Tagged: “Dr. Robert Enright”
I’ve encountered a significant obstacle in my quest to comprehend the person who injured me. The hurt makes me terrified to “step inside his shoes.” When I am unable to accomplish this, I feel like I am not progressing at all and my entire forgiveness route kind of collapses. How can I get unstuck, in your opinion?
I get the impression that you no longer trust this person. If so, please remember that you do not always need to trust when you are forgiving. When you are prepared to make amends (because you see that his behavior is not, at present, harmful to you), trust emerges. Please consider your degree of anger again if this realization proves to be helpful. Maybe you’re more enraged than you acknowledge. Try to forgive the one who offended you for a less serious injustice, if there is one. As you work on forgiving this person for a smaller offense, you might get stronger in your ability to forgive him for a more serious injustice. Starting the forgiveness process with someone else, who is not as difficult to forgive, is another possible approach. Also, maintaining a strong will to forgive is crucial. The strong will helps you to be motivated to keep on the pathway of forgiveness even when it is difficult to do so.
I became aware of Rodney King being assaulted by officers when I was reading Chapter 3 of the book, Forgiveness Is a Choice. I had no idea that a person’s wrath could have such a profound impact on an entire community and subsequent generations. How can a generation get past the stigma associated with unhealthy venting?
Community forgiveness is a relatively new issue that has profound implications for the peace movement. It is possible for people within an entire community to see the impact of continued rage and, together, decide to forgive the other community. This, in theory, should have the effect of lowering the anger-temperature within and between communities as people decide to offer forgiveness to those on “the other side.” Here are two references to the idea of community (or group) forgiveness:
Enright, R.D., Lee, Y.R., Hirshberg, M.J., Litts, B.K., Schirmer, E.B., Irwin, A.J., Klatt, J., Hunt, J., & Song, J.Y. (2016). Examining group forgiveness: Conceptual and empirical issues. Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, 22, 153-162. DOI: http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.library.wisc.edu/10.1037/pac0000153
Enright, R.D., Johnson, J., Fu, N., Erzar, T., Hirshberg, M., Huang, T., Klatt, J., Lee, D., Boateng, B., Boggs, P., Hsiao, T.-E., Olson, C., Shu, M.L., Song, J., Wu, P., & Zhang, B. (2020). Measuring intergroup forgiveness: The Enright Group Forgiveness Inventory. Peace and Conflict Studies, 27,1-29.
Is excessive anger the only serious concern with a lack of forgiveness? What about sadness or grief?
You are correct that a person may experience sadness or grief rather than or in addition to anger when treated very unfairly by others. As documented in the book, Forgiveness Therapy (2024) by Enright and Fitzgibbons, it is excessive anger in particular (the kind of anger that is intense and long lasting) that can lead, over time, to psychological compromise such as anxiety and depression. So, from a mental health standpoint, it is the excessive anger that is of primary concern and in need of amelioration.
If my motivation is to reduce my rage toward the one who was really unfair to me and if I am not getting any relief, then is this a good reason to abandon the quest to forgive this person?
If you are struggling with offering forgiveness, you certainly can take a break for a while and refresh before trying again. Yet, please keep in mind that the essence of forgiveness is to be merciful toward the offending person and so you still can continue with the forgiveness process regardless of your own psychological improvement. Please keep in mind that it can take time for psychological improvement to occur when you forgive, especially when you are deeply hurt. Therefore, you may need patience and time before you experience the psychological improvement. Thus, you can forgive as you remain psychologically challenged and then hope for such improvement within yourself as you engage in the forgiveness process.
How can you say that forgiveness is for the offender when it is the victim who is healed?
The victim being healed is a consequence of forgiving. Forgiveness itself is the merciful reaching out to the offending person in terms of how you think about this person, how you feel about this person, and how you would behave toward this person (if it is safe to interact with this person).
