In the book, King addresses loving people responsible for racial segregation and violence against Black Americans, but he does so without ever condoning racial harm.

While King’s understanding of forgiveness flowed from his theology, psychology offers a perspective on whether forgiveness may be more or less helpful for us when a broader social offense has been committed or is ongoing. Though most forgiveness research has looked at offenses between two people—like friends or family members—a few efforts have tried to understand intergroup offenses, like racism. Even wrongs committed between two community members in the U.S. and elsewhere happen within an inescapable reality shaped by race.

Thus, for Americans from racially marginalized groups, considering whether to forgive involves taking into account our individual wellness, as well as the historical context and the social and cultural worlds we live in.

Racial pressure to forgive

On the whole, forgiveness should be viewed within a larger context, says Michael Perez, a social psychologist at Wesleyan University, particularly when it comes to race. If social justice is yet to be achieved, then forgiveness has some risks.

In a courtroom in October 2018, Brandt Jean hugged and forgave Amber Guyger, a white off-duty officer, for fatally shooting his older brother Botham Jean in his Dallas apartment, drawing media fascination with his forgiveness in spite of her murder conviction.

Perez, who was a psychology Ph.D. student at Texas A&M University at the time, became troubled by the coverage. It held echoes of the racially motivated gunning down of nine Mother Emanuel AME Church congregants in Charleston in 2017. “What I felt was that in those instances because the forgiveness was so front and center the racial components of this case [melted into the background]. It was the forgiveness that took up all the narrative oxygen,” he says.

Perez prompts mental health professionals and psychologists to consider the social context of racism when public forgiveness is expressed through Black pain.

Historian and journalist Stacey Patton wrote for the Washington Post, “Black pain is only heard after forgiveness is afforded to these white perpetrators. Black rage is challenged as inappropriate and unhelpful, while the media and others celebrate the traumatized family members’ ability to respond to this latest heinous crime with compassion and love. When black forgiveness is the means for white atonement, it enables white denial about the harms that racist violence creates. When black redemption of white America is prioritized over justice and accountability, there is no chance of truth and reconciliation. It trivializes real black suffering, grief, and the heavy lifting required for any possibility of societal progress.”

If you are not white, Perez says, there may be “cultural expectations of decorum and how you should engage” that stigmatize anger or pushback. Perez worries about the risk of coerced forgiveness when society almost expects forgiveness from certain racialized groups.

In recent years, as public shootings of Black people receive attention, communication scholars have turned an eye to analyzing Black forgiveness whenever a socially visible violence occurs. Communication scholar Daniel Morris documents how news reporters frequently ask the relatives of victims of police brutality if they will forgive the perpetrators.

“We maintain that the wider public not only expects a rhetoric of forgiveness when racial ghosts of the past (and present) manifest in ways that cause Black pain but also those grief-stricken Black families must offer the forgiveness in non-threatening and [expeditious] ways that eases public consciences,” write scholars Andre Johnson and Earle Fischer.

Therefore, an individual choice to forgive may be influenced by larger societal pressures to do so, not just religious pressure but also racial pressure. 

In broader culture, Perez argues, Black forgiveness narratives may reinforce the idea that we live in a more equitable, colorblind society than we actually do, thus letting society off the hook from having to dismantle systems of injustice.

“A lot of the prevailing literature is that forgiveness is letting a weight down. But the pressure to forgive can actually be quite burdensome,” says Perez. The field needs “more people to really think about the idea of how racism can permeate seemingly positive things.”

One of researcher Robert Enright’s (non-sequential) four phases of forgiveness is examining your anger. Perez says we must afford people the right to process that anger on their own timeline. “Sometimes we shy away from the negative emotions,” he says. “But anger gets people to push for change.”

Perez worries that forgiveness just “helps Black people survive in a toxic environment of racism as opposed to addressing the sociocultural worlds that reproduce racism.”

Forgiveness as a coping mechanism

However, despite our social realities, Perez recognizes that some individuals choose forgiveness as a part of their journey. For some, forgiveness may serve as a coping mechanism to survive the environment in which they live day to day—and it may have some benefits.

African Americans who cultivate forgiveness as a general disposition have decreased depressive symptoms, according to a study by Jasmin Brooks Stephens, a University of California, Berkeley, psychologist. She surveyed 101 African American college students who said they had experienced racial discrimination.

Approximately 27% of them met criteria for clinical depression, and the more racial discrimination they said they experienced, the higher their depression symptoms. But this link was weaker when people had a higher tendency to forgive.

The findings corroborated a 2017 study, which found that African American men who practiced forgiveness developed fewer depressive symptoms even as they experienced everyday racial discrimination. However, younger men reported experiencing racism more often and struggled more with depression and granting forgiveness.

Several scholars have also looked at forgiveness through the lens of health.

In a 2012 article, sociologist Michael McFarland, an associate professor at Florida State University, and his colleagues explored the results from a 2001 nationally representative survey of older American Christians—both Blacks and whites. The study found that Blacks who have a more forgiving disposition are less likely to experience alcohol abuse and chronic health conditions.

But those who lived in rundown neighborhoods did not experience the same benefits. They found that Blacks who live “in more deteriorated neighborhoods may not receive the health benefits from forgiveness that those in less deteriorated neighborhoods receive.”

Together, these studies suggest forgiveness has benefits for those who belong to racial minority groups, but they may be limited when other social factors are not addressed.

Forgiveness as a benefits and risk assessment

Michael McCullough, a psychologist at the University of California San Diego, finds that people can cultivate unforgiveness as a survival mechanism, particularly in communities that receive underinvestment. Neighborhood culture there may encourage unforgiveness or even revenge to protect people from more harms. Being forgiving could be perceived as weakness and make someone vulnerable to being taken advantage of.

McCullough studies forgiveness through an evolutionary lens. He theorizes about what conditions lead to forgiveness.

After an offense, a victim has different choices about how to respond. In a 2021 review, McCullough and his colleague Thomas McCauley write, one option is to simply avoid the offender to reduce the likelihood of being harmed again—but that might be difficult depending on any prior relationship to the offender. The victim could take revenge, but that might have its own risks. Both of these strategies also run another risk: losing access to whatever benefits the exploiter offers, such as employment or educational opportunities, financial benefits, or even belonging, love, or acceptance.

Forgiveness might become the right solution, but it depends on the conditions that exist in a particular scenario. For example, a nonprofit that supports BIPOC youth relies on a high-profile donor. The donor makes some insensitive comments that reveal racial biases and are hurtful to staff members, who are also primarily members of these racial groups. In this case, the donor is a long-time partner of the organization and plays a vital role in connecting them to others in the community.

McCullough and his colleagues have found that our decision to forgive is related to our calculation of both the threat of future harm and the value of our relationship with the offender, though neither of these are necessarily the only clear cause of our choice to forgive.

