El Perdon Desde Diferentes Enfoques

Forgiveness and Self-Forgiveness in Psychotherapy
University Press Scholarship Online
Oxford Scholarship Online
Before Forgiving: Cautionary Views of

Forgiveness in Psychotherapy
Sharon Lamb and Jeffrie G. Murphy
Print publication date: 2002

Print ISBN-13: 9780195145205
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2012
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195145205.001.0001
Forgiveness and Self-Forgiveness in

Psychotherapy
Margaret R. Holmgren
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195145205.003.0007
Abstract and Keywords

This chapter argues that genuine forgiveness and self-forgiveness are
always morally appropriate and desirable goals of psychotherapy for
those clients who are willing and able to achieve these states. It is
always desirable for the therapist to help his or her client work through
the process of addressing the wrong. Once this process is sufficiently
complete, but not before, it is also always desirable for the therapist to
help his or her client reach a state of genuine forgiveness or self-
forgiveness. This chapter starts with a brief examination of the moral
parameters of the therapist–client relationship. There is also no conflict
between counseling and global moral concerns in the area of
forgiveness. The chapter argues that when a client has suffered or
perpetrated a wrong, the first concern of the therapist must be to help
him or her work through the process of addressing that wrong. It is
concluded that genuine forgiveness and self-forgiveness are always
appropriate goals of psychotherapy for those clients who are willing
and able to obtain these states.
Keywords: genuine forgiveness, self-forgiveness, psychotherapy, therapist–client

relationship, counseling
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Universidad Nacional autonoma de Mexico(UNAM); date: 04 June 2018
Both forgiveness and self-forgiveness are now receiving significant

attention in the literature on counseling, and in my judgment, rightly
so. There is much to be said in favor of therapists helping their clients
to forgive themselves and others. Nevertheless, some authors have
raised questions about the appropriateness of forgiveness and self-
forgiveness, both in general and in psycho therapeutic practice. Jeffrie
Murphy (2002), in particular, has raised important questions about
whether therapists should always help their clients to forgive and self-
forgive. (All further references to Murphy in this chapter are to this
work.) With regard to interpersonal forgiveness, he asks whether there
are cases in which the client would be better off and exhibit more self-
respect if he were to maintain a posture of resentment toward the
offender, or cases in which the wrong done to the client is so heinous
that it is simply unforgivable. With regard to self-forgiveness, he asks
whether there may be cases in which the clients wrong is so extreme
that self-forgiveness would be morally inappropriate. In cases of this
sort, he also questions whether the therapist, who supposedly acts for
the benefit of the client, should advocate self-forgiveness anyway, to
improve the client's state of mind.
These questions are important. They are also complex, as answers to

them require an understanding of both the morality of forgiveness and
the moral parameters of the therapist-client relationship. The
conclusion that Murphy reaches with regard to interpersonal
forgiveness is that no universal prescription can be given. In some
cases it will be appropriate for the therapist to help the client to
forgive, and in other cases it will not. With regard to self-forgiveness,
he seems to adopt a similar position. In some cases it will be
appropriate for the therapist to advocate self-forgiveness, but in other
cases, when the violation is especially serious, it may be wrong for the
therapist to encourage the client to forgive himself, even if the client's
state of mind could be improved in this manner.
(p.113) In this chapter I offer a different set of answers to these

questions. I argue that genuine forgiveness and self-forgiveness are
those clients who are willing and able to achieve these states. However,
it is important to recognize that these states can generally be attained
only after we have worked through a process of addressing the wrong.
If we attempt to forgive ourselves or another prematurely, before the
necessary work has been done, our forgiveness will be incompatible
with our self-respect and respect for others. It will therefore be morally
inappropriate. Further, it will not be genuine. Clearly there is a moral
imperative for the therapist to respect her client's autonomy, and
therefore she is limited in her work with the client by what the client is
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willing to do. There may also be real limitations as to what the client is
able to do. But I argue that within these limitations, it is always
desirable for the therapist to help her client work through the process
of addressing the wrong. Once this process is sufficiently complete, but
not before, it is also always desirable for the therapist to help her client
to reach a state of genuine forgiveness or self-forgiveness.
The Therapist-Client Relationship

In order to determine whether therapists ought to help their clients to
forgive or self-forgive, it is necessary to have some understanding of
what therapists ought and ought not do in their work with clients. Let
us begin, then, with a brief examination of the moral parameters of the
therapist-client relationship that bear on our discussion.
First, the therapist has an obligation to respect her client's autonomy.

As autonomous moral agents, we all have both the right and the
responsibility to determine which attitudes we will adopt and which
decisions we will make (provided, in the latter case, that we respect the
rights of others as we do so). The client, then, must make the final
decisions about what kinds of attitudes and behaviors he will adopt and
about what kind of work he will do in therapy. Some clients will enter
therapy with specific short-term goals that do not include fully
addressing a wrong, and others who have no specific agenda may
simply be unwilling to address a given wrong or to consider the
possibility of forgiveness. The therapist will be limited in her work with
the client by his decisions on these matters. But to the extent that the
client is genuinely open to the therapist's guidance, she can help him to
shape his own attitudes, decisions, and behavior patterns.
Second, the therapist has an obligation to act as an advocate for her

client and to draw on her professional resources to promote his
welfare. The therapist is a healthcare provider and as such enters into a
fiduciary relationship with the client that is similar in most respects to
the physician-patient relationship. Beauchamp and Childress (1994)
describe the latter as follows: “The patient-physician relationship is a
fiduciary relationship—that is, founded on trust and confidence; and the
physician is therefore necessarily a (p.114) trustee for the patient's
medical welfare” (p. 430). In the same vein, Daniels (1985) says, “The
physician is seen as having entered into a relationship with a specific
patient which binds him to acting in the best interests of the
patient” (p. 135).
Fiduciary relationships are distinct from contractual relationships. In

contractual relationships the provider of a product or service is only
required to supply the consumer with what he asks for, at the price they
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have agreed upon. Contractual relationships are considered morally

insufficient when there is reason to believe that the provider could take
unfair advantage of the consumer if she were only required to give him
what he requests—for example, in cases in which the provider
possesses specialized knowledge not possessed by the consumer and in
which the consumer is in a vulnerable position. Fiduciary relationships
make possible the provision of services that can take place only in an
atmosphere of trust. Psychotherapy in particular requires a high level
of trust between the therapist and client if it is to be successful, and
this level of trust can only be maintained if the client is convinced that
the therapist is centrally committed to the client's best interest.
In promoting the client's best interests, then, the therapist is

responsible for doing more than simply giving the client what he wants.
She is expected to draw on her professional resources to give him
direction as to how his welfare can be enhanced. Just as the physician
is the trustee of the patient's physical health, the therapist is the
trustee of the client's mental health. But what, exactly, is good mental
health? Murphy identifies what he takes to be the goal of counseling
(presumably good mental health) in the following passage: “I assume
that counseling in general has as its goal improving the lives and
functioning of clients—making them more viable in the primary areas
(if Freud was right) of work and love. The ideal, I suppose, is that they
should become happy, or at least, to cite Freud again, that their
neurotic incapacitating anxieties should be replaced by ordinary
unhappiness” (Murphy, 2002, p. 42). Given this conception of the goals
of therapy, Murphy later suggests that there might be “a general
tension between counseling (as client-centered) and philosophy (as
truth/rationality-centered)—or at least a tension between counseling
and global moral concerns” (p. 50). He points out that this kind of
tension could arise if the client could be made happier, more viable, or
less anxious by adopting a morally inappropriate or philosophically
indefensible attitude or belief. For example, it could arise if a client
would be less anxious and more functional in the areas of work and love
if he were to forgive himself for a very serious wrong, when self-
forgiveness in this case may be morally inappropriate.
These remarks raise an interesting question that should be explored in

much more depth than I can undertake here. However, I am inclined to
believe that a conflict between counseling and global moral concerns
will arise only if we adopt a shallow and inadequate conception of
mental health. Even with regard to physical health, the substantial
majority of authors have agreed that the concepts of health and disease
are inherently value-laden. We cannot define physical health without
reference to the value we place on various (p.115) types of physical
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functioning. It should be even more clear that the concept of mental

