When You're Not Quite Ready to Forgive

When we have been treated unfairly by other people, we can develop resentment or intense anger that can last literally for many years. I have known people who have held onto their anger for 40 years following emotional injury from unjust people.

Science now, for over 30 years (Hebl and Enright, 1993), has shown that forgiveness can be a highly effective way of reducing or even eliminating that resentment. For example, female incest survivors have been able to forgive and have decreased statistically significantly in psychological depression (Freedman and Enright, 1996). Men in a cardiac unit who were screened for serious injustices against them could have more blood flow through the heart following a forgiveness intervention (Waltman and colleagues). Divorced women (Reed and Enright, 2006), men in a maximum security correctional facility (Yu and colleagues), and even female acid-burn victims in Pakistan (Haroon and colleagues, 2021) have all seen improved emotional health upon forgiving those who were deeply unjust to them.

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The above studies, and many others, have come with a price. That price is this: Too many people misunderstand what forgiveness is and they may put pressure on others to forgive. That pressure can be a big turn-off and hurt people not ready to forgive. This, of course, is not the fault of forgiveness itself but instead the fault of well-meaning people who are not giving the hurting people enough space to decide with their own free will to forgive, when to forgive, whether to delay the forgiving, or not to forgive. For example, I recently received an email from an irate person in another country who chastised me for starting the published research on person-to-person forgiveness (Enright and colleagues, 1989). He was angry because whenever he went to a mental health professional for help with his anger, each one of them would suggest forgiveness, and he was not ready for it yet. He felt pressured, and he felt more anger.

It is time for some advice regarding the readiness to forgive and how to handle forgiveness interventions in a mental health context. I offer five points for consideration.

1. Mental health professionals, it is important for you to know that forgiveness is the client's choice. When the client is deeply angry, forgiveness can sometimes seem too much too soon. Therefore, be gentle when suggesting forgiveness. It may be best to have more alternatives for initial treatment so that forgiveness can be one of several approaches offered to the client.

2. Mental health professionals should deeply and accurately understand what forgiveness is and is not so that the client’s apprehension can be patiently examined. One of the most common misconceptions is that to forgive means to reconcile or come together with the offending person, which then opens up the forgiver to even more abuse. Forgiveness is not the same as reconciliation. Forgiveness is a moral virtue in which a person freely chooses to be kind to those who are not kind to the forgiver. Reconciliation is a negotiation strategy in which two or more people come together again in mutual trust. If the other person cannot be trusted, reconciliation is not a wise move, at least for now. Yet, a client can begin to work on forgiving by trying to see the humanity in the other and by choosing to be kind toward the other person (even If it is a kind word about the person to others) whenever the client is ready. Forgiveness is not an either-or issue with justice. A person can forgive and seek justice at the same time. When you forgive, you do not just let it go, excuse unjust behavior, or lie down and let others have their way with you. These points are vital because they are very often equated with forgiving, which leads to clients being repelled by the notion of forgiveness.

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3. It is also important that clients themselves take time to understand what forgiveness is and what it is not, particularly that it is not automatic reconciliation, ignoring justice, or finding excuses for unjust behavior from others.

4. Internal pain, in the form of abiding anger, discouragement, or low self-esteem, can be a big motivator for clients to be aware of these internal challenges and to do something to heal from them. As pointed out above, forgiveness has scientific backing that it works when people willingly choose it and take the time to forgive.

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If a client has tried everything under the sun to heal, and if these approaches have not worked, then a mental health professional might consider putting the idea of forgiveness on the table, not as a must but as a possible alternative if and when the client is ready. There are two extremes when it comes to forgiveness. The first one is to criticize forgiveness because some people put pressure on others to forgive. The second extreme is to be so shy about forgiveness and so scared to offend anyone, that this healing path is never brought up at all to clients. It can be brought up as one healing path with the caveat that this is the client’s free-will choice.

5. It does take time to walk the forgiveness path. There is a trend to reduce forgiveness to a quick fix that supposedly can be accomplished in four or five sessions. This is not the case when the client has been deeply hurt by severe injustices. Forgiveness takes time and should not be rushed. This needs to be brought up to clients so that their expectations for a quick fix can be addressed in light of scientific findings.

In summary, if you are not yet ready to forgive, it may be good to know why. Is it because of pressure from others? Is it because:

• You are seeing forgiveness in a distorted way?
• Forgiveness is not for you?
• Do you need time to process the anger before moving forward?

It is not the fault of forgiveness when others put pressure on you or when you have been given incorrect information about what forgiveness is. This is your choice and accurately knowing what the term forgiveness means may help you to make an informed decision about forgiveness, when you are ready or not.