If when confronted, the donor is dismissive and shows no intention to change, staff members might still choose a type of forgiveness to preserve the relationship, while remaining guarded around him. After all, the options to either avoid the offender or take revenge contain their own risks to the stability of the nonprofit.

But if the donor apologizes and takes accountability for the harm by committing to a racial bias training, the nonprofit director might value the relationship more and believe his staff is less likely to be harmed again—thus, encouraging forgiveness.

Intergroup forgiveness

Another line of inquiry is attempting to measure and define forgiveness in an intergroup setting, specifically as it applies to race-related offenses.

In 2015, Georgia State University psychologist Don Davis and his colleagues tested a newly created intergroup forgiveness survey with African American students, who answered questions about their decision to forgive, their perceptions of the value of relationships with an offending group, and how much they predicted being exploited by that group. Students also filled out questionnaires on forgiveness and microaggressions.

They found that students frequently chose to avoid the group—rather than forgive—when they did not judge relationships with that group to be valuable or thought future harm to be likely. The more they felt exploited, the more often they chose a strategy of revenge.

Taking it a step further, Davis and his colleagues asked a separate group of racially or ethnically marginalized students about how committed they were to religion and how connected they were to their racial or ethnic identity, alongside their intergroup forgiveness.

Within the population studied, their findings hinted that people with a stronger racial or ethnic identity showed more intergroup forgiveness. Of the participants, 72.5% had a strong racial or ethnic identity and were more likely to forgive, while the rest were less forgiving but varied in their sense of identity.

People with more religious commitment tended to show particular aspects of forgiveness indicating a decision to forgive—e.g., “I have made a commitment to forgiving them” and “My choice is to forgive them.” Davis says that this might support the idea that intending to forgive can be a coping strategy, similar to Stephens’s notion of forgiveness.

This research shows that interpersonal and intergroup forgiveness appear to be different things. Furthermore, members of the same group choose different strategies in response to race-based offenses, which only sometimes include forgiveness.

Radical forgiveness

Meanwhile, Perez agrees that there might be insights to learn from how Black Christians during the Civil Rights Movement reframed forgiveness not as weak but as power. Public, radical love expressed in peaceful protest highlighted the depths of racist hatred and aimed to move sympathetic whites to join them in social change.

In King’s writing on forgiveness, he was elaborating on the biblical text where Peter asked Jesus how many times he should forgive a brother who sinned against him. While Peter asks if seven times is enough, Jesus challenges him to 70 times that amount.

King’s elaboration is that no one who forgives that much could do so without forgiveness becoming a permanent character trait. Yet it is by displaying that inner change—actively standing against injustice using (in his case) faith-informed non-violent civil action—that puts on display the depth of the evil underlying racial discriminations.

In a later chapter in “Strength to Love,” King wrote about loving our enemies: “Throw us in jail, and we shall still love you. Bomb our homes and threaten our children, and we shall still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our community at the midnight hour and beat us and leave us half dead, and we shall still love you. But be ye assured that we will wear you down by our capacity to suffer. One day we shall win freedom, but not only for ourselves. We shall so appeal to your heart and conscience that we shall win you in the process, and our victory will be a double victory.”

King’s aim was to forgive so hard and thoroughly that justice would flow.

But as time passes, is it helpful to hold on to feelings of distress or ill will? While avoiding someone, stonewalling them, or plotting revenge can feel natural, are the feelings that drive these kinds of reactions good for health and well-being in the long run? 

Research suggests not. Letting go of anger and extending goodwill to the people who harmed us tends to restore our internal equilibrium and help us sleep better and live longer.

But why do some things still feel unforgivable—like holding a grudge is the right thing to do? 

Forgiveness and the nervous system

The human body is built with two main branches of the nervous system that are below the neck: the sympathetic branch (SNS) that mainly supports faster “fight or flight” drives and reflexes, and the parasympathetic branch (PNS) that is more involved in gradual “rest and digest” and “tend and befriend” motivations and behaviors. These systems are in constant dialogue, dynamically shifting physical resources like oxygen, glucose, and hormones back and forth to equip us to do whatever is best for our survival in any situation.

When we sense threat or are reminded of something hurtful, the SNS is dominant. When we feel safe and beloved, the PNS prevails. It feels right when these systems give us the energy, wherewithal, and focus to do the right thing, like hustling to catch a bus, train, or airplane when we’re late, or enjoying a deep, loving conversation with a friend after a nice meal.

Sometimes, though, there’s a mismatch, like late-night restless worrying even in the comfort of a safe and warm bed, or procrastinating on an important, time-sensitive task. Mismatches often involve miscalculating time, either focusing on the short term when a long-term view would be more helpful, or ignoring the present moment in favor of the unchangeable past or unknowable future. The “negativity bias,” which is our mental tendency to privilege information from the past, present, or future that could be threatening in any way, also feeds into this mismatch by getting us ready to escape or defend, even when we’re safe.

Without conscious deliberation, our first urge in many situations is to avoid what’s costly and gain what’s immediately desired, even at long-term loss or at the expense of lasting benefit. For example, we may refrain from waving another driver into a convenient parking space to avoid walking a relatively short distance ourselves, though the generosity would feel nice and the walk would be pleasant and better for our health. Or we might hold back from apologizing for an unintentional offense to avoid being vulnerable and go on with our day uninterrupted, though offering the apology would initiate reconciliation that could relieve stress and strengthen our relationship.

So what does this have to do with forgiveness and grudges? Studies of forgiveness and physical health suggest that unforgiveness (in other words, holding a grudge) may be one of these mismatches. Grudges may feel valid in the moment, but are problematic when held long-term; forgiveness feels unsteady and tender in the moment, but ultimately helps you feel better.

Why do we hold grudges?

According to forgiveness scholar Everett Worthington at Virginia Commonwealth University, forgiving means reducing negative thoughts, emotions, and behaviors toward someone who committed harm and replacing them with positive thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. Forgiveness does not mean pardoning, condoning, excusing, or justifying harm, nor does it require reconciling with the person. This is an important distinction, because believing that forgiveness does mean “getting back together” can make it feel unfair, like it invalidates our pain and suffering, which can make holding a grudge feel more sensible and appealing.

Forgiving is also not a strategy for becoming complacent when we’re being treated poorly; it does not mean rationalizing or justifying harmful conduct so that we can continue to endure it. When we forgive, we honor and remember that we felt badly in order to move forward more wisely, while letting go of ongoing, unbidden anxious and unpleasant feelings. 