health is inherently value-laden. We cannot define mental health
without reference to the value we place on various attitudes and
behavior patterns, or on various mental orientations toward the world.
Mental health is not easy to define, and I do not want to attempt a

definition until I have acquired more of this commodity myself.
However, it seems clearly mistaken to define mental health simply in
terms of the reduction of anxieties and the enhancement of viability in
the areas of work and love. Suppose there is a man who experiences
chronic anxiety and performs poorly at work because he is afraid of
being fired. He finds that he can reduce his anxiety and improve his
performance if he robs convenience stores to build a cash reserve, and
if he relieves his stress by verbally abusing his wife on the phone at
regular intervals during the day. We would not describe such an
individual as mentally healthy, nor would any therapist support this
program as enhancing her client's psychological welfare. The
inescapable fact is that we are moral agents, and functioning well
means, at a minimum, functioning in accordance with our basic moral
obligations, and with attitudes that are at least minimally decent from a
moral point of view.
In considering what constitutes her client's welfare, then, the therapist

must respect her client as a moral agent. She does not promote his
welfare by supporting him in morally unworthy actions and attitudes,
however “therapeutic” they may be, any more than a parent promotes a
child's welfare by supporting him in morally unworthy actions and
attitudes. To respect her client's autonomy, the therapist must refrain
from imposing her values on him and she must respect the limits he
sets on what he is willing to do in the course of his therapy. But to the
extent that the client is willing and receptive, a good therapist will
encourage the client (either directly or indirectly) to respect himself as
a moral agent. She will help him to develop and refine his own moral
attitudes and to comply with his basic moral obligations. Further, she
will do so in a nonjudgmental manner that conveys respect for the
client and concern for his welfare and that does not undermine his trust
in the relationship.
A third obligation for the therapist is to respect her own moral integrity.
She must be true to her own moral beliefs and refuse to undertake a
course of action that she considers to be immoral. If she believes that it
is wrong to (p.116) bring a perpetrator of incest to a state of self-
forgiveness, then she ought not do so. In this case, however, she owes it
to clients to explain her position to them at the earliest appropriate
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point in their association, and it might be best if she could avoid

working with this segment of the population. (I will argue below that a
clear-headed therapist will not encounter this problem.)
Finally, although their primary responsibility is to promote their clients'

welfare, therapists also have specialized knowledge and experience
that put them in a unique position to contribute to society as a whole. It
is morally desirable for society to consult therapists regarding
practices, policies, and general attitudes that will be beneficial to
society as a whole from the point of view of mental health. It is also
desirable from a moral point of view for therapists to consider these
issues, and to support those practices that will enhance the general
welfare.
To summarize, then, the therapist has a fiduciary relationship with the

client in which she acts as his advocate. She respects his autonomy by
honoring his boundaries concerning what he is willing to do in therapy
and by recognizing that he must make his own decisions and determine
his own attitudes. Within these bounds, she draws on her professional
resources to help the willing and receptive client make decisions and
develop attitudes that best promote his mental health. This includes
helping the client to respect himself as a moral agent. The therapist is
also obligated to maintain her own moral integrity, and it is desirable
for her to give some thought to the general practices and attitudes that
will be most beneficial to society as a whole. In the remainder of the
paper, I will argue that therapists can meet these responsibilities by
helping willing and able clients to work through a process of addressing
the wrongs they have suffered or perpetrated, and then by helping
them to forgive or self-forgive.
Internal Preparation for Forgiveness and Self-forgiveness: The

Process of Addressing the Wrong
My contention is that genuine forgiveness and self-forgiveness are
those clients who are willing and able to achieve them. However, it is
important to recognize that these states can generally be attained only
after we have worked through a process of addressing the wrong. It is
at this point that both caution and clarity about forgiveness are
required. If we attempt to forgive ourselves or others prematurely,
before the necessary work has been done, our forgiveness will be
incompatible with our self-respect and therefore morally inappropriate.
It will be detrimental to ourselves and others, and it will not be
genuine. I argue in this section that when a client has suffered or
perpetrated a wrong, the first concern of the therapist must be to help
him work through the process of addressing that wrong. At the same
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time, she must help him to avoid the pitfalls of premature forgiveness
or self-forgiveness by encouraging him not to forgive or self-forgive
until this process is sufficiently complete. By (p.117) proceeding in
this manner, the therapist promotes her client's welfare, enhances his
self-respect, and respects his moral agency. She also helps to lay a
foundation that will enable him to attain a state of genuine forgiveness
or self-forgiveness. Let us consider interpersonal forgiveness and self-
forgiveness in turn.
Forgiveness
Bishop Joseph Butler (1986) explicates interpersonal forgiveness as the
forswearing of resentment toward the offender. He describes what it is
to forgive someone as follows: “to be affected towards the injurious
person in the same way any good men, uninterested in the case, would
be if they had the same just sense, which we suppose the injured
person to have, of the wrong, after which there will yet remain real
goodwill towards the offender.” The person who forgives, then,
transcends his initial attitude of resentment toward the offender and
replaces it with an attitude of “real goodwill,” in which he extends
respect, compassion, and understanding to the offender and genuinely
wishes the offender well.
A brief comment is in order about the type of respect to be extended to

the offender when we reach a state of forgiveness. We sometimes use
the term respect to indicate a type of admiration. For example, we may
respect or admire an outstanding musician, a person who exhibits great
courage, or simply a person who does the right thing in a difficult
situation. Offenders clearly do not warrant this type of respect for their
offensive actions, and some of them will not be people we respect in
this sense from a more general perspective. The type of respect at issue
in forgiveness is the Kantian notion of respect for persons. According to
Kant, all persons have intrinsic value and warrant respect in virtue of
the fact that we are autonomous rational beings. We are moral agents,
capable of moral choice, growth, and awareness, and as such we
warrant fundamental respect for our personhood regardless of the
actions we have performed and the attitudes we have adopted. Some
people may suffer from mental illnesses or other conditions that
actually render them incapable of moral choice. These individuals are
not responsible for their hurtful behavior any more than someone who
inadvertently strikes us in the middle of an epileptic seizure is
responsible for her injurious behavior. Although we may have some
work to do in adjusting to our injury, we do not properly speak of
forgiving individuals in these cases. In order to be a candidate for
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forgiveness, an individual must be a moral agent, and as such will

warrant Kantian respect for his or her personhood. Throughout this
paper, I will be using the term respect in the Kantian sense.
In some cases it may be appropriate for a client not to experience any

