Tagged: “Forgiveness Process”

One more follow-up, please.  This is my sixth follow-up.  There is advice floating around that to forgive is to do your own private work on yourself by reducing anger and discontent.  After our exchange of ideas, this seems incorrect to me.  What can be done to correct this misinformation that seems to be popular now?

A key issue is this: Always and without exception, get to know the definition of forgiveness, what it is and what it is not.  An entire issue of the Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology (February 2025) was dedicated to this very issue.  The central paper, which attempted a definitive definition of forgiveness based on philosophical analysis, is this:

Song, J., Enright, R.D., & Kim, J. (2025). Definitional drift within the science of forgiveness:

The dangers of avoiding philosophical analyses. Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, 45(1), 3-24. Note: This is the centerpiece article for a special issue on the definition of forgiveness within psychology.

doi: https://doi.org/10.1037/teo0000278

Sorry for so many questions.  This is my fifth follow-up to your idea that forgiveness is a moral virtue.  I have been told that I can complete forgiveness in as little as four sessions.  Can I do the work involved in the personal, global, and cosmic perspectives, along with the other processes that you briefly described, in four sessions?

If you have been deeply hurt by the other person, then four sessions likely will not be sufficient.  You may need 12 or more sessions because it takes time to view the person from the personal, global, and cosmic perspectives, wait for the time for your heart to soften, and then move forward with other processes as described in the book I previously suggested to you, Forgiveness Is a Choice.

As my fourth follow-up to your idea that forgiveness is a moral virtue, why in the world would my taking the personal, global, and cosmic perspectives lead to a diminishing of my frustration and anger toward the one who hurt me?

As people begin to see the injuring person as more than the injustices against them, forgivers find that they are beginning to soften their hearts, even a little, toward the other person.  This softening of the heart tends to reduce anger.  There are other processes beyond these, as explained, for example, in the book Forgiveness Is a Choice, that help continue reducing anger and frustration.

As my third follow-up to your idea that forgiveness is a moral virtue, how do I go about seeing the personhood in the one who injured me?

You can begin to see this person’s struggles in life.  Perhaps he was hurt by others when he was a child or an adolescent.  Perhaps he currently is having difficulty at work and in his pain, he displaced his anger onto you.  We call these kinds of views the personal perspective.  As another view on this other person, we have what we call the global perspective in which you see your common humanity with this person.  You both are unique in this world.  You both need adequate nutrition and rest.  You hold humanity in common.  A third view, if you have a transcendent perspective, you could see that this person is loved by God.  All three views (the personal, global, and cosmic perspectives) help you to see the person as more than the offenses against you.

As my second follow-up to your idea that forgiveness is a moral virtue focused on the person who behaved badly, why would I want to do that?  It only makes me feel worse when I think of him.  I would prefer to forget about him.

Forgetting about him is not forgiveness.  You need to make a decision about whether or not you want to actually engage in the moral virtue of forgiveness.  If you do, then you will try, by your free will, to begin seeing the personhood in this person.  It takes time to do that.