Unforgiveness can also feel like a better choice because it seems easier. It is uncomplicated and unequivocal: “I am right and the person who committed harm is wrong.” This view is simple and certain, and does not require additional consideration—in other words, it carries low cognitive cost. One of the costs some people perceive of forgiveness is losing face and the possibility of applying consequences. Deciding to surrender the certainty of “an eye for an eye” logic can be challenging because it feels asymmetrical and ambiguous.

Unforgiveness can also feel protective because it motivates absolute avoidance: no further encounters or contact with those who commit harm. No more bad feelings from being reminded of the harm. Forgiveness, on the other hand, requires emotional labor—or acknowledging the hard feelings linked to a past harm and working to shift them toward a gentler, more nurturing stance. Forgiving means being open to the possibility of remembering or even encountering a harm doer again and readying ourselves to offer ease and goodwill.

Finally, studies have documented that seeing a cheater or harm doer get punished activates reward pathways in our brain, the “altruistic punishment” or “schadenfreude” signal, a motivator of the basic human preference for restoring justice. When we anticipate satisfaction as we imagine holding someone accountable or exacting revenge, it may strengthen the urge to hold a grudge.

What is left out of all these mental justifications for grudge holding, however, is the long-term detrimental impact. While feeling mad, afraid, sad, or otherwise unpleasant or upset about being harmed are healthy emotional responses in the short term, they are naturally time-bound and fluctuating. Emotions emerge in real time to guide our responses to the current context and inform our long-term knowledge, and then subside. A grudge, on the other hand, keeps these feelings pervasive and enduring. They remain intense and they recur, sometimes unexpectedly, in response to associations and reminders in our life. Lingering, recurring negative emotions overactivate the SNS, which amounts to a type of chronic stress that can increase our blood pressure, impair our immune response, increase our cardiovascular risk, and disrupt our sleep.

“Forgiveness of others is associated with risk for all-cause mortality, and the mortality risk of [forgiving someone] may be conferred by its influences on physical health,” writes Laurent Toussaint.

Two ways forgiveness is good for your health

Embracing, labelling, disclosing, and accepting difficult and unpleasant feelings about past harms enable us to be resilient. Seeking social support, to process negative feelings—which can be part of forgiving if we involve a friend, ally, supportive person, or even the perpetrator of harm if it makes sense—helps us learn, grow, and find ease and meaning from them. A recent study by Marilyn Cornish reported that forgiveness helped medical patients adapt to life changes after suffering a spinal cord injury, suggesting that accepting ambiguity as part of forgiving may benefit our response to other unforeseen circumstances.

Forgiveness improves physical health by reducing and untethering our negative emotional reactions about a prior harm or any reminders of it from our day-to-day experiences. Reducing “hard feelings” about a past harm helps restore balance between the SNS and PNS, instead of keeping us in stress overdrive.

According to a systematic review of multiple studies on forgiveness in aging and advanced illness, “Forgiveness should be taken into account among holistic care professionals as a considerable contributor to the resolution of stress associated with conflicts over the lifespan to promote well-being and health outcomes.” 

Forgiving also frees up mental and emotional resources for us to be trusting, optimistic, and self-compassionate (i.e., kind toward our own inadequacies and flaws), and promotes friendlier behaviors like participating in social gatherings, activities, and community events.

While several large-scale studies have reported that people who are more forgiving are less likely to die of any cause, and attributed the lifespan gain to the benefits of forgiveness on physical health, correlation cannot be interpreted as causal. Are forgiving people healthier, or are healthier people more forgiving?

In a recent study led by Songzhi Wu at Columbia University, participants who forgave rated stimuli that reminded them of a past harm (like a photo of an unfaithful romantic partner’s favorite restaurant) as less unpleasant. These findings suggest that forgiving someone reduces the intensity of negative emotion linked to reminders of a past harm. Another 2020 study published in BMC Psychology measured forgiveness one year, and positive emotions, social integration, depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, hopelessness, and loneliness five years later. Those who forgave more often fared better in all these areas, suggesting a more direct impact of forgiveness on health. A third study published in Psychology and Health revealed that people who are more forgiving of both themselves and other people sleep better:

Because forgiveness is associated with better sleep, it capitalizes on the powerful role that sleep plays in good health. If forgiveness of others and self-forgiveness can help people cope with the day’s psychological and emotional burdens in a way that frees one’s mind and promotes a more restful mental state for sleep, then they support the health-related process of sleep in meaningful ways.

When I teach the science of forgiveness, there is often a contingent of people who proudly refuse it—from a place of defiance and perceived empowerment. The rigidity, distrust, and emotional compartmentalizing that go into unforgiveness, however, amount to greater enduring cost mentally, socially, and physically than the lesser, yet significant, upfront effort that goes into deciding to forgive and emotionally shifting toward mercy and grace. Forgiving is not a gift to people for the hurt they have caused. Forgiveness is a physiologically balancing, resilience-building lifesaver for us.

He’d earned that nickname after spending 14 years collecting definitions of the word “compassion” from passersby in a notebook or on video. This grew out of a personal awakening he had in 2009, when he gave away all of his possessions to devote his life to a higher purpose, one that included living without stable housing, approaching each day without expectation, and embracing simplicity and minimalism.

It seemed a cruel irony that someone who lived and breathed peace and compassion lost his life in such a tragic way. I was devastated, to say the least. Even further: During the early days of my grieving process, I rediscovered a message David had sent me, one he felt he needed to write as he was becoming more of a public figure in Davis: “If I’m ever harmed or unable to speak for myself, forgive the perpetrator and help others forgive that person.”

Not long after, I found myself sitting in a courtroom, yards away from the young man who took David’s life. How could I possibly live up to David’s wish, this close, this personal, still deeply embedded in the grieving process?

I had to try to practice forgiveness. In real time.

I kept coming back to that word: “practice.” I knew I couldn’t expect anyone else to feel the same way as me—this was my own journey.

But there were others I could learn from, people who’d gone through incredibly difficult experiences but still managed to somehow tap into a place of empathy and mercy. I studied the work of Holocaust survivor Eva Kor, who forgave the people who killed her family. I listened to stories by Jack Kornfield, including his 12 Principles of Forgiveness. I learned from Fred Luskin that I had to “be at peace with the vulnerability inherent in human life.”

These were lessons I absorbed, integrated, and put into practice. At first, it was easier said than done. But I had these examples and David’s words to guide me. I also discovered things about the young man who killed David—and found unexpected common ground in our life stories. 

It may sound ludicrous that someone would be open to identifying a common humanity with someone who’s taken the life of a loved one. But that’s exactly what I found myself doing during the course of the trial in May and June of 2025.

Our mother had schizophrenia. So did the person who took David’s life, Carlos Reales Dominguez. However, Carlos had never been diagnosed as schizophrenic—that happened as a result of receiving a psychiatric evaluation during the trial.

