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To Forgive May Be Divine, But It's Long, Hard Road

The journey of forgiveness can be long and arduous, and some people never complete it. Yet those who manage to forgive can reshape their lives in surprising and adaptive ways.

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Karl Loszak, M.D.: "The endpoint.. .may or may not include reconciliation." Joan Arehart-Treichel

Karl Loszak, M.D., has compassionate eyes, a kind face, and a friendly manner. He seems to be the kind of person who would forgive transgressions easily. But this is not always the case. The Toronto psychiatrist and psychoanalyst is having trouble forgiving a group of people who treated him shabbily.

However, one good thing emerged from the experience, he admitted at the recent annual Canadian Psychiatric Association meeting in Toronto. It got him thinking about forgiveness—a subject that has been dealt with very little in the psychiatric and psychoanalytic literature, yet permeates people's lives and psychiatrists' practices. This prompted him to lead a workshop on the subject at the meeting.

There are three kinds of forgiveness, Loszak suggested—implicit, explicit, and transcendent.

Implicit forgiveness is something that occurs within a person, such as when Someone forgives himself or herself for transgressing or when a person forgives aging parents for mistreatment while growing up. Explicit forgiveness is the kind that takes place between two people in their everyday lives, and it can involve all sorts of nuances—for example, power plays or deal making, such as "If you do so-and-so, I'll forgive you this time." Transcendent forgiveness, unlike explicit forgiveness, has no strings attached and consists of forgiving devastating acts. For instance, a woman in British Columbia reconciled with the teen who had killed her husband, Loszak noted.

How do people achieve such forgiveness? Loszak doesn't know. "At its limits, the experience of forgiveness assumes a spiritual quality." However, he believes that "people are by nature more or less forgiving." Some people, though, are much more likely to forgive than others are, he believes.

Should psychiatrists help their patients forgive? Not always, Loszak contended. For example, a woman who lets her husband continually abuse her is being too forgiving. In contrast, there are many instances where forgiveness is in order, he said, and when patients forgive under those circumstances, it can benefit them psychologically.

"Forgiveness is giving up that anger and bitterness," Loszak explained. "It is a high-level version of injury and repair. Also, those who forgive often reshape their life stories in surprising and adaptive ways."

One example of such forgiving and reshaping, he said, is "the process of how we come to forgive our parents. If we are unable to forgive our parents, then in a fundamental way we are unable to accept ourselves, insofar as our parents live within us. To the extent that we are able to forgive and accept our parents, it frees us to be more forgiving toward ourselves; that is, it frees us to accept ourselves as we are. This enables us to better get on with the business of living life."

Another scenario of such forgiving and reshaping, he said, is when a person, by forgiving a horrendous crime against a loved one, bestows some meaning on the loved one's death. "They are able to find some way of believing that `she didn't die in vain' or that someone is benefiting from her death or from the aftermath of her death. An example of this might be someone who loses a child and then becomes an advocate for MADD [Mothers Against Drunk Driving]."

So how do psychiatrists nudge patients along the path toward forgiveness? "Recognizing that people are neither black nor white, neither good nor bad helps people move toward forgiveness," he said. "We all often fall into black-and-white thinking. And one of the challenges of psychotherapy is to challenge such thinking."

Still, Loszak urged psychiatrists to caution their patients that a journey toward forgiveness can take a long time. "The caricature of forgiveness comprises progress from anger and resentment to acceptance and reconciliation, ending in closure, even a blissful compassion or love. Looking at it more closely, the road to forgiveness is actually much more complex. It involves a reflection on self and others, a struggle with feelings of resentment and a thirst for revenge, and a pondering of basic values. The endpoint may or may not include forgetting, and it may or may not include reconciliation."

Yet even if people do not reach reconciliation, they can still reap benefits from trying, he concluded. "It can lead to a deepened understanding of oneself, of the offender, and of the human condition."

For example, "recognizing the humanity of the offender involves our ability to recognize our own dark side; that is, to recognize that under some conditions we too might be capable of terrible crimes. This humanizes both of us, allowing us to accept the other as well as to accept ourselves, with all our imperfections."

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