Synopses & Reviews
What does it mean to forgive? What is so unconventional about your definition?
Forgiveness means so many things to so many people. Usually it is seen as something that takes place in the heart and mind of the hurt party alone, asking nothing of the offender. I differentiate what I call Cheap Forgiveness from Genuine Forgiveness. When forgiveness is offered robotically, compulsively, desperately; when the hurt party fails to process the impact of the violation or ask the offender to redress the injury, I call this Cheap Forgiveness. Genuine Forgiveness, in contrast, takes place between two people. It's a hard-won transaction and must be earned. Genuine Forgiveness is reserved for those offenders who have the courage, humility, and strength of character to work hard to make good. As the offender performs costly, humbling, heartfelt acts of repair, the hurt party creates opportunities for him to come forward and help her heal.
Why did you decide to devote a book to this complex and sensitive subject?
Most self-help books reinforce the conventional assumption that we have only two options: forgiving or not forgiving. Because not forgiving is unhealthy -- it keeps us imprisoned in hate -- we are pressured to forgive. But when the offender is unrepentant, we often can't -- or won't just dust off an injury, pretend that nothing happened, and embrace the person who injured us. For years, I listened to patients caught in this dilemma and realized that there had to be another solution. The language of forgiveness needed a healthy alternative to describe what real people do with real emotional injuries when they make peace with a person who won't apologize. I call this radicallynew alternative, Acceptance.
Isn't the ability to forgive supposed to be good for you?
Forgiving has been marketed as the new mental and physical panacea -- a healing balm that cures every ailment: depression, anxiety, chronic hostility, high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, cancer, and immune deficiencies. It has been said to repair broken hearts, broken relationships, and a broken sense of self. My patients have taught me otherwise. Watching them recover from interpersonal injuries has shown me that you can heal yourself and clear your head of emotional sludge -- resentment, rage, hurt, and shame -- with or without forgiving. You can make peace with yourself and come to terms with what happened -- with or without forgiving. In the end, better health is not produced by forgiving per se but by overcoming chronic hostility and distress, and this can be achieved through what I call the process of Acceptance.
What about our ethical mandate to forgive unconditionally?
Some of us believe that we have an obligation to forgive, categorically, and that to do so is central to what it means to be a decent human being. Most of us, however, can't live up to such high moral principles except in theory, or feel that we would compromise ourselves if we did. What I've learned from my patients is that most people would prefer to forgive than live in a grudge state. But they would like support, not just from a higher power, but from the offender himself.
So, what's wrong with just saying "no" to forgiveness?
Refusing to forgive may make us feel powerful and control, but it also leaves us stewing in our own hostile juices. In the end, Not Forgiving is just that -- a negative force,a way of not being engaged in life. It is a sorely limited, constricted, hard-hearted response to injury that feeds on hate and humiliation and diverts us from the greatest challenge of all -- to make peace with ourselves so we can feel whole and happy to be alive.
What about just saying "yes" to forgiveness to keep the peace?
Is there something in between forgiving and not forgiving?
When the offender is unrepentant, hurt parties often find forgiving too soft and generous, but they find not forgiving too hard and cold. They're searching for a middle ground, something that says, "You don't have to hate the offender or exact a pound of flesh, but you don't have to forgive him either." I call this radical, new something Acceptance.
What do you mean by Acceptance?
Acceptance is a gutsy, life-affirming response to violation when the offender is unrepentant or unavailable -- even dead. It asks nothing of anyone but the hurt party. It's based on that person's decision to take control of her pain, make sense of her injury, and carve out a relationship with the offender that works for her. Acceptance gives the hurt party the freedom to survive and transcend the injury, to decidehow she's going to live the rest of her life and make peace with the past.
How does Acceptance work?
There are ten steps to Acceptance. The process begins when the hurt party appreciates the magnitude of the wrong that was done to her and honors all that she feels. Acceptance helps her give up her obsessive preoccupation with the injury and need for revenge. It challenges her to see the offender and herself objectively and empathically. And it encourages her to re-engage with life.
Is Acceptance a good enough response to an interpersonal violation?