There’s more. My mother was from Jamaica, and Carlos was from El Salvador—we all shared immigrant roots, and all grew up in lower-middle-class families in dangerous neighborhoods. David, Carlos, and I had all been honors students. All of us, in our own ways, were survivors. We’d been accepted into college, with Carlos and me both being first-generation attendees.

We’d overcome so much. It made me view Carlos not only through the same lens as David and me, but also that of many of the kids I’d grown up with, where domestic abuse, sexual abuse, food insecurity, and more accumulated into multiple adverse childhood experiences. These, in turn, can increase the likelihood of negative outcomes in adulthood.

Not only did these shared stories deeply move me—I found myself noticing what it took to reach a place of openness to hearing them. It was, once again, practices, including active listening (granted, potentially inherent in a process that involves testimony and evidence), mindfulness, and deep self-reflection, that helped me navigate pain and reckon not only with my humanity but also with someone else’s.

I had to notice my emotions without judgment, recognize biases, and listen, to not only testimony but also the deeper context of suffering in general.

It didn’t interrupt the grieving process. That wasn’t my goal, anyway, and my therapist told me this wasn’t particularly healthy. But what it did do is help me heal a little faster, grieve a little less, and empathize a lot more.

We all play roles and bring our identities, biases, hurts, wants, and needs to painful situations. Because I was primed for it by David’s request to “forgive the perpetrator,” by the work I’d done to learn more about how to practice forgiveness, and by my understanding of severe mental illness because of my mother, perhaps forgiveness came more easily to me.

But I think anyone’s capable, given the time and space, to reach the same place of openness and empathy. It may not happen overnight. But the possibility, I believe, is there, if one looks for it.

The first trial for Carlos resulted in a hung jury. The retrial is now underway. I’m further along in my grieving process. I’ve even started partnering with transformative justice organizations that believe in fair chances for those who’ve committed crimes, as I believe. As civil rights attorney Bryan Stevenson writes in his book, Just Mercy, “Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done.”

I’m in a good place, still healing, finding purpose. Still, to take care of myself, I’m limiting my involvement with the trial this time around. Come what may, I’m going to be approaching everything with the resources I’ve gained and integrated—and with clear-eyed compassion.

Jean-Michel Robichaud, a psychologist at the Université de Moncton in New Brunswick, studies situations like this when adolescents feel hurt by their parents’ actions. While working as a therapist at Jewish General Hospital in Montreal during his Ph.D. studies, he saw families with damaged relationships—often because of a hurt that occurred when the teen was younger. This led him to be curious about how parent responses to an offense impact family relationships and teen well-being.

In this hypothetical scenario, Sophie—we’ll call her—feels compared to her older brother, who is high-achieving and a good kid, while she is thought of as the rebel in the family. Her parents are worried about her, so they give her less autonomy.

Robichaud wanted to offer his clinical patients research-based advice to help them where they felt stuck in moving forward in a conflict. His research addresses where apologies fit into parenting—whether they’re helpful, and what they should sound like. He wondered how to offer an apology that brings satisfactory resolution and well-being, but he didn’t find many studies on the topic when he began his work.

What apology research says

Previous research supports the idea that apologizing can facilitate forgiveness from those who have been hurt.

Karina Schumann, who was also in her Ph.D. program in the late 2010s, noticed that most work on forgiveness studied the victim’s perspective: “How do people perceive apologies? Does it contribute to forgiveness?” But she wondered about the transgressor’s side of things. “What does it mean to be a person who has harmed someone, and what then moves you toward engaging in a reparative action?”

To fill that gap, Schumann, now a University of Pittsburgh psychologist, began focusing on apologies. “What might influence our willingness to apologize? . . . How can we understand what motivates transgressors to apologize?”

Meanwhile, Robichaud saw that the scant research that existed addressed dynamics other than parenting—such as governmental or institutional apologies and romantic relationships. When he took his first faculty position at the Université de Moncton in New Brunswick in 2022, he became intent on researching apologies in parent and child relationships.

Schumann and Robichaud teamed up. “Right away the results were astonishing. . . . It seems to be something that is very important in parent-child relationships,” says Robichaud.

What prevents apologies?

Schumann wrote about three main barriers to apologizing based on insights from a review of recent research. The most common obstacle pertains to saving face. People protect their self-image. “It’s an icky, uncomfortable feeling for us to face our mistakes. We want to be good people, partners. All of that can make us feel really uncomfortable,” she says.

In the moment we realize our behavior was hurtful, we immediately think of all the reasons why we behaved the way we did. “I’m stressed, tired, or you haven’t done these things for me or supported me. We can create excuses around our behavior, even if we don’t verbalize it,” she says.

Adding to that, many conflicts are characterized by dual responsibility.

“We often feel like we’re not the only ones responsible. We find ourselves in a situation, ‘Yeah, I probably shouldn’t have done that,’ but we have such a strong inclination to want to feel good about ourselves.”

People feel that if they apologize first, it makes them more responsible for the conflict than the other person. “I worry you will think I’m 100% responsible,” explains Schumann. While conflicts are often thought of neatly as having a victim and a transgressor, sometimes both parties are responsible for misbehavior—even though the blame might not be evenly shared.

In another paper, coauthored with her graduate student Anna Vazeou-Nieuwenhuis, Schumann found that more self-compassionate people are less likely to withdraw in shame after they’ve done something wrong. Shame does not lead to forgiveness-seeking, according to a 2013 study led by Calvin University psychologist Blake Riek. When people perceive mistakes to be self-defining, they’re inclined to avoid admitting responsibility in order to protect their self-image, says Schumann. However, people who understand that they will make mistakes and don’t let mistakes define them are more likely to apologize.

Another reason people avoid apologies is that they struggle to empathize with the victim, she writes in the review. MacEwan University psychologist Andrew Howell that people with certain personality traits (like higher self-esteem and compassion) are more willing to apologize, while people with other traits, like narcissism, are less willing. In a series of experiments, Schumann found that people with higher empathy for a romantic partner or friend offered higher-quality apologies rather than defensive responses.

Schumann lists a third restraint: the perception that an apology won’t elicit forgiveness or compassion from the victim. A 2012 study found that transgressors stay attentive to any clues that a victim is willing to repair the relationship and tailor their responses accordingly. 

Different types of apologies

Robichaud refers to apologies as “psychological vitamins”—that’s how good for parents and children he believes them to be. “When you make a mistake, you just created an opportunity to teach several key values to your child and to nurture your relationship with your child,” he says.

However, successful apologies contain specific elements. “The way you phrase your apologies will also be key in reaching forgiveness and all the benefits that come with it . . . both for the one who apologizes and the one who receives,” he says.

