forgiveness

Forgiveness, in a psychological sense, is the intentional and voluntary process by which one who may felt initially wronged, victimized, harmed or hurt goes through a process in changing feelings and attitude regarding a given offender for his/her actions, and overcomes the impact of the offense, flaw or mistake including negative emotions such as resentment or a desire for vengeance. Theorists differ in the extent to which they believe forgiveness also implies replacing the negative emotions with positive attitudes (i.e. an increased ability to tolerate the offender), or requires reconciliation with the offender. In certain legal contexts, forgiveness is a term for absolving someone of debt, loan, obligation, or other claims. On the psychological level, forgiveness is different from simple condoning (viewing an action as harmful, yet to be “forgiven” or overlooked for certain reasons of “charity”), excusing or pardoning (merely releasing the offender from responsibility for an action), or forgetting (attempting to remove from one's consciousness the memory of an offense). In some schools of thought, it involves a personal and "voluntary" effort at the self-transformation of one's own half of a relationship with another, such that one is restored to peace and ideally to what psychologist Carl Rogers has referred to as “unconditional positive regard” towards the other. Forgiveness can seal off a past wrongdoing and remove it from the present. As a psychological concept and as a virtue, the benefits of forgiveness have been explored in religious thought, philosophy, social sciences, and medicine. Forgiveness may be considered simply in terms of the person who forgives, which may include forgiving themselves. This can be in terms of the person forgiven or in terms of the relationship between the forgiver and the person forgiven. In most contexts, forgiveness is granted without any expectation of restorative justice, and without any response on the part of the offender (for example, one may forgive a person who is incommunicado or dead). In practical terms, it may be necessary for the offender to offer some form of acknowledgment, such as an apology, or to explicitly ask for forgiveness, in order for the wronged person to believe themselves able to forgive. Social and political dimensions of forgiveness involve the strictly private and religious sphere of "forgiveness". The notion of "forgiveness" is generally considered unusual in the political field.