In my view, Acceptance is not only a good enough response, it is the only honest and healthy response when the offender can't or won't apologize. It is a process we enter into primarily to free ourselves from the trauma of an injury. The goal is not necessarily forgiveness. The goal is emotional resolution, the restoration of our best selves, the rekindling of meaning and value in our lives. I would add, however, that because Genuine Forgiveness requires the offender's caring involvement, it is likely to feel more deeply satisfying and complete than Acceptance.
How can Acceptance help us let go of the need for revenge but not our need for a just resolution?
Acceptance is inner-directed. Revenge is outer-directed. With Acceptance, we learn that what usually brings lasting satisfaction is not hurting someone but having our own hurt heard and validated. And that's unlikely to come from a recalcitrant offender, no matter how brutally we punish him. When we contain our obsessions, the offender becomes less important to us than we are to ourselves. With Acceptance, getting even becomes less important than getting well.
Is itpossible to stop hating someone who hurt us without forgiving him?
The process of Acceptance allows us to be merciful and feel empathy, even compassion, for the person who hurt us. We can see him as a flawed human being, treat him with unmerited benevolence, try to understand why he acted the way he did, and choose to maintain an ongoing relationship with him if that's in our best interest -- all without forgiving him.
How is Genuine Forgiveness achieved?
Genuine Forgiveness, as I define it, is a healing journey which the hurt party and offender make together. Genuine Forgiveness is no cheap pardon, no gratuitous gift from the heart of the hurt party. It must be earned by the offender.
How can the offender demonstrate a genuine, heart-felt desire to seek forgiveness?
In "How Can I Forgive You?, I spell out 6 cri
Review
“This book is a treasure trove for anyone who has ever felt betrayed or hurt by a personal relationship.” Peggy Papp, author of Couples on the Fault Line: New Directions for Therapists
Review
“A fresh and original approach to an ancient challenge.” Harville Hendrix, Ph.D., author of Getting the Love You Want
Review
“Clear, insightful…a thoughtful exposition on the nuanced role of forgiveness in relationships that goes beyond the average self-help book.” Publishers Weekly
Review
“Spring really shines.... Armed with her insights, offenders and those theyve offended have hope of recovery.” Bellingham Herald
Review
“A truly stellar book putting forgiveness in a new, revealing light and provides clear steps to turn wounds into wisdom.” Joan Borysenko, Ph.D., author of Minding the Body, Mending the Mind
Synopsis
The gifted therapist and bestselling author of "After the Affair" offers a radically new and unconventional approach to the critical question, "Should I Forgive?," opting for a middle ground between total forgiveness and not forgiving, an approach that enables the hurt party to maintain self-respect and get on with their lives.
Synopsis
"If you are struggling with issues of betrayal--or the challenge of whether and how to forgive--here is the most helpful and surprising book you will ever find on the subject."--Harriet Lerner, Ph.D., author of The Dance of Anger
Everyone is struggling to forgive someone: an unfaithful partner, an alcoholic parent, an ungrateful child, a terrorist. This award-winning book provides a radical way for hurt parties to heal themselves--without forgiving, as well as a way for offenders to earn genuine forgiveness.
Until now, we've been taught that forgiveness is good for us and that good people forgive. Dr. Janis Abrahms Spring, a gifted clinical psychologist and award-winning author of After the Affair, proposes a radical, life-affirming alternative that lets us overcome the corrosive effects of hate and get on with our lives--without forgiving. She also offers a powerful and unconventional model for earning genuine forgiveness--one that asks as much of the offender as it does of the hurt party.
Beautifully written and filled with insight, practical advice, and poignant case studies, this bold and healing book offers step-by-step, concrete instructions that help us make peace with others and ourselves, while answering such crucial questions as these:
How do I forgive someone who is unremorseful or dead?When is forgiveness cheap?Can I heal myself - without forgiving?How can the offender earn forgiveness?What makes for a good apology?How do we forgive ourselves for hurting another human being?
Synopsis
We have been taught that forgiveness is the only healthy, morally sound response to violation, and that it must be granted without conditions, even when the person who hurt us is unremorseful -- even when that person is dead.