Robichaud along with Schumann tested victim-centered apologies and defensive apologies among French-speaking teens in Canada. Victim-centered apologies included things like “I’m sorry,” “What I did was unfair,” “I hurt you,” or “I reacted too quickly.” They even might request forgiveness but without pressuring: “I hope you can forgive me, but I understand if you’re not ready.”

In contrast, defensive apologies fail to empathize with the hurt a teen might feel. They might explain the mistake, justify particular actions—“I did it for your own good”—blame the child, or minimize the hurt—“It was just a joke.” 

The studies tested apologies in a variety of ways, including participants answering questionnaires about their relationship with their parents, writing responses about a particular situation they could recall, and responding to a hypothetical scenario.

Robichaud found that parents who apologize to their children create an environment that cultivates forgiveness. “We have data consistently showing that the more parents do this, the higher the likelihood [adolescents] will forgive, but also the healthier the reasons they will forgive.” In other words, forgiveness is offered freely without the motivation of a controlling parent.

Beyond forgiveness, adolescents who receive parental apologies have higher well-being and act in kind and helpful ways, says Robichaud. When parents apologize, adolescents are more likely to disclose their own mistakes to their parents and less likely to lie.

Taking responsibility in your apology

Sometimes in Robichaud’s clinical work, parents offered apologies that included justifications for their behavior: “You were difficult,” “I was sick,” “Your father wasn’t there.” In the scope of things, he thought that “those seemed like very legitimate reasons, but the families weren’t doing better.”

In the example with Sophie, her parents felt accused of being neglectful and reacted highly defensively. “How can you even say that? We give you so many privileges. You have a TV, and your brother never had one.”

But that kind of response fails to address how the teen feels and instead focuses on the parents’ feelings. What it sounds like to the teen is: “What you are living is not real,” while the parents intended to communicate: “We love you equally.” Teens either react back or close up when parents act defensively, says Robichaud.

“What I noticed is that the families where the parents could find it in themselves to apologize and take accountability for what they had done . . . they were doing much better after months of therapy,” he says.

Later, let’s say the parents realized that their teen’s complaint had some truth in it: “Even though they valued treating their children equally, they failed to do it,” describes Robichaud. He explains how they could offer two apologies: one for their initial reaction and another for their unfairness, while opening a discussion about how to give Sophie the same opportunities that her brother had.

Parents who hope for positive outcomes should leave out any explanation for their behavior. “If you want to apologize, don’t defend yourself at the same time. That’s the equivalent of having done nothing,” says Robichaud. “They might be tempted to defend themselves, minimize the harm that was done, or blame the child—‘if you hadn’t acted so horribly for so long, maybe I wouldn’t have freaked out.’ That defensive language has been shown to have the opposite effect. It increases lying, reducing disclosure, reducing forgiveness.”

Parents can model what it looks like to take responsibility for your mistakes. “You give [teens] the experience of how good it feels to be validated after being hurt,” says Robichaud. “When parents apologize to their children, the more teens or children are inclined to apologize to their parents later. . . . They learn from that.”

What we know—and don’t

The research on apologies is less robust than the psychology of forgiveness, and Robichaud is still working through some remaining questions.

However, one apprehension Robichaud sought to address early on in his research is a popular concern about parent apologies. Some blogs and online advice from clinicians suggest that apologizing to children might undermine parental authority in some way. When parents apologize, it upsets the typical power dynamic: Parents must put themselves in a position of weakness. Some wondered if that shift creates an insecure environment and leads to a passive-aggressive pressure for the child to forgive their parents. Though appearing humble, apologizing may actually be controlling.

In a separate paper, Robichaud and Schuman tested for that in multiple ways but didn’t find any significant effect that apologies had on parental authority.

“When you apologize, you tap into the relational trust, bond, care, love, but you don’t tap into the hierarchy rules or respect,” says Robichaud. “It’s not about that. It’s about repairing the bond that has been broken, the relational damage, the trust that has been hindered by the mistake.”

Robichaud also wants to know: Could severe cases of abuse or chronic patterns of mistreatment diminish the benefits of apologies? “What happens when it’s a cycle or the parent repeats the same mistake over and over? Are words enough? Do they lose their power?” he asks. Additionally, while he started his research among teens, he’s interested in understanding parent apologies to younger children.

What Robichaud is sure of: All parents make mistakes. “The list of factors that can bring even the best of the best of parents to make a mistake goes into the hundreds. There are so many factors that have been identified as a risk factor that can impact the quality of parenting behaviors. There are too many factors at play for a parent to expect they can be perfect,” he says.

“Every parent has bad parenting moments,” says Robichaud, especially considering various cultural factors around parenting, common childhood struggles, and pressures outside the home, such as work-related stress. “They do have consequences, but that’s where parents have control. They will make mistakes—they can’t realty control that—but when they do, they can apologize. How parents respond to the mistake can determine whether the mistake will have a negative effect or a less negative effect.”

In the aftermath of this ghastly genocide, the country needed to figure out how to move forward. Concerned about renewed violence, the newly formed government created a justice and reconciliation process to ensure that all Rwandans live side by side peacefully. This would be achieved by establishing “Reconciliation Villages.”

One of the villages, Rweru Reconciliation Village, serves as a case study in post-genocide reconstruction. In the village live both survivors and perpetrators of the genocide, there to demonstrate that living side by side is possible. All the residents participate in joint activities, such as farming the land and building homes together, attending communal gatherings, and reconstructing the social fabric.

As we’ll see, forgiveness in Rwanda is not without its challenges. Forgiveness takes time and can be a profound personal journey, shaped by cultural, religious, and spiritual beliefs. But for those who live in Rweru, forgiveness is seen not as condoning past atrocities, but as breaking free from the cycle of violence and hatred. We believe Rwanda shows the world that, even in the face of unspeakable horrors, communities can come together, forgive, and rebuild.

It is one thing to forgive someone who has offended you. It is a different story when faced with the task of making peace between groups that have committed violence against each other. What does forgiveness look like in a situation like this, and can forgiveness initiate societal change? Through our work at the Forgiveness Project at Stanford University, we’ve come to see Rwanda as a model of political forgiveness—a concept that is essential to building a more peaceful world.

What is political forgiveness?

In her book The Human Condition, the political philosopher Hannah Arendt writes, “Without being forgiven, released from the consequences of what we have done, our capacity to act would be confined to a single deed.”

The beauty of forgiveness, as noted by Arendt, is that forgiveness interrupts otherwise automatic processes—not only in our private lives but also in the public sphere. Forgiveness is as vital in the public realm as it is to preserve bonds between individuals.

Psychologists describe forgiveness as a conscious choice to set aside feelings of anger and resentment toward an individual who has caused harm, regardless of whether that person deserves it. Although there is some disagreement about whether forgiveness requires developing positive feelings toward the offender, there is agreement that forgiveness is a process of letting go of deeply held anger or resentment.