initial resentment when he is harmed—such as cases in which the
wrong is trivial, or in which the client has reached an advanced level of
compassion for others. But in the large majority of cases that will arise
in therapy, the client who has been harmed will have work to do in
addressing the incident of (p.118) wrongdoing. For the purposes of
discussion, this work can be described in terms of discrete tasks.
However, the therapist's work with the client is unlikely to proceed in
such an orderly, discrete fashion. Nor need any of this work be
explicitly directed toward having the client forgive the offender. I am
not a therapist, but I would imagine that it would often be better not to
discuss forgiveness with the client until most, if not all, of this work has
been done. The manner in which the therapist proceeds to help the
client address his victimization and the point at which she introduces
the subject of forgiveness are clinical judgments that are best left to the
therapist. I only want to suggest that the following tasks need to be
completed if the client is to respect himself and truly forgive his
offender.
First, the client who has been wrongfully injured must recover his self-
respect and recognize that the act perpetrated against him was wrong.
As Murphy points out, every act of wrongdoing carries with it the
implicit message that the victim does not warrant a full measure of
respect. In Murphy's words, the message is, “I count and you do not,
and I may use you as a mere thing” (p. 44). The first undertaking for
the therapist, then, is to help the client understand and appreciate the
fact that he is a valuable person who deserves to be treated well and
that the offensive behavior was not his fault. She must help him to
recognize that the act perpetrated against him was wrong and to
understand why it was wrong.
Murphy raises some important questions about how the therapist might
work with the client to help him establish his self-respect after the
incident of wrongdoing. He recognizes that some clients derive self-
respect from the religious belief that they are precious children of God,
and that these clients may be able to overcome resentment toward an
offender more quickly than others. But he asks whether this belief is
rational and whether it should be presupposed by the therapist. He also
asks how the therapist should counsel “those who lack such a religious
vision and instead get their self-esteem in more secular ways, that is, in
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ways that are dependent to a nontrivial degree on how they are treated
by others” (p. 45).
Clearly the therapist should not presuppose that her client believes that
he is a precious child of God. Many clients do not. If the client does
happen to hold this belief, I see no reason why the therapist should not
draw on it to help him secure his self-respect. The therapist's job is not
to debate with the client the rationality of highly controversial
philosophical beliefs. Instead, her goal should be to promote the client's
welfare and to honor him as an autonomous being who must establish
his own belief system. However, it is important to recognize that even if
the client has no religious beliefs, there are many things the therapist
can say to him to help him secure his self-respect. She can point out
that he need not ground his self-respect in other people's attitudes
toward him. Other people's attitudes and opinions vary radically, and
they are often distorted by ignorance, prejudice, self-interest,
substance abuse, mental illness, and a variety of other factors. Ex
hypothesi, the wrongdoer's attitude toward the client was distorted; he
did not deserve to be treated as the offender treated him. The therapist
can help him to understand (p.119) why this was so. She can suggest
to him that all persons warrant equal concern and respect and have
certain rights that ought not be violated by others, further insisting that
the offender had no right to harm him. She can suggest to him that he
has as much right to be on the planet as any other person, and that his
needs, feelings, and interests matter very much. (These beliefs should
pass any test of philosophical rationality.) If the client is psychologically
incapable of grounding his self-esteem in anything other than other
people's attitudes toward him, the therapist can at least encourage him
to detach from the wrongdoer's defective attitude and to take more
seriously the attitudes of other persons who have recognized his worth
and treated him well.
In any case, the therapist who helps the client to establish his self-
respect after an act of victimization clearly promotes his welfare. It is
important for him to have an accurate view of his own status as a
person and to understand that he has certain rights that others must
honor. It is equally important for her to encourage him not to forgive
until he appreciates these points. As Murphy points out, it is bad for
people to be rendered content in their victimization. If the client
forgives his offender thinking that his interests really do not matter and
that he probably deserved the treatment he received, then his
forgiveness is incompatible with his self-respect and therefore morally
inappropriate. Further, in this case his forgiveness is not genuine, as he
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is condoning the wrong rather than truly forgiving the offender for
having committed it.
Second, it is important for the client to acknowledge his feelings about

the incident. The client who has been wrongfully harmed is likely to
have a variety of legitimate emotional responses to the incident of
wrongdoing—grief over his loss, anger toward the offender, feelings of
betrayal, and other emotions, depending on the circumstances. It is
important to his healing process that he allow himself to experience
these feelings. (Other emotional responses, such as shame, self-
loathing, excessive rage toward the offender, etc., will obviously not
play the same role in the healing process.) The next job for the
therapist, then, is to help the client to identify his feelings and to
validate them, where appropriate, as normal, legitimate reactions to his
victimization. These feelings serve to connect him with the reality of
what has happened to him and to appreciate more fully the true nature
of the wrong. The client's welfare and self-respect will be enhanced if
he is honest about how he feels and if his feelings are validated. For a
variety of reasons, the client may want to shut down his feelings and
attempt to forgive his offender immediately. For example, he may
believe that he has a duty to forgive or that forgiving the offender is the
virtuous or Christian thing to do. He may believe that it is wrong for
him to be angry at his father or mother, or at anyone at all. On some
level, forgiving his offender may seem psychologically easier than
experiencing his grief and anger in all of its intensity, or he may fear
the consequences of acknowledging his true feelings. It is important for
the therapist to encourage the client to avoid this sort of premature
forgiveness. Not only does the client treat himself in a psychologically
destructive manner by shutting down his emotions, he also fails to
respect himself by deceiving himself (p.120) about how he actually
feels and by discounting his emotions as invalid and insignificant. This
type of forgiveness is morally inappropriate, then, to the extent that it
is incompatible with the client's self-respect. It is also not genuine
forgiveness. To forgive is not to refuse to recognize one's negative
feelings toward the offender. Instead it is to experience an actual
change of heart in which these negative feelings are overcome and
replaced on a spontaneous level by an attitude of real goodwill. If the
client shuts his feelings down, he will not experience the true internal
resolution of the issue that genuine forgiveness requires.
Third, it may be important for the client to express his beliefs and
feelings to the offender. He may need to tell the offender that it is not
acceptable for him to be treated in this manner, that he feels hurt and
angry about the incident, and so on. If the client does feel a need to
speak to his offender, then it is important that he do so, unless this
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course of action would be harmful to himself or others. At this point,

the therapist can help the client to make a good decision about whether
to confront his offender, suggest to him different ways of expressing
himself, and help him prepare for the various possible responses. If
direct communication with the offender is not a good idea, she can also
suggest psychotherapeutic techniques that can be practiced in a safe
setting to help the client meet the needs that would have been served
by direct communication. The therapist who helps the client in this
manner clearly enhances his welfare and self-respect. Again, it is
important for the therapist to encourage the client not to forgive until
he has addressed this issue. If the client withholds something he needs
to say, he fails to respect himself and fails to achieve the true internal
Fourth, the client faces the task of assessing his situation with respect
to the offender, and the therapist promotes his welfare and self-respect
by helping him to do so. The offender may have attitudes and behavior
patterns that are likely to injure the client again in the future, and it is
critical for the client to determine what steps he needs to take to
protect himself from further victimization. It is also important for the
client to take his own need for rewarding personal relationships
seriously. If he has a personal relationship with the offender, he needs
to consider whether there is a significant problem in the relationship
that should be addressed or whether the relationship should be
redefined or terminated. If the client is concerned about forgiveness at
this stage of the therapy, the therapist can help him to understand that
he can forgive the offender and at the same time decide to restrict or
end the relationship between them. For example, a client could forgive
his wife for repeated acts of verbal abuse and still decide to divorce her.
He can understand the pressures that lead to her wrongful behavior,
regard her with respect, continue to love her, and wish her the best, but
at the same time decide that he no longer wishes to live in this manner.
Here again, the therapist must encourage the client not to forgive until
he completes this task. If he forgives the offender without considering
his own needs for protection and rewarding personal relationships, he
acts against his (p.121) own best interests and fails to respect himself.
Further, his forgiveness will not be genuine. By forgiving the offender
blindly hoping that things will be different in the future, he extends an
attitude of real goodwill to the person he hopes the offender will
become rather than to the offender as she actually is, as genuine
forgiveness requires.
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Finally, the client may face the task of determining whether he wants to
seek restitution from the offender or to press criminal charges.
Although restitution from the offender does not obviate the need for the
client to work through his own internal healing process concerning the
incident and cannot generate the same kinds of rewards, there will be
some cases in which he is owed material compensation for his loss. As
the client's advocate, the therapist can help him to understand in this
type of situation that he has been wrongfully harmed and is owed
restitution. To the extent that he is receptive, she can also encourage
him to respect himself as a moral agent and to weigh objectively his
own needs, the situation of the wrongdoer, and, when criminal charges
are at issue, the needs of society as he makes these decisions. By
helping him to recognize what he is entitled to and to make a morally
sound decision, she promotes his welfare and enhances his self-respect.
Again, if the client attempts to forgive before he addresses this issue,
he fails to respect himself and fails to achieve the true internal
We have just seen that the client who has been wrongfully harmed must
generally work through a process of responding to the wrong. The
therapist who works to promote her client's best interests and to
enhance his self-respect will help him to complete this process. At the
same time, she will help her client to avoid the pitfalls of forgiving his
offender before this process is sufficiently complete. Not only does the
therapist enhance her client's welfare and self-respect by helping him
in this manner, she also makes it possible for him to attain a state of
genuine forgiveness, in which he attains a true internal resolution of
the incident of wrongdoing without deceiving himself about any aspect
of the wrong and without evading any of the issues he needs to address
as a result of it. Further, throughout this process, the therapist honors
the client as a moral agent by helping him to develop a morally
appropriate respect for himself, as well as a basic respect for others.
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Self-forgiveness
The client who has wrongfully harmed another must also work through
a process of addressing the wrong if he is to respect himself and attain
a state of genuine self-forgiveness. This process is parallel to the
process outlined previously and may be explained more briefly. It
should again be understood that the way in which the therapist helps
the client to achieve these results and the point at which she introduces
the topic of self-forgiveness are clinical judgments that are best left to
the therapist. For a client who feels very guilty about his offense, it may
be best for the therapist to introduce the idea of self-forgiveness (p.
122) at the outset. A different approach will probably be indicated for
a client who is cavalier about the offense or who fails to recognize that
it was wrong. If the client feels terrible about himself and is overcome
by guilt, the therapist must help him to recover enough self-esteem to
address the tasks that follow. If he happens to hold this belief, she can
remind him that he is still a precious child of God in spite of what he
has done. In any case, she can tell him that he retains his intrinsic
worth as a person, that all human beings make mistakes, and that it is
possible for him to proceed with dignity and self-respect to address the
wrong to the best of his ability.
In addressing the offense, the client must first acknowledge to himself