In her long-awaited second book, the gifted therapist and bestselling author of After the Affair debunks these myths. Drawing on twenty-nine years as a clinical psychologist, Dr. Spring proposes a radically new, life-affirming alternative that lets us overcome the corrosive effects of hate and get on with our lives -- without forgiving. She also offers a powerful and unconventional model for genuine forgiveness -- one that asks as much of the offender as it asks of us. Forgiveness is no gratuitous gift, she argues. We can heal ourselves, but forgiveness must be earned.
How Can I Forgive You? answers such crucial questions as:
- How do I forgive someone who can't or won't apologize for hurting me?
- How do I reconcile with an unrepentant offender and maintain my self-respect?
- If I can't forgive, how do I putthe injury behind me?
- Is forgiveness my job alone, requiring nothing in return?
- When is forgiveness cheap, and when is it genuine?
- What can the offender do to earn forgiveness?
- How can I encourage the offender to seek my forgiveness?
- What is self-forgiveness? How do we achieve it?
This bold and healing book offers concrete, step-by-step instructions that help us to make peace with our partner, parent, sibling, child, in-law, or friend -- and with ourselves. Penetrating and beautifully written, How Can I Forgive You? is bound to change forever the way we think about forgiveness and how we recover from intimate wounds.
Synopsis
Includes bibliographical references (p. [229]-244) and index.
Synopsis
From bestselling author Janis Spring comes a long–awaited second book which tackles the sensitive issue of forgiveness with anecdotes and clinical case material. The topic of forgiveness is fast becoming one of the key concepts in psychotherapy. Until now, explains Spring, we have bought into the myth that forgiving is not only good for you but is the only morally sound response to violation. We believe that there are only two choices, to forgive or not, and that forgiveness is an unconditional gift that does not have to be earned by the offender. In
How Can I Forgive You?, Spring debunks these myths and offers a new way to think about this critical dynamic––illuminating a middle ground between total forgiveness and not forgiving, an approach that enables the hurt party to maintain self–respect and get on with their lives...
After years of observing people first hand in her clinical practice and witnessing their struggle to forgive and be forgiven, Spring has developed a model to help real people heal from real interpersonal injuries. She provides concrete, detailed, step–by stop instructions for both the hurt party and the offender. Spring explains that there are many options. You can refuse to forgive, which is empowering but leaves you stewing. You can offer cheap forgiveness, which happens when you ignore your pain and will do anything to preserve the relationship. Or you can take the healthier paths of acceptance and genuine forgiveness. In Acceptance, you cut your own path and walk alone. In Genuine Forgiveness, the offender clears a path and walks beside you.The clinical examples run from the petty to the serious to the profane – from a friend who forgets your birthday to a brother who refuses to help you take care of an elderly parent to a deliberate act of sexual abuse.
We are all struggling to forgive someone, and hate feeling ruptured in our significant relationships and fractured within ourselves. We are all searching for some new position that frees us from the corrosive effects of hate, gives voice to the injustice, and helps us to make peace with the person who hurt us and with ourselves. This book delivers some real answers to this critical interpersonal dilemma.
About the Author
Janis Abrahms Spring Ph.D., is a nationally acclaimed expert on issues of trust, intimacy, and forgiveness. A Diplomate inClinical Psychology and a recipient of the Connecticut Psychological Association's Award for Distinguished Contribution to the Practice of Psychology, she has served as a clinical supervisor in the Department of Psychology at Yale University. Her first book,
After the Affair: Healing the Pain and Rebuilding Trust When a Partner Has Been Unfaithful, has sold over 200,000 copies and is published in 12 countries.
Dr. Spring received her B.A. from Brandeis University, magna cum laude, her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Connecticut, and her post-graduate training from Aaron T. Beck, M.D., at the Center for Cognitive Therapy at the University of Pennsylvania. The richness and originality of her work make her a popular media guest and a prized presenter to both professional and lay audiences. In private practice for almost three decades, she resides in Westport, Connecticut. She and her husband, Michael Spring, have four sons.
Michael Spring is publisher of the Frommer's Travel Guides at John Wiley. He has a B.A. from Haverford College and an M.A. in English Literature from Columbia University.