Transcript:

Kim Mills: When someone hurts you, a friend or a former friend, a family member, a colleague, or a romantic partner, it can feel justifiable or even satisfying to nurse a grudge. After all, what do you have to gain from forgiving someone who's bullied you, betrayed you, or let you down? But psychologists who study forgiveness say that forgiving, when done right, can be therapeutic for the person who's been hurt. Research has found that it can lead to better mental, emotional, and even physical health.

So, when you want to forgive someone, where do you start? What steps do you take? How do you deal with the anger or grief that may be standing in the way of forgiveness? And, more broadly, can you forgive without forgetting? What's the difference between forgiveness and reconciliation? When someone has done something truly wrong, can you forgive them and seek justice at the same time? And, is it possible to forgive someone who isn't sorry for what they've done?

Welcome to Speaking of Psychology, the flagship podcast of the American Psychological Association that examines the links between psychological science and everyday life. I'm Kim Mills.

My guest today is Dr. Robert Enright, a professor in the department of educational psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He's a pioneer in the study of forgiveness, which he has been researching for nearly four decades. Dr. Enright has developed forgiveness-based interventions for children and adults who have suffered from bullying, abuse and other injustices. He's also brought forgiveness education programs to conflict areas such as Northern Ireland. He is interested in how forgiveness interventions and therapy can help people heal and improve their mental health and wellbeing. Dr. Enright is the author of more than 120 scientific articles and seven books, and has been awarded many honors, including a 2022 Gold Medal Award for impact in psychology from the American Psychological Association.?

Dr. Enright, thank you for joining me today.

Robert Enright: It's an honor to be with you, Kim. Thanks for asking me.

Mills: Let's start, as we often do in this podcast, with a definition. I'm going to ask you something that might seem obvious. What does the term forgiveness mean? You say people often misunderstand the term, so how do you define it?

Enright: I see it as a moral virtue, where you are being good to those who are not good to you, without excusing, without forgetting lest it happened again, without necessarily reconciling, as you had said in your introduction, and without throwing justice under the bus.

Mills: So, I mentioned in the introduction that your research and that of some of your colleagues, you've found that forgiveness can benefit people's health, their mental health and their wellbeing. Can you talk about that? What's the connection between forgiveness and wellbeing?

Enright: The key is that when we've been treated unjustly by others, a lot of times unhealthy anger sneaks into our heart and we're not even aware of that. And with that drip, drip, drip of the anger onto the heart, onto the emotions, day after day and even year after year, people start to become deeply angry or resentful. And then that can turn into anxiety and even depression and even low self-esteem, not liking yourself. And as you reach out, paradoxically, with goodness toward those who are not good to you, and it's your choice, it shouldn't be forced, that drip, drip, drip of the anger starts slowing down and in its place, you start having, as I say, that goodness toward the other. And that actually counteracts the toxic anger, reducing and even eliminating the effects of the trauma and that the anxiety and depression literally can leave and you get your life back.

Mills: Now, if you want to forgive someone, how do you do it—practically speaking? What are the steps that people should take?

Enright: Well, very briefly, it's good first to understand the effects of the injustice against you, seeing that it's quite negative and that you've been living with negative effects, like restlessness and too much anger and the like. And then you have to make a decision. How are you going to heal from that? And many people come to forgiveness when they've tried everything under the sun. And so they say, “Nothing's worked. I'll try forgiveness.” So, you make a decision, a free will decision without coercion from others. And then, what I say, hit the forgiveness gym to do the forgiveness work, to become forgivingly fit, you start thinking about the one who hurt you in new ways.

You see that they're more than the injustice against you. You see their personhood, is what you do. And when you do that and then you're ready to give this moral virtue-like quality, which is goodness to the other. That's when the healing starts to begin in the heart of the forgiver, which leads to finding new meaning and purpose in your own life, when you say, “Hey, I have a new way of dealing with trauma that I had never thought of before,” and it's there that you get a true psychological change that's transformative in a very positive way.

Mills: Now, it sounds like all of this is coming from within the person who is doing the forgiving. Does the person who is being forgiven have to play any kind of role in this?

Enright: I like your words “have to.” No. The other does not have to do anything, but it's helpful. If the other person is repentant, sorrowful, comes to you and genuinely apologizes without any nonsense, without using the apology as a way to gain power, that helps a lot, yes. But you can make this free will decision to go ahead and to try and be good to the other, try and expand your story of who this person is beyond just the injustice against you. And, it's your decision, your internal work. And you know why that's so important? Because then the other doesn't have that kind of power over you anymore. See, you're free to do this whenever you wish. Think about it. If your heart is damaged because of an injustice, and you need to forgive and you won't or you can't until three little words are uttered by the one who didn't like you, “I am sorry,” that's giving way too much power to the other.

