Forgiveness Essay

Why Forgiveness? Forgiveness is one of the hardest processes to go through regarding an individual’s social, personal, and mental health. The step of forgiveness requires us to look past the wrongs that have been done to us, and without any sort of retribution or atonement of sorts, drop that wrong-doing out of the scope of the relationship and move on. Christianity and psychology have differing, yet surprisingly similar ways of looking at the role of forgiving one another. The agreement is obvious, psychologists and Christians alike recognize that forgiveness has great value in preserving relationships, not just personal but communal as well. The disagreement tends to be a difference of opinion in what context forgiveness is appropriate.

In a clinical setting, patients often suffer from a multitude of illnesses and bad experiences that lead them to look for external help. Many experiences that patients go through are very difficult socially, personally, and sometimes even mentally. Therefore, psychologists must look at the whole of the issue that may be causing an individual stress. The first concern of psychologists regarding forgiveness is the matter of whether it would even be safe for the patient to contact and forgive the wrong-doer. Much of therapy is concerned with making the patient feel better before anything else. For example, exposing a person to someone from their past that has hurt them physically and may try to hurt them again could be extremely dangerous. This is to say, forgiveness of a person that may still hurt them could be out of the question. Although it may be hard to forgive someone for the wrongs they have done to you, it may be extremely worthwhile from the psychologist’s perspective. According to Frise and McMinn, patients may benefit psychologically from forgiving the person that has wronged them because they can “release negative painful feelings and thoughts and move forward without the hindrance of unforgiveness” (2010). As you can see, psychologists work with more of a balance between the good of forgiveness and the harm that it can do to those that are not ready for

There are many rich examples of how people can either be hurt or helped through forgiveness. In my life, there have been many opportunities to forgive and be forgiven. One of the instances that I was shown forgiveness in a place that may or may not have called for it came within the first six months of getting my driver’s license. I was on my way home from school one day when I came up to a long string of cars stuck in traffic. To the old me, this seemed like a good enough time to take my eyes off the road for a moment to check my messages. As I looked down to my phone I was unaware that I wasn’t compressing the brake hard enough to come to a complete stop. It turned out I was moving very slowly towards the car in front of me. After just a moment I looked up and immediately bumped the car in front of me. I didn’t know what to do, so I just sat there on the side of the road, scared as could be. Eventually the driver of the car I hit approached my door and told me “there’s no damage” and to “be more careful next time.” To this day, I am still unsure why on that day he chose forgiveness over retribution. The Christian explanation would say it was his duty to God to forgive me for my wrong-doing. In forgiving me, that man was acting in a way that would spread the community of God. On the other hand, in the