Tagged: “The Forgiving Life”
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?
How does forgiving work in huge issues such as the Holocaust, for example? Can a person forgive an entire group that has followed a misguided ideology?
This idea of forgiving in the context of “huge issues” such as the Holocaust is extremely controversial. Some will say that forgiving is not appropriate in this context for a number of reasons (The vast majority of people in the current generation were not in the Holocaust and so it is not their place to offer forgiving; some injustices are so grave as to eliminate the possibility of offering forgiving). Yet, there are people who are on record as offering their own forgiveness to the Nazis. The late Eva Mozes Kor, in the film Forgiving Dr. Mengele, is one example of this. People can forgive groups because when we forgive we do forgive people; groups are made up of people. Thus, if certain people so choose, they can forgive those who instituted Nazism or slavery, as two examples.
Also, the philosopher, Trudy Govier, makes the distinction among primary, secondary, and tertiary forgiving. Primary forgiving is when someone hurts you directly; secondary forgiving occurs when you are hurt because a loved one was hurt (a grandson, then, who is hurt by the death of a grandparent in the Holocaust, can forgive for his own sake, but not forgive on behalf of the grandparent); tertiary forgiving is when you forgive, for example, a public official who is guilty of corruption in another country. In this case, you are not hurt directly and, let us suppose for the sake of this example, none of your relatives were hurt directly. You feel badly, even resentful, and so tertiary forgiving is appropriate.
We need to remember that forgiving is a person’s own choice. Even if everyone else says that injustice X is too severe for anyone to offer forgiveness, we still might be surprised to see that someone steps up and decides to forgive despite popular opinion to the contrary.
For additional information, see Forgiveness Defined.
The late Lewis Smedes has this quotation that confuses me: “Forgiveness offers the best hope of creating a new fairness out of past unfairness.” I am confused because I realize that as we forgive, we might not get justice from the other person. I need help on this one.
I think that Dr. Smedes meant this: When we forgive, often times the injustice comes from someone with whom we have been in a relationship (a family member, a business colleague, for example). The fact that we have to forgive means that there was an injustice that could strain a relationship. As we forgive, we become open to receiving that other person back into our lives. This does not mean that we will receive an apology and a new, trusting relationship (because our forgiving does not automatically mean that the other will now be fair). Yet, forgiving does make us open to this possibility of the other accepting our forgiving and thus becoming more fair. I think the key to understanding Professor Smedes’ sentence is his word “hope.” As we forgive, we are open to the other’s changing. We wait in hope for that change.
For additional information, see Why would fairness be given to someone who has been constantly unfair to me over the years?
In your book, Forgiveness Is a Choice, you cite a philosophy paper that makes a distinction between willingness to forgive and willfulness in forgiving. You agree that we need willingness but not willfulness. It seems to me that we need both. Willfulness, to me, is the grit and determination to move forward with forgiveness. Would you please clarify?
Let us first define our terms. Willingness is a sense that forgiving is an unfolding process that can take time. We are open to the sometimes small changes that take place in us as we move toward a deeper forgiveness. Willfulness, in the case of the philosophical article you mention, has more of a sense of control: I want to forgive now and have it all wrapped up now. Willfulness in this sense can discourage people as they push so hard to forgive now, but then do not feel any relief. Your view of willfulness is more in line with the term strong will. The strong will, as I pointed out recently here, is the motivation and action to persevere in the forgiveness process. I agree with you that we need this when we are finding it hard to forgive.
For additional information, see 7 Unscrupulous Traits of People Who are Unwilling to Forgive.