Mills: But how do I know personally that I'm ready to forgive? I mean, I may feel like that's what I should do, but is it truly coming from within? We talk about heart here. Is it coming from my heart?

Enright: I think that's a great question. And, people tend to know when they are ready for a new chapter in their life. They know when they're ready to go on a diet. They know when they're ready to have a new friend. They know when they're ready to go to the physical gym to get physically fit. They have a motivation. They have a direction in their life. And so, a lot of times actually, people don't think they are ready, because they think what forgiveness is is caving into the other's nonsense. But, when they finally hear that that's not what it is, and you can stand firm, that what happened was unfair and it's still unfair, but I'm going to try and give this unexpected, shockingly new idea in psychotherapy of deliberately being good to the other, while watching my own back, then people know they're ready for this new chapter in their life, just like they might for a new diet.

Mills: Does the forgiver have to engage in some way with the person they're forgiving? Does that matter?

Enright: Well, it does matter, but it's not necessary. You see, if you can go to the other and say, “I am hurt. This isn't right what you've been doing. May we talk about it?” And the other's ready, wonderful, but the other might be deceased. And does that mean you cannot forgive someone who's deceased? Now you're trapped for the rest of your life. Think about that. But, you can. How can you be good to someone who's deceased? How about a kind word about that person to other family members? If it's a person in your family who's hurt you. Or donating a little money to charity in that person's name, so you're honoring that person's name. You see, that stops the drip, drip, drip of the anger in the heart.

So, it's really a unilateral idea, just as any moral virtue is. When you're trying to be fair or just to others, you don't wait for others to make certain moves before you, for example, stop at a stoplight when you're driving a car. That's your choice. I'm glad it's your choice, because with justice there are definite repercussions for not doing that. But with forgiveness, it's also your individual choice and you don't have to do it. That's what I like about it.

Mills: How can you forgive someone who isn't sorry for what they've done, or maybe even doesn't recognize what they did was hurtful?

Enright: It makes it harder, and you can actually then forgive the person for that offense. For the person to stubbornly insist that, “I have done nothing,” is another offense. And so you can go ahead, if you're ready, if you know what forgiveness is truly, and you're not being coerced into it by that person who says, “What's the matter with you?” And you want to do it, then you can go ahead on your own, regardless of what that other person does. That's how freeing forgiveness can be, with the consequence, “I am now freed from what this person has been doing to me.”

Mills: You mentioned a moment ago that forgiveness is a kind of moral virtue. But, what if someone doesn't want to forgive the person who hurt them, or isn't ready? Does that make that person less morally virtuous? That seems like you're putting the burden on the victim in a sense.

Enright: You are if you misunderstand forgiveness, because if we see forgiveness as absolutely necessary under all conditions or we’re morally weak, then yes, it would be putting the judgment actually on the victim. But, philosophers use the term, here's a big one for us, supererogatory. Forgiveness is a supererogatory moral virtue. There's a lot of syllables in there. And what they mean by that is, it's not one that must be done under all circumstances. It's similar to altruism. Do you have to give money to every single person you meet on the street who has a cup and is homeless? No. Are you going to be condemned if you give to two people and not 10? No. You'll be praised if you do it twice. It's the same thing with forgiveness. Supererogatory means it's up to you, in the context that's right for you, when you are ready.

Mills: Is there a difference between forgiving someone very close, like a family member you might see all the time, and forgiving someone you can easily avoid, like an old work colleague?

Enright: It actually depends on the severity of the injustice, as to whether forgiveness in a psychotherapeutic sense is worthwhile. Oftentimes, I find when looking at the issue of helping people to forgive, the deepest, most profound hurts that can last a lifetime oftentimes come from the family. Why? Because it's the family that's supposed to protect us. And, when those in the family now betray us, the hurt can be much deeper than if a boss fires us. Yet, at the same time, if that boss is very cruel to you, dumps you when you have a family to support and others are mocking you, that might be much worse than anything you've ever faced in the family, in which case, that one really might need some help, in an applied psychological sense. Both may need help, but in general, it's the family issues that cut us the most deeply.

Mills: And that brings me to the question of whether there's anything that is unforgivable. I mean, we can think of a lot transgressions—the Holocaust, murder. I mean, there are many bad things that we do to each other. Is anything truly, truly unforgivable?

