Tuesday, August 30, 2011

How Can I Forgive You?

Copied from Janis Abrams Spring


HOW CAN I FORGIVE YOU?

How Can I Forgive You? The Courage to Forgive, The Freedom Not To


Forgiveness has been held up as the gold standard of recovery from interpersonal injuries. We have been taught that forgiveness is good for us and that good people forgive. In real life, however, hurt parties often find that they can’t or won’t forgive, particularly when the offender is unrepentant or dead.

In How Can I Forgive You?, Genuine Forgiveness is reframed as an intimate dance, a hard-won transaction, which asks as much of the offender as it does of the hurt party. Offenders will learn how to perform bold, humble, heartfelt acts of repair to earn forgiveness, such as bearing witness to the pain they caused, delivering a meaningful apology, and taking responsibility for their offense. Hurt parties will learn to release their obsessive preoccupation with the injury, accept a fair share of responsibility for what went wrong, and create opportunities for the offender to make good.

When the offender can’t or won’t make meaningful repairs for the damaged caused, Dr. Spring proposes a radical, new alternative to forgiveness – a profound, life-affirming, healing process called Acceptance. This can be accomplished by the hurt party alone. Ten concrete steps for healing the self are described.

Everyone is struggling to forgive someone. This book will help you rise above a violation, repair the rupture within yourself, and consider forgiving the partner, parent, in-law, sibling, child, friend, or significant other who has hurt you. For those of you who have wronged someone else, it will offer you concrete steps for earning that person’s forgiveness – and your own.

Beautifully written and filled with insight, practical advice, and poignant case studies, How Can I Forgive You? addresses such critical questions as:

*Is forgiveness good for us?
*How do we forgive someone who shows no remorse? How do we heal ourselves?
*How can we overcome our obsessive preoccupation with the offender and get on with our lives?
*Why should forgiveness be the job of the hurt party alone? Shouldn’t the offender be asked to make good?
*When is forgiveness cheap? When is it genuine?
*What makes for a meaningful apology?
*Why is it so hard to apologize?
*Why is it so hard to forgive?
*Are some injuries simply unforgivable?

“We are all social beings, all vitally interconnected, and we are validated and redeemed when others provide a soothing balm to our wounds and work to release us from the pain they have caused us. Healing, like love, flourishes in the context of a healing relationship. I would go so far as to say that we can’t love alone, and we can’t forgive alone.”
– from How Can I Forgive You?

Praise for How Can I Forgive You?


“If you are struggling with issues of betrayal – or the challenge of whether and how to forgive–here is the most helpful and surprising book you will ever find on the subject.”
—Harriet Lerner, Ph.D., author of The Dance of Anger

“A fresh and original approach to an ancient challenge. A clinically informed guide for the offender and the offended. How Can I Forgive You? should be read by us all.”
—Harville Hendrix, Ph.D., author of Getting the Love You Want

“Finally a book has been written that teaches couples how to make genuine forgiveness a reality without rushing toward a superficial peace. This book can help couples construct a marriage that never existed before, one based on deep understanding and trust.”
—John Gottman, Ph.D., author of The Relationship Cure

“This book is a treasure trove for anyone who has ever felt betrayed or hurt in a personal relationship. Dr. Spring cuts through all the cliche’s surrounding forgiveness and views it within a broad spectrum of common relationships – mother-daughter, father-son, student-teacher, husband-wife. We owe her a debt of gratitude for this enlightened and penetrating view of a universal human dilemma.”
– Peggy Papp, M.S.W., author of Couples on the Fault Line

“This book is a treasure – practical, authentic, illuminating, and wise. It’s like a breath of fresh air that puts forgiveness in a new and revealing light and provides clear steps to turn wounds into wisdom.”
– Joan Borysenko, Ph.D., author of Minding the Body, Mending the Mind and Inner Peace for Busy People

“Clear, insightful…a thoughtful exposition on the nuanced role of forgiveness in relationships that goes beyond the average self-help book.”
—Publishers Weekly

At a therapy session shortly after I learned my husband is gay, I said to my therapist, "I supposed one day I'll have to forgive him." Having been raised a Christian, I'd been taught about forgiveness and turning the other cheek. But I was quite surprised by the answer that came from my therapist who is also a Christian.

"Do you?" she asked.

And with that she introduced me to this book. It completely turned my thinking around and I went from, "I suppose one day I'll have to forgive him" to "I'm not letting him off the hook that easily."

If you are struggling with the concept of forgiveness for a spouse who has betrayed you terribly, you may want to read this book and ponder the concepts the author proposes.

1 comment:

  1. I'm not a Bible freak. I don't believe the Bible is the literal word of God, but I do find the Bible to be a good and sufficient guide to all matters of faith and Christ like living.

    The Bible makes it clear that God forgives - always. It goes on to require us to forgive others in the same way God forgives us. In traditional Christian thought, forgiveness has little to do with the person who ha wronged us and everything to do with our reaction to the wrong and the wrong doer.

    The person who will not forgive hurts himself or herself much much more than he/she hurts the wrong doer. Sometimes, by refusing to forgive, the victim gives the wrongdoer tremendous power over his or her life that lasts a life time and insures the victim will go on hurting and hurting.

    I haven't read the book; but looking at your review, it looks as if Dr. Spring may have taken Biblical teachings and simply put them into contemporary language and thought patterns. Certainly, when Dr. Spring speaks of acceptance as a healing process that can be accomplished by the victim without any participation or contrition on the part of the offender, she is simply defining Biblical forgiveness by using another name.

    As for as your ex husband, I know you know that yours is not the only hook on which he hangs. There is no doubt you were hurt and abused, but whatever the appearances, he did not get off without a heavy burden and an awful price. You would serve yourself well to truly forgive him, renounce the bitterness within you and move on with your life. Life is much to short for you to give him any power whatsoever over the days you have left.

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