In recent decades, psychologists have empirically validated several methodologies that promote forgiveness toward self and others, one of which is the Stanford Forgiveness Project. Research on the impact of psychoeducation on forgiveness has shown that it helps people forgive those who they feel have wronged them, forgive themselves, and enable existential forgiveness. These approaches, which we believe have been validated across a wide range of human offenses, offer promise in helping to resolve political and civil violence.     

Our goal is to integrate the secular model of forgiveness developed by the Stanford Forgiveness Project with a tested dialogue method from Colombia, South America, to create a testable process we are labeling “political forgiveness.” We believe the essence of political forgiveness integrates interpersonal and self-forgiveness with structured dialogue to help enable communities to recover from violence and civil unrest.

Political forgiveness can be defined as the process of repairing fractured relationships among individuals, nations, or groups. The goal of political forgiveness is to heal individuals, reconstruct communal relationships, and rebuild trust. Political forgiveness emerges from the enfolding of appropriate grieving of wounds, forgiving of self and others, and creating positive dialogue. Forgiveness by and for individuals and groups is a powerful mechanism for healing harmful actions that cannot be reversed.   

Forgiveness in Rweru

What does political forgiveness look like?

Let’s return to the example of Rwanda and the Rweru Reconciliation Village. Two of its residents are Maria Izagiriza, a survivor, and Philbert Nterzirizaza, a former perpetrator and Izagiriza’s neighbor, who killed some of her family members. Izagiriza’s husband and six of her nine children were murdered during the genocide.

Right after the downing of the plane that killed the president, Izagiriza had been warned that there was trouble ahead. Her neighbor said to Izagiriza that her people were responsible for the leader’s death, and she would pay dearly for what she had done.

The following morning, the militia showed up at her home, killed all her livestock, burned her house down, and beat her husband nearly to death. Fortunately, her children were left unharmed. Izagiriza hid until nightfall when she felt that it was safe enough to return to her compound to get her husband and children. When she finally found them, she described what she witnessed: “Though breathing, my husband was so badly wounded and bleeding from all parts of his body,” she says, pausing to wipe the tears streaming down her tired face. “The children were scared stiff but unharmed.”

With the help of her children, Izagiriza somehow managed to drag her injured husband to a hiding place where she felt they would all be safe. This is when she realized that the person she thought was a friend and who offered to help, instead delivered her husband and children to the killers. Again, she managed to escape, but this time, with her four-month-old baby strapped to her back. No one else made it. “That was the last time I saw my family alive.”

Izagiriza ended up at a barricade where a group of young men stopped and killed people. Among them was her neighbor, 18-year-old Ntezirizaza, who was motivated by his own hate and, with disregard for human life, was responsible for killing some of her family members.

“In 1994, I was a teenager, my body full of youthful vigor and my mind filled with a terrible ideology, fed to me since I was in elementary school. . . . Our mindset at that time was more lethal than the machetes we carried.” Ntezirizaza paused, then, with a low voice and distant gaze, said: “We hacked her husband and eldest son to death and threw the remaining two children in a deep pit, alive. We knew they wouldn’t survive.”

Ntezirizaza, who spent time in prison after the genocide, carries the burden of shame and guilt for what he had done. Like others who committed acts of violence, he wanted to make amends through Rwanda’s reconciliation process. Ntezirizaza was afraid to face Izagiriza. He understood that asking for forgiveness was necessary if both were to move forward. He also recognized that he could not just ask for forgiveness to absolve his guilt; he was asking for forgiveness to help them both move on to restore their community.

Izagiriza understandably struggled with forgiving the man who killed her loved ones. Yet, over time, through the village’s reconciliation program, Izagiriza came to understand what had happened and why Ntezirizaza had been indoctrinated to hate. Her experience of forgiveness brought her peace and speaks to her survival and recovery.

“When one’s heart is burdened, you don’t see anything good at all,” she told Vice Magazine. “But when you forgive from your heart, you see many good things coming your way. And forgiveness is an important thing, as it makes your heart relieved and you gain new ideas of self-development, and life continues as normal.”

For his part, Ntezirizaza came to understand the gravity of his actions and, in so doing, was able to ask for forgiveness. “After getting released from jail, I would feel guilty that I committed crimes against Maria, and I would feel fearful and ashamed of myself. . . . I asked her to forgive me. She forgave me, and I felt relief in my heart.”

Izagiriza and Ntezirizaza are now working together in the village fields, helping to grow food to sustain their community.

Turning experiments into examples

Political forgiveness begins with people from all warring sides agreeing to come together and work with one another. Our method involves meeting separately with two groups who have been in conflict in order to teach the basic skills of forgiveness and discover how the process of forgiveness has inspired people in similar situations. The goal is to come to a common understanding of what forgiveness is and is not.

The process we’re currently testing is based on work done in Colombia, which saw decades of violence between the government, militia groups, and crime syndicates. After many attempts to stop the violence, in 2012 President Juan Manuel Santos was able to begin peace talks in Havana, Cuba. One of the outcomes of the talks was the creation of the “Commission for the Clarification of Truth, Co-existence and Non-repetition” (CEV) focused on victims and their right to the truth.

The CEV promotes the idea of co-existence, which was achieved by creating safe spaces for dialogue between the deeply divided sectors of Colombian society. Rather than treating the “truth” as a series of facts, Father Leonel Narváez developed a process called “logics of truth” to facilitate emotional healing. Inspired by political forgiveness models, this framework acknowledges that there are different layers that make up what we call “truth.”

This process helped de-escalate hostilities by having participants explicitly separate events, which are objective, from the meaning ascribed to them. This dialogue framework helps participants grasp the complex, multifaceted nature of truth. The dialogue process begins with each side discussing what happened as they see it, why it happened, and its significance. Then they discuss how to move forward from what happened, including the painful consequences and intense feelings. Finally, the dialogue broadens to discuss how the group can work toward societal reconciliation to help prevent violence from erupting again.

We are now testing this model with Palestinians and Israelis based in the United States who are struggling to make peace with each other. In our work as researchers and practitioners, we understand that forgiveness is both a decision and an ongoing process. We have each worked with suffering people whose suffering only abates when they can forgive. We try to never lose sight of the fact that forgiveness is a choice, something that can be taught and practiced.

According to Robert Enright and Richard Fitzgibbons, although the topic of forgiveness is becoming more popular in the news and on social media, therapists may still need to take an active role in bringing up the topic to clients.

Forgiveness therapy is an approach that is specifically targeted to “help people overcome resentment, bitterness, and even hatred toward people who have treated them unfairly and at times cruelly.” Forgiveness therapy helps clients slowly let go of anger and better understand their offender and their choices, as well as choose a morally good response toward the offender.

