Rescuing Forgiveness

Abstract

While the need both to forgive and be forgiven is basic to the flow of human interaction, the concept of forgiveness continues to receive little attention in psychoanalytic theory and practice. In this paper, I address the reasons for this discrepancy, which include forgiveness’s ambiguity and conceptual murkiness, its problematic religious affiliations, and its status within traditional psychoanalytic theory as a “phantom” concept. I unpack and critique this traditional psychoanalytic understanding of forgiveness, arguing that it views forgiveness exclusively as a function of the individual mind while ignoring the relational nature of the concept. I suggest that when we broaden the theoretical ground for thinking about forgiveness to include not only intrapsychic but also intersubjective considerations of it, the concept of forgiveness takes on greater conceptual integrity and utility as a psychoanalytic construct. Seen in this light, the dynamic action that creates forgiveness occurs not only within minds but between them.

Keywords:

• forgiveness
• recognition
• religion
• remorse
• witnessing

Notes

¹ Lance Armstrong, Paula Deen, Eliot Spitzer, Anthony Weiner, and Brian Williams are recent examples as of this writing.

² Consider, for example, the Pennsylvania Amish school shooting of 10 school girls in 2006 or the 2015 Charleston Church Massacre in which nine African Americans were killed during a prayer service. In these instances, family members of the victims expressed forgiveness for the murderers either the very same day or two days later.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Martin Stephen Frommer

Martin Stephen Frommer, PhD, is affiliated with the Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy in New York City where he has taught and supervised; Faculty at the Stephen Mitchell Relational Study Center in New York; Supervisor, The Institute for Relational Psychoanalysis of Philadelphia, and an Associate Editor of Psychoanalytic Dialogues. He is in private practice in Manhattan.