Tagged: “Enright Forgiveness Process Model”
In your answer to my recent question about why so many people use the word “forgiveness” but misunderstand it, I have this follow-up question: Is it true that if I read a journal article with the word “forgiveness” in the title, then that article actually might not be about forgiveness at all, but instead may have distortions about what forgiveness is?
Yes, this is a very insightful point. Just because a journal article passes the peer-review process, this does not mean that the article actually is about forgiveness in its full sense or even in a true sense. Be careful when you read the academic literature on forgiveness because the authors’ understanding of forgiveness may be distorted. Ask yourself: What truly is forgiveness and are these authors being consistent in understanding what it is?
I will never forgive my ex- without his apology. Forgiveness is conditional, right? We should withhold forgiving until the other apologizes. This gives me a sense of respect.
Actually, forgiving unconditionally, without the other first apologizing, is important. Otherwise, you give the other person too much power over your own healing, over your own inner peace. Here is an essay from Psychology Today in which I defend the idea that forgiveness does not require an apology from the one who acted unjustly:
Why Forgiving Does Not Require an Apology
I have read in the psychological literature that forgiveness primarily is a motivation to offer goodness to those who hurt us. Is forgiveness primarily a motivation toward the good?
No, this idea that forgiveness primarily is a motivation is philosophical reductionism in which the writer takes one important part of forgiveness and blows it up so large that it takes over the entire spectrum of forgiveness. Here is why motivation is only one part of forgiveness: Suppose someone hurts you and you now are convinced that you should and will forgive. After that, you sit in your hammock, read your on-line messages, listen to music, and turn off all thoughts and actions regarding forgiveness, never to return to this. Have you forgiven? Of course not because you have not engaged in the difficult thoughts, feelings, and actions that make the forgiveness response more full, more accurate.
If others keep pressuring a person to forgive, doesn’t that make forgiving a bad thing?
The problem here is not with forgiving but instead with people not being gentle with those who are hurting. Putting pressure on others is not the fault of forgiveness itself.
Does the brain cause people to forgive?
I have addressed this question in a Psychology Today blog here: Does Your Brain Cause You to Forgive?
The short answer is: I do not think so. There can be a confusion of cause and effect. As people willingly practice forgiving, brain structures can alter. In other words, it is not the brain’s existing structure that causes forgiveness but the continual practice of forgiveness that may lead to an alteration of the brain.