that the act was wrong and take full responsibility (where warranted)
for having committed it. Further, he must recognize why the act was
wrong and acknowledge to himself the victim's status as a person. It is
important for him to understand that the victim has a moral status
equal to his own, that she has her own needs, feelings, aspirations, and
vulnerabilities, and that it was wrong for him to harm her. The therapist
who helps her client perform this task acts in his best interest, provided
that she proceeds in a nonjudgmental manner that exhibits genuine
respect for the client and concern for the quality of his healing around
this incident. There are two types of clients who might be inclined to
forgive themselves without acknowledging the true nature of the
wrong. The first is a client who is generally decent, but who rationalizes
his behavior in an attempt to avoid responsibility for the particular act
in question. A client who engages in premature self-forgiveness of this
sort fails to respect himself by engaging in self-deception. He also
deprives himself of the level of self-respect and healing that he could
attain by honestly acknowledging the wrong, addressing it to the best
of his ability, and then truly forgiving himself for having committed it.
Here the therapist shows respect for the client and promotes his
interests by drawing his attention to the fact that he is rationalizing.
(Recall that in a fiduciary relationship the therapist draws on her
Page 13 of 30
professional knowledge to promote her client's best interests, rather

than simply giving him what he asks for.)
The second type of client is capable of dismissing wrong acts from his
mind because he simply does not care that they are wrong. A client of
this sort will be more difficult to work with, and again, the therapist is
limited in her work by what the client is willing to do. However, to the
extent that the client is receptive, the therapist promotes his interests if
she can get him to respect himself as a moral agent and take
responsibility for his own wrongdoing. The client will develop more
fully as a person, have better interactions with others, and attain a
higher level of self-respect if he can be helped to recognize himself as a
moral being. In either case, the client who forgives himself before he
acknowledges the nature of the wrong fails to attain a state of genuine
self-forgiveness, since he condones his wrong rather than truly
forgiving himself for having committed it.
Second, the client must acknowledge the feelings that arise for him in
connection with his offense—compassion for the victim, grief that he
has injured (p.123) her, guilt, revulsion toward the wrong and the
attitudes that led to it, and so on. Again, it is important to distinguish
between these legitimate emotional responses to the wrong and other
inappropriate and destructive feelings the client may have, such as
intense hatred for himself as opposed to revulsion toward his behavior
and attitudes. The client's legitimate feelings serve to connect him with
the reality of what he has done, and it is important that he allow
himself to experience them. The therapist promotes his welfare by
helping him to look at the incident of wrongdoing without shutting
these feelings down and by providing support for him as he does so. If
he attempts to forgive himself without acknowledging his feelings
about the wrong, he will not attain the true internal resolution of the
incident that genuine self-forgiveness requires.
The third task for the client is to address the beliefs, attitudes, and
behavior patterns that led to the offense. If he fails to do so, it is likely
that he will perform a similar act in the future. Again, the therapist who
helps the client to do this work serves his best interests. He will be
better off if he learns to meet his own needs in a manner that is more
functional and compatible with his self-respect. Here again, it is
important for the therapist to encourage the client not to self-forgive
before he makes a good-faith effort in this regard. If he ignores his
problematic attitudes and behavior patterns, he is almost certain to
experience more guilt and grief in the future. Premature self-
forgiveness of this sort is not only incompatible with respect for both
himself and others, it also fails to constitute genuine self-forgiveness.
Page 14 of 30
The incident will not be over for the client if he ignores the source of
his problematic behavior, and he will not attain the true internal
resolution that genuine self-forgiveness requires.
The final task for the client is to make amends for the wrong. He must
express his sincere regret for his wrong to the victim unless a direct
apology would do her more harm than good. He must also offer
restitution for any harm he has wrongfully inflicted on her or on others
in the course of his wrongdoing. It is important for the client to consult
the victim to find out what she needs or wants in terms of
compensation for her loss. It is also important that he be honest with
himself about how much compensation he owes. He must not
shortchange the victim, but he must also not allow himself to be taken
advantage of, humiliated, or degraded in the process of making
restitution. The focus of restitution should be a positive contribution to
the victim's life that compensates her as nearly as possible for the loss
she has suffered. If it is beyond the client's ability to make full
restitution for the wrong in the course of his life, then he must simply
make a good-faith effort to do what can reasonably be expected of him
under the circumstances.
Although the client may not want to make restitution and may suffer a
material setback if he does so, he has a moral obligation to compensate
the victim for the harm he has wrongfully inflicted on her. To the extent
that the client is willing and receptive, and to the extent that she can do
so without undermining the client's trust in her, it is important for the
therapist to (p.124) encourage the client to respect himself as a moral
agent and honor his moral obligation. Not only does this course of
action enhance his self-respect at the deepest level, it also allows him to
experience a true internal release from the incident. If he forgives
himself before he apologizes to the victim and commits himself to the
course of action he needs to undertake to make restitution, his self-
forgiveness is incompatible with respect for himself and for the victim.
Further, the incident will not be over for him and he will not achieve the
true internal resolution of it that genuine forgiveness requires.
Like the client who has suffered a wrong, then, the client who has
perpetrated a wrong must work through a process of addressing the
incident in question. The therapist who is concerned to promote her
client's welfare and enhance his self-respect will help him to complete
this process. She will also help him to avoid the pitfalls of forgiving
himself before this process is sufficiently complete. By doing so, she
makes it possible for him to reach a state of genuine self-forgiveness in
which he attains a true internal resolution of the incident without
deceiving himself about any aspect of the wrong and without evading
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any of the issues he needs to address in connection with it. Throughout

this process the therapist encourages the client to respect himself as a
moral agent. She helps him to honor his moral obligations and to
develop a morally appropriate respect for himself and others. In this
way she helps to lay a solid foundation for him to attain lasting peace of
mind and to feel truly good about himself.
Genuine Forgiveness and Self-forgiveness as Goals of

