
To be clear: I was not feeling forgiving. But I was feeling desperate. I did not want to revisit the darkness I’d just emerged from.
A book on forgiveness had recently been published by a professor named Robert Enright. In it he posits that forgiveness isn’t about cutting the other person slack. It’s a liferaft for people who feel wronged. Enright’s theory had been peer-reviewed — the gold standard in the field of psychology — so, despite my apprehension, I committed to following his program.
Today, my journey through forgiveness comes full circle in my conversation with the theorist himself, Dr. Robert Enright.
If you struggle with anger or are someone who holds grudges and you want to explore a solution, please listen to this episode.
In it, you’ll learn:
Why it makes sense if the thought of forgiving someone who wronged you makes you cringe.
The consequences of not forgiving.
How choosing to forgive puts you in control of your feelings.
How Enright’s program helped me to personally bypass a relapse of PTSD.”
Check out the interview below!
I am in a close relationship with someone I hurt. I have asked for forgiveness from her but I keep getting ignored. Does it ever get to a point that I can demand forgiveness when I know that the other person is just being stubborn?
I sympathize with your frustration. You are ready to be forgiven and the other is not ready to give it to you. You should realize that forgiveness is not something that you can demand from someone. That person is not obligated in an ethical sense to give forgiveness until she is ready. Some religions ask a person to forgive under certain circumstances (such as happens in some of the rituals at Yom Kippur in the Jewish faith, for example). If the one from whom you are seeking forgiveness is under no religious obligation to forgive, I suggest three things: patience, patience, and patience. A little encouragement from you for her to forgive probably would be a good idea, but done sparingly and gently.
If a person continuously forgives an insensitive partner, does this enable the partner’s bad behavior?
No, forgiving does not enable bad behavior. A lack of justice-seeking can enable that behavior. As a person forgives, it is important to bring justice alongside the forgiveness and ask for fairness. In this way, the partner has the opportunity to examine and change the behavior that is causing the problem.
My partner says that he forgives me, but he seems kind of smug about it. His attitude seems to be “I am better than you.” Is this really an act of forgiving?
In 1978 the psychiatrist R.C.A. Hunter made the important point in a journal article that most of us can tell if an act of forgiving is legitimate or not based on the sincerity of the words and actions. If the other seems to be using forgiving as a way to dominate, to feel superior toward you, then this likely is not genuine forgiveness. You could try having a conversation with him about this and gently state that his actions do not seem to suggest a true sense of forgiving in which you meet person-to-person in a genuine spirit of respect and love.
