Tagged: “Dr. Robert Enright”
You say that the biggest surprise you had when studying forgiveness therapy was its effectiveness when trauma is present in the participants. What was your second biggest surprise?
I think the second biggest surprise is that when people forgive and recover from the effects of trauma, they often develop a new purpose in life. That new purpose is to help others who also are hurting from other people’s mistreatment of them. This new purpose seems to give hope and vitality to those who were carrying a large emotional burden within them.
How would you define forgivable offenses? To be particular, can someone forgive another’s failure or deficiency in character (even if there was no wrongful act committed by the person)? For instance, someone might be indifferent to me without meaning to hurt me, but I might still feel offended while knowing he or she didn’t do anything wrong to me. Thank you.
Deficiency of character will come out as behavior, either as a bad act (an act of commission) or as a failure to act when one should (an act of omission). When a person treats you with indifference, this is an act of omission because you are a person of worth and others should not treat you as if you were invisible. This, of course, does not mean that we have to pour ourselves out for everyone we meet. Your example centers on actual interactions which make you feel ignored. We should not treat others as if they do not count or have no worth (an act of omission). When this occurs, those so ignored can, if they choose, forgive the other.
From your reading, what is the printed origin of person-to-person forgiveness?
It seems to me that the first account of one person forgiving others is in Hebrew scripture, Genesis 37-45, in which Joseph forgives his 10 half-brothers for attempted murder and then selling him into slavery.
Why do you think forgiving another person actually increases the forgiver’s own self-esteem?
As a forgiver works to see the inherent worth in the one who acted unjustly, the forgiver slowly begins to see his own worth as a person. The paradox is that as the forgiver sees the full humanity of the other, then the forgiver begins to see his own full humanity.
You used the term “full humanity” in answering my earlier question. What do you mean by that term?
So often, when people are unjustly treated by another person, they tend to focus only on those unjust actions, viewing the other only in terms of those behaviors. Upon entering the forgiveness process, the people tend to expand their story of the other, seeing this person now more broadly, seeing that there is much more to this other person than only those unjust actions against them.