Psychotherapy
We have seen that the therapist can best meet her fiduciary obligations
to the client by helping the willing and able client to work through a
process of addressing the wrong and by encouraging the client not to
forgive or self-forgive until this process is sufficiently complete. Once
this process is complete, the client has done what he needs to do to
address the wrong. He can then step back and look objectively at the
offender, whether himself or another. He can recognize that the
offender retains his intrinsic value as a person in spite of what he has
done and that he struggles with various needs, pressures, and
confusions (as we all do), some of which may have been quite intense.
He can come to understand why the offender did what he did, regard
him with respect and compassion, and extend to him an attitude of real
goodwill. At this point, if this perspective actually produces a change of
heart in the client, he will have attained a state of genuine forgiveness
or self-forgiveness. In this section I argue that genuine forgiveness and
self-forgiveness are always appropriate goals of psychotherapy for
those clients who are willing and able to achieve these states. Genuine
forgiveness and self-forgiveness are always in the best interest of the
client, and they are always appropriate and desirable from a moral
point of view. Thus the therapist can maintain her own moral integrity
and at the same time promote her client's welfare by (p.125) helping
him to forgive himself or his offender. Let us again consider
interpersonal forgiveness and self-forgiveness in turn.
Page 16 of 30
Forgiveness
The client who reaches a state of genuine forgiveness will realize
several benefits. He will benefit from the freedom and peace of mind he
gains when the incident of wrongdoing is over for him and no longer
rides on his mind. Making the transition from a traumatized, resentful
victim to a person who is at peace and free of the past will also allow
him to focus more effectively on his own positive pursuits. As a result,
his life will be enriched and his self-esteem will be strengthened. If the
client's offender is a family member or close friend, he will benefit from
the release of conflict in the relationship and from being able to
experience a more unadulterated love for the individual in question.
Further, Enright's studies suggest that he will experience decreases in
anxiety and depression and increases in self-esteem when he forgives
(Enright, 1996). By way of contrast, living with a deep-seated or
pervasive resentment for the offender will be debilitating for the client.
His attention will be (at least partially) focused on the offender's
wrongdoing rather than on his own positive pursuits, drawing him off
center and infringing on his personal growth. He will have to live with
anger and pain concerning the incident, and with ill will toward the
offender. He will feel a lack of resolution about the incident, and he may
become stuck in a victim mentality, in which he sees himself as
relatively powerless and subject to persecution by others.
Although the client stands to benefit from forgiving in all these ways, it
is important that he not sacrifice his self-respect in order to forgive the
offender. As we saw before, Murphy recognizes that the act of
wrongdoing conveys the following degrading message to the victim: “I
count and you do not, and I may use you as a mere thing.” He goes on
to say “Resentment of the wrongdoer is one way that a victim may
evince, emotionally, that he or she does not endorse this degrading
message; and this is how resentment may be tied to self-respect. This
does not mean that the self-respecting person will never forgive; but it
does mean that such a person might make forgiveness contingent on
some change in the wrongdoer—typically repentance—that shows that
the wrongdoer no longer endorses the degrading message contained in
the injury” (p. 44). Murphy concedes that in some cases clients may be
able to forgive unrepentant offenders without sacrificing their self-
respect. However, he believes that there are other cases in which
failure to resent is inconsistent with the client's self-respect, and that
these cases “should be troubling to uncritical boosters for universal
forgiveness” (p. 45).
Page 17 of 30
The uncritical boosters for universal forgiveness he has in mind seem to

be Robert Enright and myself. However, I believe that Murphy and I are
more in agreement than he recognizes. I am not an uncritical booster
for universal forgiveness; I am an uncritical booster for unconditional
genuine forgiveness. I believe that forgiveness is always appropriate
and desirable from a moral (p.126) point of view after one has worked
through the process of addressing the wrong, but not before. As I argue
above and have argued before, forgiving the offender before one has
completed this process will be incompatible with one's self-respect and
therefore morally inappropriate. It will also fail to constitute genuine
forgiveness.
Two of the cases that concern Murphy are cases that I have already
discussed, and cases that we fully agree upon. First, I agree completely
with Murphy that a situation is made worse, not better, when people
are rendered content in their victimization. As I have argued, it is
important that an individual not forgive his offender until he recognizes
his own status as a person and recognizes that the act perpetrated
against him was wrong. And second, I agree completely with Murphy
that battered women should not forgive their offenders only to return to
them for further abuse. Again, I have argued that an individual ought
not forgive her offender until she has determined the steps she needs to
take to protect herself and until she has considered her need for
rewarding personal relationships. The client who has worked through
the process of addressing the wrong will have completed these tasks
and will not engage in premature forgiveness of this sort.
Are there cases in which a client who has worked through the process
described above would compromise his self-respect by forgiving the
offender? I have argued that maintaining a posture of resentment after
one has completed this process assigns far too much power and
importance to the wrongdoer's confused opinions, and in doing so takes
power away from the victim and undermines his self-respect. Enright
has made a similar argument. Murphy responds as follows: “But surely
this is not always the case. If the offender greatly wants to be forgiven
by me and I am not much interested in forgiving him—at least until he
repents—then it seems to me that in this case the balance of power is in
my favor and not in favor of the offender” (p. 47).
There is a sense in which Murphy is correct. If the client chooses to

engage in an external power struggle with the offender, he may well
gain the upper hand by refusing to forgive. But the question for the
therapist and the client to consider here is whether it promotes the
client's best interests and enhances his self-respect to engage in this
type of power struggle. I would submit that the therapist does not
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promote her client's welfare or self-respect if she encourages him to

spend his time and energy on such a pursuit. A power struggle of this
sort focuses the client's thought and energy on the fact that the
offender failed to respect him and did something wrong. It makes the
wrongdoer's confused opinions and bad behavior the center of the
client's attention. It further orients the client toward using resentment
and rejection to manipulate the offender into acknowledging his worth,
or at least toward attempting to dominate the offender in some way.
These orientations will not enrich the client's life or serve him in any
manner after he has completed the process of addressing the wrong,
and the client does not evince a high level of self-respect by adopting
them. The therapist can truly empower the client and enhance his self-
respect by encouraging him to step back from the power struggle with
the offender. She can encourage the client to stop reacting to the (p.
127) wrongdoer's disparaging message about his lack of worth, and to
take the more proactive stance of developing his own assessment of the
incident. The client who has worked through the process just described
will know that he is valuable and deserves to be treated well, and that
the wrongdoer's actions and attitudes were inappropriate. If he then
drops the focus on the wrong actions and attitudes and starts to think
carefully about the wrongdoer as a person, he will recognize that the
incident of wrongdoing really was not about him and his supposed lack
of worth in the first place. Instead, it was about the wrongdoer's
misguided attempts to meet her own needs. If the client looks at the
offender with understanding, respect, and compassion, he will
recognize that there is no need to engage in a power struggle of any
kind. He can honor his own needs by maintaining healthy boundaries
with the offender, and at the same time extend to the offender an
attitude of real goodwill.
Murphy offers a story that may help us to fix these ideas more clearly.
The story is about Ralph, who was repeatedly sexually abused by his
father when he was young. As an adult attempting to cope with the past
abuse, Ralph changed his last name and broke off relations with his
father. After years of separation, Ralph's father, without expressing any
remorse for the serious harm he inflicted on Ralph, requests reentry
into Ralph's life. His motive is to look more respectable to his new wife
and children. Ralph's minister's approach to this situation seems to be
for Ralph to disregard his own needs and feelings in order to fulfill his
Christian duty to forgive. This solution is obviously incompatible with
Ralph's self-respect. Murphy's suggestion is for Ralph to maintain his
posture of resentment and rejection toward his father. Although this
solution is preferable to the minister's, I believe that Ralph can attain a
Page 19 of 30
higher level of well-being and self-respect if he reaches a state of

genuine forgiveness.
If Ralph completes the process of addressing the wrong, he will know

