Tagged: “Dr. Robert Enright”
I hate to admit it, but I have been hating someone for years. How long now will it take me to forgive? I want it all wrapped up this week.
Please do not think of forgiving as a kind of pill one takes for a headache. You do not take a forgiveness pill and then wait a little while for complete relief. Forgiveness, instead, is a process, a challenging process, that takes time to develop. We find that the more severe the injustice against a person, then the longer it may take to forgive. If you work at it, we find that people tend to feel some relief in about 12 weeks; others still may take much longer, but even in this longer process, you might sense that your anger is diminishing, which can motivate you to keep at the forgiveness process. Anger is not necessarily entirely eliminated when a person forgives, but hatred (very deep and abiding anger) does tend to diminish. I am encouraged that you are considering forgiving even with hatred in your heart. This, to me, is a good sign that you will make progress in your forgiving.
Have you or your colleagues worked on forgiveness with people who have significant mental health challenges, such as major depressive disorder or bi-polar disorder?
Yes, my colleague, the psychiatrist Dr. Richard Fitzgibbons, has case studies of this kind in our book, Forgiveness Therapy, 2015. Not all people who show major depression or bi-polar disorder are excessively angry with other people, but Dr. Fitzgibbons does screen for this. When people with significant mental health challenges show unhealthy anger caused by unjust treatment from other people, then Forgiveness Therapy is warranted and shown to be effective in these case studies.
For additional information, see Forgiveness Research.
People forgive for whose sake: the other or the self?
The point of forgiving is to offer goodness toward the one who acted unjustly. Yet, one very common motivation is to forgive to feel better, to rid oneself of resentment. This motivation (relief from suffering in the self) is not the same as what forgiving actually is (a gift to the other).
For additional information, see What Is Forgiveness?
You have the Process Model of Forgiveness with 20 steps. If I skip some of the steps, am I cheating?
The 20-step Process Model was not built to be an inflexible, demanding system. Instead, think of it as a road map. On your journey to forgiving, you have the option to stop at 20 different places. Some may be irrelevant to you, or perhaps you already worked through some of the steps. It is just fine to move on to another step. Also, it is fine to go back and revisit some of the more challenging steps as you see a need for more work on that step. So, no, you are not cheating.
For additional information, see How to Forgive.
I find it harder to forgive someone who hurt my mother than to forgive those who hurt me. Why is that? Also, is it even legitimate for me to consider forgiving someone who has not directly hurt me?
Let us focus on the second question first. According to the philosopher, Trudy Govier, there are distinctions among primary forgiving (in which you were directly hurt by another), secondary forgiving (in which you are resentful because of injustice toward another person about whom you care), and tertiary forgiving (in which you are resentful toward someone who is quite distant from you or a loved one, such as a politician who behaves badly). You are discussing secondary forgiving because you are resentful of another who behaved badly toward your mother. So, yes, you can legitimately work on forgiving this person.
Why is this one so hard? I think it is because your mother likely is going through much pain because of the person’s offense and you are reacting to this deep pain in your mother. Secondary forgiving is not necessarily always more difficult than primary forgiveness. The difficulty depends on the depth of the injustice and the depth of hurt experienced by your loved one and you.
For additional information, see Can You Forgive an Entire Group?