Enright: For some people there are lines drawn in the sand and they won't go beyond that. And we should respect that. That is their choice to forgive people for certain offenses and not others. But, quite frankly, I have never seen any offense in the world that I probably couldn't point to at least one person who has forgiven. Let's take a look at the Holocaust, which you mentioned. Eva Mozes Kor, who passed away recently, broke my heart, because she passed away was with her twin sister Miriam in Auschwitz, the concentration camp in Poland. She made a decision to forgive—I'm going to put this in quotes. “Dr. Mengele.” He wasn't a doctor, he was a pretend doctor. But Miriam died, because of those experiments. Eva Mozes Kor decided on her own to forgive, to set herself free. Others who were with her in concentration camp thought it was, I'm quoting here, “improper.” And that's fine, because it would be improper for them, but not for her. So, we have to respect those who won't forgive, and respect those who will, because it's their free will decision to do so or not.

Mills: Now, people often think of forgiveness in a religious context. Many religions teach the value of forgiveness. Do you think, and have you found in your research, that religious people find it easier to forgive? Or, is forgiveness just as possible and as powerful in a secular context?

Enright: Our research has looked at people from all walks of life, Muslim, Buddhist, Christian, Jewish, humanistic, atheistic, and we find that when people walk the pathway of forgiveness that's been worked out scientifically, and are willing to put the time in to become forgivingly fit, I've never seen a person fail miserably, especially depending on their demographics. Let's think about it for a moment realistically. Isn't it true that an atheist wants to be fair or just in the world, treating people with fairness, obeying the traffic rules? Absolutely, of course. And so, there's nothing in the rulebook of forgiveness that says you have to be a certain kind of believer to engage in it, just like the whole world engages in justice, regardless of culture. Because there are laws that might differ among different cultures, but they all have laws, and all people obey them or else. And that's just an example, the justice moral virtue, showing that we all on some level definitely try to engage in virtuous behavior.

Mills: Can it work the other way, though, where a religion says to you, “You must forgive, this is what we teach,” and you feel in your heart that you can't really forgive? Will that then weigh you down in the sense that you want to forgive, but you can't get there?

Enright: Yes, if you're misunderstanding your religion. Because, quite frankly, I have never seen a religion that demands that you get rid of your anger today. Okay? Usually, there are windows, usually there is compassion, usually there's patience. Honestly, I have studied these. I'm an egghead professor, remember. I study everything that's in English, whether it's Jewish or Buddhist or Christian or the materialist philosophies of the day, that demands that you start on the road of forgiveness today or watch out.

Mills: Now, you and your colleagues have developed forgiveness education programs for schools. What's the goal of those programs and how do they work?

Enright: The goal for children is to prepare them for adulthood. Isn't that what good education is always about? Why do we teach children to read? So, when they're in a grocery store as adults, they can read the mayonnaise jar to see how many calories there are. How about teaching them mathematics so they can balance a checkbook? Why don't we prepare children for the storms of injustice in adulthood that will visit them? I've never been able to figure that out. And so, what we're doing is we're preparing children for the storms of injustice that will hit them in adulthood, not by getting them into forgiveness therapy as children, but simply introducing them to what forgiveness is through stories. There are a lot of picture books out there for 4-year-olds, 5-year-olds, 6-year-olds that show conflict and show how story characters work through that conflict, sometimes with more conflict, in other times was actually deliberately trying to get along by seeing the humanity in the other. Because, as Horton said, in Horton Hears A Who, “A person is what? A person is a person, no matter how small.” Oh, even if they hurt you? Right-oh.

And so, now we get the sense of children seeing what forgiveness is, so that on their own, when they mature more philosophically and rationally, they can make their own decisions whether to do this or not. Because I worked with a 35-year-old woman recently whose husband just abandoned her, and she has two children and has to get a new job. And she said to me, “I want to forgive, but I don't know how.” What if she knew how to forgive through forgiveness education, her life at 35 would be much better.

Mills: Now, are there any demographic differences and who is able to forgive? Are women more able to forgive, because of the socialization that we go through? I mean, there are stereotypes and I happen to be part Irish and part Italian, and we all supposedly hold grudges. Do you find things like that in your research?

Enright: I have not found gender differences in how people successfully go through our psychotherapeutic process when they've been traumatized. There is some research out there that suggests, and it's only some, because not all of it says this—women statistically sometimes are more open to forgiving. I have found when I give talks on forgiveness that if you did a headcount, there are more women in the audience. And I have more graduate students studying forgiveness with me who are women. So, I think it's an interesting point, Kim. Maybe there is something there. But, at the end of the day, when men and women are definitely motivated to forgive, both can forgive with equal accuracy.