that he deserves respect, that his father's actions and attitudes were
(and continue to be) terribly wrong, and that the truth of these points
will not be affected by any kind of external power struggle. He can then
drop his focus on his father's wrongful actions and attitudes and look at
his father as a person. As he does so, he will realize that the sexual
abuse really was not about his own lack of worth. Instead it was about
his father's misguided attempt to feel as if he had some power and
control, and quite possibly, to come to terms with similar abuse that
was inflicted on him at some point in the past. Likewise, he will see that
his father's current request is not about Ralph's lack of worth. It is
simply a misguided attempt to gain the love and approval of his new
family. Once Ralph has addressed these wrongs through the process
suggested above, he can look at his father from this more objective
point of view. He can regard his father with understanding, respect,
and compassion; forgive him for his past and present wrongs; and
extend to him an attitude of real goodwill.
It is also critical for Ralph to honor his own needs, and as his advocate,
his therapist must encourage him to do so. However, it is important to
recognize that Ralph can honor his own needs at the same time that he
extends an attitude of real goodwill to his father. For example, suppose
that Ralph does not (p.128) want to be used as a mere means to
making his father look good in front of his new family. Further, he
believes that given his father's current attitudes, he will almost
certainly experience more pain if he reunites with his father at this
time. These are very legitimate desires and beliefs, and they should
certainly be honored. Ralph has every reason to be wary of his father,
and to be unwilling to be used by him. The key point to recognize here,
however, is that Ralph can set appropriate boundaries with his father to
honor his own needs at the same time that he opens his heart to his
father and forgives him. Ralph can feel real love and compassion for his
father and wish him the best in his new family relationships but at the
same time tell his father that he does not want to reestablish contact
with him at this time. To forgive another person is not to do exactly
what the other person wants you to do, at whatever cost to yourself. It
is not to abandon all thought of your own needs, to ignore the reality of
the other person's current attitudes and behavior patterns, or to
reestablish contact or an intimate relationship with that person. Rather,
to forgive someone is to extend an attitude of respect, compassion, and
real goodwill to an individual in spite of what he is doing or has done.
Ralph can establish any boundaries he wishes to set with his father to
Page 20 of 30
honor his own needs, and at the same time regard his father with
understanding, respect, and compassion. At this point Ralph has
nothing to gain from maintaining a posture of resentment and rejection.
He evinces more respect for himself by setting his boundaries and then
opening his heart to forgive his father. In this way he can let go of the
focus on his father's wrong actions and attitudes and focus instead on
his father's worth as a person, as well as on the other things that are
truly worthwhile in his own life. If the arguments presented here are
correct, then regardless of whether the offender repents and regardless
of what he has done, the therapist promotes her client's welfare and
self-respect by helping him to reach a state of genuine forgiveness.
The question that remains to be considered is whether there are cases

in which genuine forgiveness is morally inappropriate. If the therapist
is to respect her own moral integrity, she cannot encourage the client
to adopt a morally inappropriate attitude. Nor would she promote the
client's self-respect or honor his moral agency if she were to do so.
There are three deontological arguments that have been advanced to
show that genuine forgiveness is sometimes morally indefensible. The
first argument is that forgiving an unrepentant offender is incompatible
with the victim's self-respect. We have just addressed this argument.
The second argument holds that forgiving an unrepentant offender is
incompatible with respect for morality. In order to respect morality, we
must refrain from condoning acts that are morally wrong. Until the
offender repents, she implicitly endorses her own wrong, and by
forgiving her at this point, we condone the wrong as well. Therefore it
is morally inappropriate to forgive an unrepentant offender.
This second argument is easily refuted by distinguishing between the

wrongdoer as a person and the wrong act she committed. When the
client forgives an unrepentant offender, he condemns the offender's
wrongful actions and attitudes but extends an attitude of real goodwill
toward the offender (p.129) as a person. In Augustine's terms, he
hates the sin but not the sinner. Murphy, however, calls this distinction
into question. He says, “It is hard to see how the distinction between
sin and sinner can be drawn … so long as the sinner remains
psychologically identified with the sin. However, if he breaks the
identification through repentance, then the distinction may be easily
drawn; and this may be another reason why a strategy of making
forgiveness contingent on repentance might sometimes be
rational” (pp. 46–47).
If it is actually impossible to distinguish between an unrepentant sinner

and a sin, then it may be inappropriate to forgive an offender before
she repents. However, it seems both possible and morally important to
Page 21 of 30
distinguish between a person and her actions and attitudes. A human

being is not identical to the actions she performs or the attitudes she
adopts. Last spring break I skied some double black ski runs, but I am
not the skiing of these runs. I am rather the human subject of
experience who felt scared, exhilarated, and very pleased to reach the
bottom of the hill. I also currently hold an attitude of resentment
toward the way in which a particular program is being administered,
but I am not this attitude. Rather, I am the autonomous, experiencing
subject who is struggling with this attitude and who will hopefully
outgrow it in the near future.
If we hold that an individual is identical to her current attitudes, then

the concept of moral growth is rendered incoherent. For moral growth
to take place, there must be a subject of that growth who first holds
one attitude and then later replaces it with another attitude that is
more morally appropriate. Further, it is critically important for the
retributivist to recognize that if we hold that an individual is identical
to her current attitudes, then the notion of moral agency also becomes
conceptually incoherent. For the retributivist to hold that resentment or
retributive hatred is the morally appropriate response to an
unrepentant offender, he must hold that the offender is a moral agent
who is responsible for her own wrong actions and attitudes. However, if
an individual is identical to her current attitudes, then she cannot
choose to hold those attitudes, nor can she choose to change them.
Instead, she simply is those attitudes. In order for moral agency to
exist, there must be an agent or subject who chooses which actions to
perform and which attitudes to adopt. His Holiness the Dalai Lama
(Gyatso, 1995) articulates the problem with equating the sin and the
sinner and then hating the sinner in the following passage (although it
should be noted that the Buddhist position on the mind is highly
sophisticated, significantly different from Western conceptions, and in
no way represented by my remarks in this chapter: “You can also
reflect on how, if inflicting harm on others is the essential nature of the
person who is harming you, there is no point in being angry since there
would be nothing that you or that person could do to change his or her
essential nature. If it were truly the person's essential nature to inflict
harm, the person would simply be unable to act otherwise” (p. 79).
To fail to distinguish between a person and an action or attitude is not

only to engage in conceptual confusion, it is also to commit a moral
error. It is to objectify that person in a manner that is morally
inappropriate. For (p.130) example, the therapist is not identical to
the action of providing therapy. Rather, she is an autonomous,
experiencing subject with needs, feelings, and aspirations of her own. If
the client regards her simply as “provider of therapy” or “provision of
Page 22 of 30
therapy,” he objectifies her in a manner that is very similar (but not

identical) to regarding her as a mere means to his own ends. He fails to
recognize and respect her personhood, and therefore his attitude
toward her is seriously inadequate from a moral point of view. If we fail
to distinguish between the unrepentant sinner and the sin, we commit
the same type of moral error. By regarding the offender as somehow
the same thing as the offense or offensive attitude, and then extending
an attitude of resentment toward the conglomerate, we objectify the
offender and fail to recognize her status as a person. Regardless of
whether the offender repents and regardless of what she has done, she
retains her personhood. She is both a subject of experiences and a
moral agent with the capacity for moral growth, and as such, she
warrants compassion and respect. It is therefore fully appropriate to
extend to her an attitude of real goodwill.
It is also worth noting that we do not engage in the conceptual

confusion described above when we truly care about each other, and
when our own egos are not implicated in the wrongful acts or attitudes.
For example, the parent of a teenage child does not hate that child
when she adopts a wrongful attitude or behavior pattern, nor does he
continue to hate the child until she renounces this attitude or behavior
pattern to adopt one that is more appropriate. Further, no sane
individual would suggest that it was morally obligatory for him to do so.
The parent does not find it impossible to distinguish between the child
and the child's attitude. Instead the parent continues to love the child
unconditionally, at the same time that he condemns the attitude. He
cherishes the child as a person and does everything he can to help her
outgrow the wrongful attitude and to develop attitudes and behaviors
that are more appropriate and rewarding.
The third deontological argument advanced to show that genuine

forgiveness is sometimes morally inappropriate is that forgiving an
unrepentant offender who is guilty of serious wrongdoing is
incompatible with respect for the offender as a moral agent. In order to
respect the offender as a moral agent, we must regard her as
responsible for her own wrongdoing, and an unrepentant offender who
is responsible for serious wrongdoing deserves retributive hatred.
Further, justice demands that we give persons what they deserve.
This argument can be refuted in much the same way as the second one.
It is true that moral agents are responsible for their own actions and
attitudes. However, it is much more difficult to justify the claim that
unrepentant offenders deserve permanent resentment, or more
formally, retributive hatred. This proposition is rooted in the same type
of moral and conceptual confusion that we have just described. It is
Page 23 of 30
certainly appropriate to hate the actions of someone who is guilty of