As Enright and Fitzgibbons explain, forgiveness therapy provides the therapist with a unique way to help clients learn to resolve their anger without hurting themselves or others. Research suggests that forgiveness can effectively reduce anger, anxiety, and depression and increase hope in various groups of people, including incest survivors and men hurt by their partner’s abortion. Forgiveness therapy can be used in combination with existing therapeutic approaches or as the primary therapeutic approach.

Misconceptions about forgiveness can lead to confusion for therapists who may be reading and hearing very different perspectives on it. With a better understanding of forgiveness therapy, you may be more willing to use it with your clients. Below are evidence-based guidelines for forgiveness therapy based on a 2016 paper I wrote with Tiffany Zarifkar, so you can most effectively help your clients navigate the delicate balance between acknowledging injustice, dealing with their pain, and moving toward healing.

1. Forgiveness does not mean forgetting

A widely accepted definition of forgiveness in psychology is to “willfully abandon resentment and related responses (to which [people] have a right) and endeavor to respond to the wrongdoer based on the moral principle of beneficence, which may include compassion, unconditional worth, generosity, and moral love.” In this definition, the injured person does not deny their resentment but works through it. And the offender does not deserve the injured’s goodwill and compassion because of their hurtful actions, but the injured gives it to them anyway.

A simpler definition states that forgiveness is when there is a decrease in negative thoughts, feelings, and behaviors toward an offender and, perhaps over time, a gradual increase in positive thoughts, feelings, and (sometimes) behaviors. Forgiveness is more than just letting go of anger, hatred, and revenge, although this is often the first sign that forgiveness may be occurring.

Forgiveness also includes accepting the offender’s humanity and value despite their harmful actions, as we recognize the worth in all humans.  As Lewis B. Smedes explains, an offender is more than their worst action, and it is not fair to reduce an individual to only one act. One goal of forgiveness therapy is not to make excuses for the offense and offender, but to better understand how the hurt occurred.

The first part of forgiving involves recognizing and admitting that we were hurt and did not deserve the hurt. Although forgiveness may help us not to focus on the injury as much, it is not the same as forgetting, as new research explains. Despite the popular saying “Forgive and forget,” forgiving does not produce amnesia, and the pain felt after an intense injury may still exist. Clients who are told that forgiveness and forgetting go together may wonder what is wrong with them when they cannot forget their deep hurt. They may also think that they cannot forgive because they cannot forget.

2. Forgiveness is a choice the individual makes for themselves

Forgiveness is always a voluntary choice the client makes. Clients can benefit from being educated about forgiveness, including what forgiveness is, what it is not, and what it means and looks like to forgive. However, you cannot ethically prescribe clients to forgive. Clients also have the right NOT to forgive, even if you believe that forgiving would be healing for them.

There are approaches to decreasing anger that do not include forgiveness, such as cognitive behavioral therapy. If forgiveness feels like pressure, it is not forgiveness.

As one incest survivor said 33 years after a forgiveness intervention that I conducted with Enright, “Learning that forgiveness is an option and a choice one can make for themselves has been very empowering and revealing to me. Since I first heard about the concept, I have thought about it and used it a lot in my daily life.”

3. An apology is helpful but not necessary to forgive

Unfortunately, offenders do not always show remorse, especially sexual or domestic abuse offenders. Forgiveness can help the client see the offender as human, deserving of respect, and “one of us,” even if that person has not apologized or admitted to wrongdoing.

The difficulty in doing this varies depending on the hurt experienced. Abuse survivors and other clients who have experienced very deep hurts may have more difficulty forgiving without an apology compared with clients whose injuries are not as deep. As John S. Klatt and Enright write, “The position here is that the choice to forgive is not based on the deservingness or actions of the transgressor, but rather the injured person’s desire for emotional healing.”

You can help your clients realize that forgiveness is possible even if their offender does not apologize, as well as understand the difference between reconciliation (where an apology may be important and necessary) and forgiveness, which does not require an apology.

4. Forgiveness takes time, and the timing of forgiveness is important

Forgiveness researchers have learned that the timing of forgiveness is very important. Wanda Malcolm pointed out that in hurrying to forgive, people may try to avoid dealing with their pain. According to Everett Worthington and his colleagues, “Anything done to promote forgiveness has little impact unless substantial time is spent at helping participants think through and emotionally experience their forgiveness.” The goal for you or your clients should not be for them to just “move on.”

According to Karl Tomm, therapists need to know that to apply any kind of external pressure to forgive, when a client is not ready to do so, is to perpetrate a further offense against them. Suggesting forgiveness too early can be harmful, especially after trauma. Forgiveness takes time and is not a shortcut to healing. As one participant said 33 years after our forgiveness intervention with incest survivors, “Forgiveness is not a quick fix. If this had been a shorter intervention, it would not have worked for me.”

In research on forgiveness therapy with people who have endured deep hurts, the longer the duration of the counseling or education, the stronger the results. Longer programs, taking 12 weeks or more, tend to have stronger benefits for clients than programs that only include a few sessions and are shorter. Nathaniel G. Wade, Donna C. Bailey, and Philip Shaffer found that clients who have more sessions in therapy improve more in their symptoms of anxiety and depression.

You also need to consider when to introduce forgiveness to clients, as forgiveness cannot be timed by the counselor. Some clients may benefit from more time and distance from their offender before discussing forgiveness as an option for healing—for example, domestic abuse survivors. It may be beneficial to work on self-esteem issues with clients who may have low self-esteem before bringing up the idea of forgiveness in therapy. Research finds that clients who are more confident and able to acknowledge their own strengths are most willing to consider the idea of forgiveness.

As Wade and his colleagues state, “Within the definition of forgiveness is the implicit idea that people possess at least a moderate degree of self-respect, self-esteem, or, perhaps, ego strength to be able to forgive.”

Forgiveness therapy also cannot be considered a lifelong cure. As with most therapeutic approaches, a client may require reprocessing or booster sessions as time goes on. As one domestic abuse survivor said, “Even years later there are days I have to consciously choose to live out forgiveness. There are opportunities for anger, malice, and bitterness.” A participant in our forgiveness intervention with incest survivors echoes this sentiment: “There absolutely ARE long-term effects of incorporating forgiveness into your heart and mind, but I also believe people need to actively work on forgiving. I ‘practice’ forgiveness on a very regular basis.”

5. Forgiveness and justice can both occur

Another common misconception of forgiveness is that justice—like pressing charges—cannot occur alongside forgiveness. Forgiving and seeking justice are compatible in that they may occur together and both hold the offender accountable for their actions. Forgiveness does not erase accountability or justice. In fact, seeking justice or social activism may greatly complement the goals of forgiveness therapy.

