Abstract
In the previous chapter, we saw how much our sense of self and our hope for the future are contingent on our relationships with those others who are an inspiration and a source of support in our lives. Whenever we are disillusioned by someone on whom we depend, our lives lose much of their meaning: we are no longer sure of who we are and the future becomes uncertain and unattractive. In the long run, we may come out of such crises with gains in the form of increased personal maturity and self-reliance. Yet, the more immediate consequences, such as grief, loss of confidence, and diminishment of the sense of one’s value as a person, are deeply felt. The stories in Chapter 2 involved significant breaches of trust or failure to live up to what most of us would regard as reasonable expectations. Surely, it is not peculiar to think that therapists should act professionally and in their clients’ best interest or that parents should care for their children.
“Human forgiveness is not doing something but discovering something—that I am more like those who have hurt me than different from them.”
John Patton1
“[Revenge] is dangerous, not because of what it does to your enemy, but because of what it does to you.”
Laura Blumenfeld2
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
John Patton, Is Human Forgiveness Possible? (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1985), 16.
Laura Blumenfeld, Revenge: A Story of Hope (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002), 126.
Steen Halling, “On Growing up as a Premodernist,” in Narrative Identities: Psychologists Engaged in Self-Construction, ed. George Yancy and Susan Hadley (Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley, 2005), 221.
Amedeo Giorgi, Psychology as a Human Science (New York: Harper and Row, 1970).
Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958).
Jan O. Rowe, Steen Halling, Michael Leifer, Emily Davies, Diane Powers, and Jeanne van Bronkhorst, “The Psychology of Forgiving Another: A Dialogal Research Approach,” Existential-Phenomenological Perspectives in Psychology, ed. Ronald S. Valle and Steen Halling (New York: Plenum, 1989)
Valerie Fortney, “Hate or Heal,” Chatelaine, August 1997: 54–57.
Part of what follows is taken from my article, “Embracing Human Fallibility: On Forgiving Oneself and Forgiving Others,” Journal of Religion and Health 33, no. 2 (1994): 107–114. I want to thank David Leeming, the journal’s editor, for permission to include it here.
J. Preston Cole, The Problematic Self in Kierkegaard and Freud (New Haven, CT; Yale University Press, 1971), 89.
Milo C. Milburn, “Forgiving Another: An Existential-Phenomenological Investigation” (PhD diss., Duquesne University, 1992), 177.
Gabriel Marcel, “Sketch of a Phenomenology and a Metaphysics of Hope,” in Homo Viator, trans. Emma Craufurd (New York: Harper and Row, 1962).
Leslie Farber, Ways of the Will (New York: Basic Books, 1966).
H. J. N. Horsburgh, “Forgiveness,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 4, no. 4 (1974): 271.
John Douglas Marshall, Reconciliation Road: A Family Odyssey of War and Honor (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2000).
Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, trans. Colin Smith (London: Routledge Kegan Paul, 1962), 420.
The earliest publication detailing the work and findings of this group was published in 1991: Robert D. Enright and the Human Development Group, “The Moral Development of Forgiveness,” in Handbook of Moral Behavior and Development, Vol. 1, ed. W. Kurtines and J. Gewirtz (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Earlbaum, 1991).
Robert D. Enright, Elizabeth A. Gassin, and Ching Ru-Wu, “Forgiveness: A Developmental View,” Journal of Moral Education 21, no. 2 (1992): 99–114.
Joanna North, “Wrongdoing and Forgiveness,” Philosophy 42 (1987): 506.
Robert D. Enright and Richard P. Fitzgibbons, Helping Clients Forgive: An Empirical Guide for Resolving Anger and Restoring Hope (Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association, 2000), 24.
Joanna North, “The Ideal of Forgiveness: A Philosopher’s Exploration,” in Exploring Forgiveness, ed. Robert D. Enright and Joanna North (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1998), 15–34.
Suzanne R. Freedman and Robert Enright, “Forgiveness as Intervention Goal with Incest Survivors,” Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 64, no. 5 (1996): 983–992.
Martin E. Seligman, Elaine Walker, and David L. Rosenhan, Abnormal Psychology, 4th ed. (New York: Norton, 2001).
M. E. McCullough and E. L. Worthington, Jr., “Models of Interpersonal Forgiveness and their Application to Counseling: Review and Critique,” Counseling and Values 39, no. 1 (1994): 4.
Elio Frattaroli, Healing the Soul in the Age of the Brain: Becoming Conscious in an Unconscious World (New York: Viking, 2001), 163.
William Barrett, The Illusion of Technique: A Search for Meaning in a Technological Civilization (Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1979).
Brian Keenan, An Evil Cradling (New York: Viking, 1993).
Copyright information
© 2008 Steen Halling
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Halling, S. (2008). Forgiving Another, Recovering One’s Future. In: Intimacy, Transcendence, and Psychology. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230610255_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230610255_4
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-0-230-61964-7
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-61025-5
eBook Packages: Palgrave Social & Cultural Studies CollectionSocial Sciences (R0)