serious wrongdoing and to hate the attitudes that led to such acts. But
the unrepentant offender is distinct from these actions and attitudes,
and by equating her with them we objectify her and fail to respect (p.
131) her personhood. Like all persons, the offender is a subject of
experience and a being with the capacity for moral growth, and, as
before, warrants our compassion and respect. Therefore it is always
morally appropriate for a client who is willing and able to do so to
extend an attitude of genuine forgiveness to his offender. Justice does
demand that we hold moral agents responsible for their choices, and
that we require them to bear the burden of their wrongful behavior
when this behavior creates burdens that someone must bear. Justice
also often permits us to take action to protect ourselves from those who
threaten our significant interests. But justice does not require that we
hate sentient beings.
If my reasoning has been correct, then genuine forgiveness is always an

appropriate goal in psychotherapy for those clients who are willing and
able to achieve this state. Once the client has worked through the
process of addressing the wrong, reaching a state of genuine
forgiveness serves his best interests and evinces and enhances his self-
respect. Further, genuine forgiveness is always appropriate and
desirable from a moral point of view. Thus the therapist who helps the
client to reach a state of genuine forgiveness fulfills her fiduciary
obligations to the client, respects his moral agency, and maintains her
own moral integrity. Let us now turn to the question of whether genuine
self-forgiveness is always an appropriate goal of psychotherapy as well.
Self-forgiveness
In the case of self-forgiveness, it is more readily apparent that the
therapist promotes her client's welfare and enhances his self-respect by
helping him to forgive. The client who has worked through the process
of addressing the wrong has done his best to deal with his wrong
honestly and responsibly. Provided that he continues to work on the
attitudes that led to his wrongful behavior, and provided that he
continues to honor his moral obligation to make restitution to the
victim, it is clearly in his best interest to forgive himself for the wrong.
To remain in a state of self-hatred or self-contempt at this point would
be debilitating. It would destroy the quality of his own life and
undermine his ability to relate and contribute to others. The therapist
will promote her client's welfare and enhance his self-respect if she can
help him to regard himself with respect and compassion and turn his
attention to his own positive pursuits.
Page 24 of 30
The main worry about genuine self-forgiveness is that it may be morally

inappropriate. Again, there are three deontological arguments that
might be advanced to challenge the morality of forgiving oneself. These
arguments are parallel to the arguments used to challenge the moral
appropriateness of interpersonal forgiveness, and may be addressed in
much the same manner. The first is that genuine self-forgiveness is
incompatible with respect for the victim. It might be argued that the
client who forgives himself fails to respect the victim in that she is the
one who has been wrongfully harmed, and therefore it is her
prerogative to do the forgiving, not his. This argument is not (p.132)
persuasive. It is certainly the victim's prerogative to decide whether or
not she will forgive the client, but the client is responsible for
determining what his own attitudes will be. It is up to him to determine
how he will regard himself in light of his own wrongdoing. The client
can honor the victim's decision about whether or not she will forgive
him, whatever it turns out to be, and at the same time decide to regard
himself with respect, compassion, and real goodwill.
It might also be argued that genuine self-forgiveness is intrinsically

incompatible with respect for the victim when the wrong is very
serious. To forgive oneself under these circumstances would be to
dismiss the victim from one's mind too readily, after seriously damaging
her welfare. This argument is not persuasive either. In order to respect
the victim under these circumstances, the client must honestly
acknowledge the full extent of his wrong and express deep and sincere
remorse for having harmed her so severely. He must do everything that
can reasonably be expected of him to help compensate for her loss. And
he must continue to show great respect for the victim and concern for
her welfare throughout his life if she is receptive to this kind of contact
with him and if she is not seriously abusive to him in return. In no
instance should he dismiss the victim from his mind. However, to
respect the victim of his serious wrong, the client need not hate
himself. To fix his attention on the fact that he did wrong and to dwell
on this fact in a state of self-hatred or self-contempt serves no moral
value after he has completed the process of addressing the wrong.
Respect for the victim is a positive attitude that is focused on the
victim. It is not a negative attitude centered on the client and his past
moral performance. He respects the victim by transcending his focus on
himself, by recognizing her status as a person, and by showing
sustained and profound concern for her needs and feelings.
The second deontological argument is that forgiving ourselves is

incompatible with respect for morality. The argument holds that by
forgiving ourselves, we condone our own wrong acts. Again, this
argument is easily refuted by distinguishing between the person and
Page 25 of 30
the action that he performed. In reaching a state of genuine

forgiveness, the client extends an attitude of respect and compassion
toward himself as a person at the same time that he condemns his own
act of wrongdoing. The client who has worked through the process of
addressing the wrong has acknowledged that the act is wrong,
understands why it was wrong, and has done his best to correct the
attitudes and behavior patterns that led to his offense. There is no
sense in which he condones his wrongful behavior.
The third and final argument is that genuine self-forgiveness is

incompatible with respect for oneself as a moral agent when the wrong
is very serious. Again, the argument is that in order to respect
ourselves as moral agents, we must hold ourselves responsible for our
past wrongful behavior. When this behavior has been truly heinous, we
deserve retributive hatred unto death. As we have already seen, this
argument objectifies the wrongdoer, in this case the client, by failing to
recognize and respect his personhood. Although heinous actions and
attitudes warrant our hatred, persons do not. Whatever the client (p.
133) has done, he is a sentient being and a being with the capacity for
moral choice, growth, and awareness. As such he warrants compassion
and respect. Once he has done his best to address his wrong, it is
appropriate for him to extend to himself an attitude of real goodwill.
Further, if the client is to respect himself as a moral agent, he must

exercise his moral agency in a responsible manner. In order to exercise
his moral agency responsibly, the client must make choices and adopt
attitudes that have moral value. To dwell on one's own past record of
moral performance, either with a sense of self-hatred and self-contempt
or with a sense of superiority, is an activity that is overly self-involved
and devoid of any real moral value. The client will exercise his moral
agency much more responsibly if he removes his focus from the fact
that he did wrong and concentrates instead on the contributions he can
make to others and on the growth he can experience in the moral and
nonmoral realms.
I conclude, then, that genuine forgiveness and self-forgiveness are

always appropriate goals of psychotherapy for those clients who are
willing and able to achieve these states. The therapist's first concern
must be to help her client complete the process of addressing the
wrong, and to help him to postpone forgiveness or self-forgiveness until
this process is sufficiently complete. In all cases, after the client has
completed the process of addressing the wrong, reaching a state of
genuine forgiveness or self-forgiveness will promote the client's welfare
and enhance his self-respect. Further, after the client has completed the
process of addressing the wrong, genuine forgiveness and genuine self-
Page 26 of 30
forgiveness are always appropriate and desirable from a moral point of

view. Therefore the therapist can fulfill her fiduciary obligations to the
client, respect his moral agency, and at the same time respect her own
moral integrity by helping the willing and able client to achieve a state
of genuine forgiveness or self-forgiveness. At least with regard to
forgiveness and self-forgiveness, there is no tension between
counseling and global moral concerns.
Page 27 of 30
The General Practice of Pursuing Genuine Forgiveness and Self-

forgiveness in Psychotherapy
A final point to consider is whether it is desirable for the therapist to
support the general practice of helping clients to achieve states of
genuine forgiveness and self-forgiveness in psychotherapy. Given her
professional training, the therapist is in a unique position to help us
determine which practices are most beneficial to society as a whole
from the point of view of mental health. Although a thorough discussion
of this question is beyond the scope of this paper, the arguments
advanced so far support a general practice of helping persons to reach
a state of genuine forgiveness or self-forgiveness. With regard to self-
forgiveness, it seems reasonable to expect that everyone will benefit if
therapists regularly help their clients to address their wrongs and then
to reach a state of genuine self-forgiveness. Offenders clearly benefit
from attaining a state of genuine self-forgiveness, as they are liberated
from the (p.134) debilitating states of guilt and self-hatred. It also
seems clear that the interests of victims will be served if offenders are
routinely helped to work through the process of addressing their
wrongs in therapy. In this case victims will be acknowledged and
respected by their offenders, and they will receive both apology and
restitution for the harm wrongfully inflicted on them. Finally, it seems
plausible to believe that the interests of society will be served if
offenders are regularly helped in psychotherapy to work through the
process of addressing the wrong. By acknowledging the wrong,
addressing the attitudes that led to the wrong, and making restitution
to those they have injured, offenders take responsibility for themselves
and arguably become less likely to commit violations in the future.
With regard to interpersonal forgiveness, I have argued that victims of

