The topic of forgiveness comes up quite often in therapy. It is mentioned as a need or a wish by a patient who has been wronged or abused in their past. They are are often encouraged by friends or relatives to “just forgive” the wrong-doer. Some patients wonder about the concept of the turning of the other cheek. Let’s examine this topic from a psychological perspective, rather than from a religious one.
When an abused person is told to forgive the abuser, the concerned loved ones usually say something like this:
- “It’s been a long time now, so why don’t you just get over it…”
- “he (or she) is too old, too sick or demented (or dead) and carrying a grudge does not really serve any purpose…”
- “if you hang on to this, it will just poison your life…”
These are just some of the comments that a traumatized person might hear. While this type of advice is often well meant and not illogical, it is actually not helpful at best, and may in fact make the victim feel worse. Predictably the victim, for a variety of reasons, cannot “just get over” what happened.
The reason for this difficulty in moving on is that forgiveness is not an event that can be implemented successfully by consciousness effort. The advice given is logical only, but does not address the emotional elements of events that are undigested and unresolved. To be successful, forgiveness has to take place on an emotional rather than an intellectual level.
To attempt to make forgiveness an intellectually-based event will fail in every instance. Giving it time may work and, once the emotions have settled, a form of forgiveness may occur.
Psychotherapy and psychological education is generally more effective in creating an environment for forgiveness. Therapy can help a person to grow so that feelings around the event can finally resolve. In psychotherapy, the patient is given the opportunity to express and communicate feelings that he or she was unable to express when the trauma occurred. Ideally, right after the traumatic event, someone would have listened to the patient speak until they had fully expressed their feelings and thoughts.
Therapy is a space into which a patient can speak whatever needs to be spoken as long and as often as it needs to be said. In the process of recounting the injury, the patient also listens to himself or herself, and as he or she listens, his or her psyche develops its own understandings. There is often a sophistication and appropriateness to the insights that a patient develops that are often far beyond insights that a therapist might offer.
In other words, every patient has their own inner therapist which is activated in the process of communicating to someone who listens with their full attention in an accepting atmosphere. It is the wise therapist that aligns herself with that powerful ally.