Finding Forgiveness

I recently had lunch with a friend of mine who remarked, “I’m not a very forgiving person. I thought that I was, but I realized that I hold onto resentments and carry on arguments in my head with people who I feel wronged me. I really hold onto grudges, and I’ve got a lot of them.” As he said this, I thought of several clients who identify forgiveness as a recurring challenge. Forgiveness is often a theme in psychotherapy, although it is rarely named as such. Many people enter therapy seeking forgiveness for themselves, or, more often, seeking to find a way of forgiving others for the wrongs they’ve experienced.

Therapists rarely directly speak of “forgiveness”, although it is a tacitly implied goal of much of the work. The word carries connotations of religious mandates, ethical and moral imperatives, and sentimental feeling; these connotations occlude the processes that characterize meaningful forgiveness. In actuality, forgiveness is very hard work—and it is work of a very high order. Forgiveness is often essential for transformation and well-being. But forgiveness is elusive.

What does it mean to forgive? In one sense, forgiveness involves a kind of letting go. But I think this is too facile an understanding. It’s been my experience that forgiveness is actually a kind of integration. Forgiveness is a process that involves putting a particular moment and situation into perspective, grounding it in time, creating space and distance so that you can see the moment’s many facets, feeling the feelings, developing an understanding of all these dynamics and their impact. More significant, I think that forgiveness involves a fundamental kind of acceptance: accepting that your sense of self is now changed, and understanding that your changed self in turn changes your relationships with to others, especially those who have wronged you. Forgiveness is so very difficult because it must emerge out of relationships where there has been an abuse of power, where relational expectations have been betrayed, and where one’s sense of self has been, in some profound way, violated.

Ultimately, forgiveness is something of a paradox: only when the traumatic violation has been worked through and a sense of self is re-established can a person let it go.

Trauma is an extraordinarily complex experience. The physical and psychic wounds inflicted by trauma often run very deep and impact virtually every aspect of the person's subsequent life. The impact may be so severe that forgiveness may seem impossible. It certainly is too much to expect that meaningful forgiveness can happen quickly. Indeed, many years of carefully attentive therapy—therapy that invites uncomfortable feelings to be felt and aired, therapy that seeks to understand the layers of impact, therapy that strengthens and supports a new sense of self as it slowly emerges—may be required before a person might be ready to even consider forgiveness.

Forgiveness is not the same experience as justice, although they share a common goal: to make right, to reconcile. And forgiveness (and justice) is very different from vengeance which is more about reconfiguring the balance of power in one’s favor and exacting a price.

Forgiveness is very hard work. Many people experience years of anger, resentment, rage, anxiety, and sadness before finding the ability let them go—if they ever do. Many of us tend to cycle back to our experiences of hurt and find ourselves, like my friend, carrying on angry conversations in our minds with those people who have wronged us. Doing so may signal that we have not been able to forgive in a meaningful way; then, there is more hard work to do.

Forgiveness takes time. It requires a readiness to change our perspective, a willingness to redefine and understand ourselves in view of what has happened to us.

The work of psychotherapy is the work of transformation. Sometimes meaningful transformation may require forgiveness. Psychotherapy can create a space for us to have our feelings—anger, betrayal, rage, sadness—work them through, develop a new perspective, and find acceptance. Sometimes—not always—therapy can help us find the ability to forgive. (Indeed, let it be said that there are times when forgiveness is not possible. Then, a different kind to transformative work is in order.) When we are able to finally experience the gift of forgiveness, our lives can be transformed, and we can develop wholeness and health.

Finding the Words

I’ve been thinking a great deal about language, probably because many of the people I see struggle mightily with putting their experiences into words. However, the issue is not one of being able to report experiences; few clients have difficulty telling me what has happened to them. Rather, the challenge centers on finding words to capture the texture and meaning of the experience. Language humanizes us. It helps us make sense of what we experience. When language is impaired or occluded, we often feel at sea: confused, anxious, depressed. Language helps us create memories and helps us develop a sense of continuity over time. It brings our experiences to greater consciousness and helps us integrate our external experiences of the world with our interior worlds. The poet May Sarton illustrated this when she remarked “I write prose to find out what I think; I write poetry to find out what I feel.” We often find out what we think by speaking. Language is central to our lives.

There are many reasons that language can become difficult to use. For example, very early childhood trauma may have occurred before language developed, making it difficult to put those experiences into words. Similarly, severe trauma can strip one of language so that the words that might describe it seem inadequate to the depth of the actual experience. There are other barriers: social and family strictures may prohibit giving voice to one’s experience. (I can think of innumerable occasions where clients believed that they could not speak of their feelings because the prevailing social and cultural ethos prevented them from doing so.) Inner, unconscious conflict centering on one’s deepest desires may also prevent one from speaking. Brain damage can also inhibit language. And, of course, we all speak in hope that there will be someone to listen; too often there is no one willing or able to listen.

Many people enter therapy hoping to give voice to their experiences, solve problems, and make sense of their lives. They come into therapy hoping that the therapist will be willing to listen and able to hear the depths of what is being said. Anxiety often signals that there is an issue that has been relegated to silence but which needs to be given voice. Therapy can be a vital means for helping people put their experiences into words.

Overcoming the barriers to giving voice to experience is only one of the challenges to therapy. Another challenge centers on finding a common language. Indeed, the therapist cannot assume that he or she shares the language of the client. Language is fluid; meanings evolve and shift from client to client. Paradoxically, while language can illuminate, it can also obscure. Thus, a great deal of time is spent learning the client’s language—the meanings of specific words, patterns of language, the nuances of tone and non-verbal cues, feelings embedded in language, meanings hidden within it.

Psychotherapy, in its essence, is about helping you give voice to that which has been unexpressed. It’s a process of helping you find the words to express feelings—something that many people have trouble with—explore memories that have been buried, air wounds, and find meaning. Psychotherapy creates a safe space where words can be found. The therapist will listen very carefully and very deeply not only to hear what is spoken but to elicit what may be unspoken. The therapist will invite the client to give voice to that which has been unexpressed. And the therapeutic process will help client find meaning in his experience, allowing for healing and creating wholeness. Ultimately, by inviting you to put your experience into words, psychotherapy can help you transform your life.