wrongdoing will benefit if their therapists help them to address the
offense and to reach a state of genuine forgiveness. They will be
released from the debilitating states of hatred and resentment,
experience more positive emotional states, and be able to focus more
fully on their own positive pursuits. They will also be empowered to
form their own assessments of both the offender as a person and the
act of wrongdoing, rather than merely reacting to the offender's
implicit claim that they do not warrant a full measure of respect. It also
seems clear that society as a whole will benefit from a general practice
of therapists helping their clients to reach a state of genuine
forgiveness. This practice will produce more peaceful, respectful, and
compassionate relationships among citizens. Will offenders benefit if
the persons they have harmed are regularly helped to forgive them?
They will certainly feel better and have more pleasant lives if they are
forgiven. However, Murphy suggests that they may have more incentive
to repent if they have to earn the victim's forgiveness, rather than
Page 28 of 30
receiving it unconditionally. I am not a psychologist, and I lack the

expertise to address this question in any definitive manner. But
speaking for myself, I find it easier to examine and correct my wrongful
behavior in an environment of respect, compassion, and acceptance
than in an environment of hatred, resentment, and rejection. My hope
and expectation is that if we can systematically regard ourselves and
others with the former set of attitudes, it will be easier for offenders to
come to terms with their own wrongdoing. And more importantly, if we
routinely regard offenders with respect and compassion, it will be
easier for those who feel as if they might commit an offense in the
future to seek help from their fellows. If so, then society as a whole will
again benefit from a general practice of helping victims to reach a state
of genuine forgiveness in psychotherapy.
Note
I have benefited a great deal in thinking about these issues from

discussion with Jeffrie Murphy and Robert Enright. I am also deeply
indebted to Lu Klatt, LISW, for a very careful reading of this paper from
the perspective of a therapist and for many valuable, insightful
suggestions that I have incorporated into the text. Discussions with my
colleague Joseph Kupfer and with Maura Peglar, LISW, have also had a
very significant influence on my thinking about this topic. For a more
complete development of my position on the morality of forgiveness and
self-forgiveness, see my articles, Holmgren 1993, 1998. Finally, I would
like to thank Sharon Lamb for several helpful comments on an earlier
draft.
References
Bibliography references:
Beauchamp, Tom L., & James F. Childress (1994). Principles of

biomedical ethics. 4th ed. New York: Oxford University Press.
Butler, Joseph (1986). Fifteen sermons. Charlottesville, VA: Lincoln

Rembrandt Publishing.
Daniels, Norman (1985). Just health care. New York: Cambridge

University Press.
Enright, Robert D. (1996). Counseling within the forgiveness triad: On

forgiving, receiving forgiveness, and self-forgiveness. Counseling and
Values, 40(2), 107–126.
Page 29 of 30
Gyatso, Tenzin, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama (1995). The world of tibetan
buddhism: An overview of its philosophy and practice. Translated,
edited, and annotated by Geshe Thupten Jinpa. Boston: Wisdom
Publications.
Holmgren, Margaret R. (1993). Forgiveness and the intrinsic value of

persons. American philosophical Quarterly, 30(4), 341–352.
Holmgren, Margaret R. (1998). Self-forgiveness and responsible moral

agency. The Journal of Value Inquiry, 32, 75–91.
Murphy, Jeffrie G. (2002). Forgiveness in counseling: A philosophical

perspective. In Sharon Lamb and Jeffrie G. Murphy (Eds.), Before
forgiving: Cautionary views of forgiveness in psychotherapy. New York:
Oxford University Press.
Notes:
I have benefited a great deal in thinking about these issues from
discussion with Jeffrie Murphy and Robert Enright. I am also deeply
indebted to Lu Klatt, LISW, for a very careful reading of this paper from
the perspective of a therapist and for many valuable, insightful
suggestions that I have incorporated into the text. Discussions with my
colleague Joseph Kupfer and with Maura Peglar, LISW, have also had a
very significant influence on my thinking about this topic. For a more
complete development of my position on the morality of forgiveness and
self-forgiveness, see my articles, Holmgren 1993, 1998. Finally, I would
like to thank Sharon Lamb for several helpful comments on an earlier
draft.
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Forgiveness and Self-Forgiveness in Psychotherapy

University Press Scholarship Online

Oxford Scholarship Online

Before Forgiving: Cautionary Views of

Print publication date: 2002

Forgiveness and Self-Forgiveness in

Abstract and Keywords

Keywords: genuine forgiveness, self-forgiveness, psychotherapy, therapist–client

Both forgiveness and self-forgiveness are now receiving significant

These questions are important. They are also complex, as answers to

(p.113) In this chapter I offer a different set of answers to these

The Therapist-Client Relationship

First, the therapist has an obligation to respect her client's autonomy.

Second, the therapist has an obligation to act as an advocate for her

Fiduciary relationships are distinct from contractual relationships. In

have agreed upon. Contractual relationships are considered morally

In promoting the client's best interests, then, the therapist is

These remarks raise an interesting question that should be explored in

functioning. It should be even more clear that the concept of mental

Mental health is not easy to define, and I do not want to attempt a

In considering what constitutes her client's welfare, then, the therapist

point in their association, and it might be best if she could avoid

Finally, although their primary responsibility is to promote their clients'

To summarize, then, the therapist has a fiduciary relationship with the

Internal Preparation for Forgiveness and Self-forgiveness: The

A brief comment is in order about the type of respect to be extended to

forgiveness, an individual must be a moral agent, and as such will

In some cases it may be appropriate for a client not to experience any

Second, it is important for the client to acknowledge his feelings about

course of action would be harmful to himself or others. At this point,

In addressing the offense, the client must first acknowledge to himself

professional knowledge to promote her client's best interests, rather

any of the issues he needs to address in connection with it. Throughout

Genuine Forgiveness and Self-forgiveness as Goals of

The uncritical boosters for universal forgiveness he has in mind seem to

There is a sense in which Murphy is correct. If the client chooses to

promote her client's welfare or self-respect if she encourages him to

higher level of well-being and self-respect if he reaches a state of

If Ralph completes the process of addressing the wrong, he will know

The question that remains to be considered is whether there are cases

This second argument is easily refuted by distinguishing between the

If it is actually impossible to distinguish between an unrepentant sinner

distinguish between a person and her actions and attitudes. A human

If we hold that an individual is identical to her current attitudes, then

To fail to distinguish between a person and an action or attitude is not

therapy,” he objectifies her in a manner that is very similar (but not

It is also worth noting that we do not engage in the conceptual

The third deontological argument advanced to show that genuine

certainly appropriate to hate the actions of someone who is guilty of

If my reasoning has been correct, then genuine forgiveness is always an

The main worry about genuine self-forgiveness is that it may be morally

It might also be argued that genuine self-forgiveness is intrinsically

The second deontological argument is that forgiving ourselves is

the action that he performed. In reaching a state of genuine

The third and final argument is that genuine self-forgiveness is

Further, if the client is to respect himself as a moral agent, he must

I conclude, then, that genuine forgiveness and self-forgiveness are

forgiveness are always appropriate and desirable from a moral point of

The General Practice of Pursuing Genuine Forgiveness and Self-

With regard to interpersonal forgiveness, I have argued that victims of

receiving it unconditionally. I am not a psychologist, and I lack the

I have benefited a great deal in thinking about these issues from

Beauchamp, Tom L., & James F. Childress (1994). Principles of