A Psychoanalytic Approach to Forgiveness
Here I attempt to address the nature of forgiveness and the tension that is oscillated between two individuals. Where one has wronged the other and the other claims to be wronged. However, the experience of this event where the wrong occurs is also where we should begin to examine. Whether two individuals mutually acknowledge this event, or one concedes, shame simultaneously enters the picture, but the danger lies in the presupposition that both are reliable narrators.
We assume without question this is a circumstance of morality, though arguments can be made for such, this apparent obviousness is where one can easily fall into error. For to be forgiven or to be wronged, both must have agreed either wittingly or unwittingly, to the same set of moral values that they must adhere by. But morality is a fog where we presume the correct criteria for judgment and execution. This where I recommend putting morality to the side and confronting the tension that needs attending to. For shame as Adam Phillips would say is the “tyranny of the image”, the desire to come back to our “best selves”. Shame is, therefore, the necessary precondition to request forgiveness. Again, we presume what is to be desired in the image of our “best selves”.
This narrow attentiveness is what makes the “tyranny of the image” powerful. Does one wish to be forgiven because one has strayed from such image? Or does one wish to be forgiven because one has done something utterly wrong? The invitation of morality can easily end this exploration and this is why it must be pushed temporally aside. To forgive and to be forgiven is to confront the tyranny of the images both have imposed on one another and the images they hold themselves accountable to, of who they believe they are or should be.
The demands or hopes to be forgiven and the pressure to forgive are both states that give a feeling of unbearable weight, but it is exactly this unbearable weight that both do not want to confront. The one demanding forgiveness does not want to confront shame and the one being pressured to forgive does not want to confront the incapacity to forgive, but this where true reconciliation is made possible. It is not the reconciliation of two individuals but the reconciliation of the contrary images that both must develop a relationship with. This relationship is what I believe to be true forgiveness. The one that was wronged must develop a relationship with his or her image of the incapacity to forgive and the one demanding forgiveness must develop a relationship with his or her image of shame. These are the contraries that are most debilitating and necessary to confront. This continued tension with such confrontation is where I hope to reveal the conception of “unsaid forgiveness”. For neither can change the past and this where we must come to grips with our own helplessness.
Things that were not addressed in this essay is the development of the child in their experiencing of shame for the first time and being demanded to apologize or forgive, as well as the circumstances where one does not want to be forgiven and is not pressured to forgive. However, both are preconceptions about a relationship with the other when it is still in fact, a relationship with the contrary tyrannical images that are imposed and must reconciled.
Notes: For those that are interested in Adam Phillips and the many ideas presented in this essay. I recommend his talk on “Attention Seeking”.