Mills: Let's talk for a minute about the role of forgiveness in social and geopolitical issues, where I know you've done some work. How did you deal with, I mentioned in the intro Northern Ireland? How did you negotiate that forgiveness with those countries?

Enright: Okay. Usually we're asked in. See, I don't push myself into anywhere. And so, in Northern Ireland and Gallagher, as with Eva Mozes Kor, she died and broke my heart. She had a peace movement in Northern Ireland. She had family members who were part of the difficulties there, what they called “the troubles.” And she said, “Come to Northern Ireland and help us understand forgiveness alongside the quest for justice.” And so I came, and she introduced me to school principals there. And at first, the school principals, rightly so, were skeptical of the idea of forgiveness, because they thought we were moving directly into political realm. The Irish Catholics versus British Protestants. No. No. No. We're interested in children in what they do when another child pushes the one down and skins the person's knee, or steals your orange at the lunch counter. And so, we're more interested in the person-to-person issues within their own community, you see, so that eventually as they develop their forgiveness muscle, as we say, and become more forgivingly fit, they might, if they so choose, start applying that in the political realm.

And I had had the same thing with a school superintendent in the West Bank, where he said, “The anger we have within our community here in the Middle East is destroying within our own community, individuals, families and the local community. Could you help us reduce our anger level, by practicing forgiveness locally?” And we have done that. And so, the key is to not get involved in the political realm first, to get involved with the individual human heart, the family, and the local community and let's see where that develops. That is actually one of my big goals. My big dreams with this work I've been doing for 38 years, is to change the peace movement, where it brings forgiveness into the conversation, not just to usurp anything that's been done. But, dialogue by itself can appear very neat and tidy and respectful, but away from the peace table, if the hearts aren't right, hatred can continue. I want to see forgiveness as part of dialogue and as part of solutions alongside justice.

Mills: It sounds as if you're working a lot with the younger generations. And, I'm wondering if in some instances we're just going to have to wait for the next group of children, effectively, to become adults, in order to work through some of these issues? I mean, I think of the Middle East in particular, even what we're seeing between Russia and Ukraine right now.

Enright: That's right. I think that's extremely insightful, actually. And, that's correct. I think we need to bring two generations of children and adolescents through forgiveness, so they mature in that. They become, as I had said before, forgivingly fit, so that they can apply that alongside other issues that have been tried. Okay. How long is it going to take if we bring two generations through? Which is what? About 20 to 40 years? How long has the difficulties been going on in Northern Ireland? Hundreds of years. How long in the Middle East? Thousands. And so, is 40 years an exhausted amount of time where we should forget it? No. That's a blink of an eye. I think we should try this by having the humility to say, “Those who come after us might find a better way.”

Mills: So, you mentioned you've been at this for 38 years. What keeps you going? What are you working on now? What are the questions that you still need to answer?

Enright: Okay. What keeps me going is the passion for what we find. It has actually surprised me, the strength of the findings when people are gravely hurting psychologically, and are healed from, let's say, major depressive disorder. And that gives me a hope, and the hope keeps me going, that we can indeed create a better world, one heart at a time. And so, I would say on the table as my wishlist, more insight that forgiveness education is worthwhile for children and adolescents. And, here's a big one, community forgiveness. And we're actually starting to work on that in different war-torn communities, especially in Africa.

We've been approached by four different communities in different geographic areas of Africa. Coming to us, saying, “Can you help us? We have had civil wars.” I just had a meeting this past week with someone from an African community who told me one million people, Kim, one million people have died in this century from the civil wars. And he said, “We need to bring forgiveness into communities, into individual hearts, families and communities, and then community to community.” But see, both communities have to be astute enough and motivated enough to become well-versed in forgiveness. And then, what will happen? I want to find out.

Mills: Well, Dr. Enright, I want to thank you for joining me today. This is extremely important work that you're doing. Thank you so much.

Enright: Thank you so much for having me, Kim.

Mills: You can find previous episodes of Speaking of Psychology on our website at www.speakingofpsychology.org, or on Apple, Stitcher, YouTube, or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. And, if you like what you've heard, please leave us a review. If you have comments or ideas for future podcasts, you can email us at speakingofpsychology@apa.org. Speaking of Psychology is produced by Lea Winerman. Our sound editor is Chris Condayan.?

Thank you for listening. For the American Psychological Association, I'm Kim Mills.