In her study, Sharon Chubbuck gave high school students of color two scenarios of people experiencing hurt. One injury was related to sexual violence and the other was attributable to a racially based hate crime. Students were told that one person forgave the crime and the other did not. They were then asked whether the forgiver or the nonforgiver would be more likely to engage in activism to reduce or prevent more violence of that type. The results illustrated that “all but a few of the participants stated that the person who forgave acts of racial/gender violence would be more likely to work to end such injustice because they would be ‘the stronger person’ and not ‘trapped in their anger.’” Other participants stated that the forgiving person “would know they can survive and move beyond their pain” and would “have hope.” According to Chubbuck, “not one student indicated that the unforgiving person would be more likely to engage in activism.” 

You can also help your clients understand the difference between personal justice (seeking revenge) and public justice (holding one’s offender accountable and responsible), as well as discuss with them the idea that justice alone may not provide the relief and emotional healing that they often think it will.

6. Anger and resentment play a role in the forgiveness process

Expressing anger is a critical component of the forgiveness process, as it acknowledges that an injustice occurred and hurt the client deeply. You can validate resentment as a normal and natural feeling after being hurt. Clients need to see that their anger isn’t just OK; it’s healthy. According to Jeffrie G. Murphy, feelings of resentment and revenge are signs of “self-respect, self-defense, and respect for moral order,” and experiencing feelings of resentment after being injured is a sign that “we care about ourselves and our rights.”

Anger and resentment may also have a role in motivating the offender to apologize. In certain situations, offenders might not even know they have done something hurtful. Resentment can serve the purpose of motivating the client to speak with their offender, when safe to do so, thus making the offender aware of the wrongdoing and its consequences. This may possibly lead to an apology as well as forgiveness, rather than revenge or long-term feelings of resentment.

Anger and resentment that we hold on to can be bad for our physical and emotional health. Therapists may need to help clients express their anger in a healthy way and work through their anger before moving on to the work of forgiveness. Some anger may resurface during the forgiveness process, and a bit of anger may remain even after forgiving. It is normal and natural to feel anger when remembering the offense, especially if it was life-changing. However, after forgiving, the anger won’t typically be as intense or as frequent.

7. Forgiveness does not equal reconciliation

Forgiveness may lead to reconciliation, but it does not have to. The client can forgive and choose not to engage with the offender again. Forgiveness is something the client can do all on their own, without any response from the offender. An apology from the offender may make forgiveness easier, but it is not needed for forgiveness to occur. Mental health professionals need to know that forgiveness does not require contact and does not mean that the offender is safe or deserves trust.

As with forgiveness, it is always the client’s choice whether to reconcile or not. Forgiveness does not mean opening oneself up to further hurt or abuse. In cases of abuse, forgiveness should only be brought up if the client is safe from additional hurt. As a survivor of domestic abuse said,  “Forgiveness only became an option to me after I severed the marriage.” Forgiveness can occur entirely within the client, while boundaries remain firm. As one survivor of incest said, “The most fascinating part of the forgiveness concept introduced to me was the fact that I didn’t have to see or associate with the person I forgave.”

Why forgiveness therapy?

Forgiveness therapy is beneficial because it reduces rumination and loosens the emotional grip the offender has on the client. It also restores a client’s sense of agency and dignity as they recognize the choice and power to forgive lies within them. The unconditional positive regard you offer the client and then the client offers the offender is transforming in how forgivers view themselves, the offender, and the offense. Forgiveness therapy aligns with trauma-informed care, supports emotional regulation, and restores a coherent personal narrative. Most important, forgiveness is always optional and needs to proceed at the client’s pace.

Clients cannot choose to forgive unless they know about forgiveness as an option and know what forgiving means and entails. The role of the therapist is critical in educating clients about the forgiveness process as well as supporting clients in their decision to forgive, if they choose, and during their forgiveness journey. Therapists can help their clients by recognizing the role forgiveness therapy can play in helping clients move beyond their anger and live more healthy, fulfilling, and meaningful lives. As another incest survivor said, “Had it not been for the work I completed with you, I truly don’t believe I’d be where I am today—physically, spiritually, and mentally. My experience learning about forgiveness with you changed my life.”

This essay is adapted from the 2016 paper “The psychology of interpersonal forgiveness and guidelines for forgiveness therapy: What therapists need to know to help their clients forgive” in Spirituality in Clinical Practice by Suzanne Freedman and Tiffany Zarifkar.

For parents and educators, this solution may feel easy and effective, as it appears to involve restoring social harmony quickly while also teaching children responsibility and compassion. But, although we may believe that we are encouraging moral behavior and helping students feel better, we are actually teaching them that forgiveness and apologies result by simply saying the words without understanding the meaning and process behind these moral actions, according to May Yuan and her colleagues in a 2021 article.

In fact, forgiveness and apology require emotional readiness, perspective taking, and empathy. According to Emma Kemp and her colleagues, who examined children’s emotional forgiveness in another 2021 study, these skills develop with time and gradually throughout childhood and adolescence. It goes beyond just saying the words “I’m sorry” or “I forgive you.”

Specifically, forgiveness involves a willingness to abandon one’s right to resentment, negative judgment, and negative behavior toward one’s offender, while fostering the undeserved qualities of compassion, empathy, and goodwill toward the offender. Notice that in this definition, one has a right to resentment and that the offender does not deserve compassion and goodwill because of their hurtful actions—but we give it to them anyway.

Although frequently confused with forgetting, acceptance, condoning, excusing, pardoning, and denying anger, forgiveness is none of these. When we forgive, we decrease our negative thoughts, feelings, and behaviors toward the offender. Over time, we may increase our positive thoughts, feelings, and sometimes behaviors toward the offender. We can also only forgive for the way that we were personally impacted by an offense. Depending on the situation, sometimes forgiveness involves simply wishing the offender well.

Although students are expected to give and receive forgiveness, often on demand, few have been educated on what forgiveness truly means and looks like. In this article, I use quotes from college students who took my interpersonal forgiveness class to illustrate their thoughts about apologies and forgiveness. These highlight how important forgiveness education is for students of all ages. For example, a student in my interpersonal forgiveness class reflected on what she learned about forgiveness and apologies growing up:

When conflicts arose between my sisters and me, we would often say “sorry” simply because it was expected of us or because an adult told us it was the right thing to do, not necessarily because we fully understood the meaning behind the apology. At that age, forgiveness felt more like a routine than a heartfelt process. It was not until I grew older that I began to grasp the deeper emotional and relational aspects of forgiving someone: acknowledging the hurt, understanding their intention, and choosing to let go for the sake of healing and growth.

Many students report similar early lessons in “forgiveness on demand,” which often lead to misconceptions about forgiveness as compliance rather than a process or a choice. They also report that they wish they could have received forgiveness education earlier in their schooling. In a 2024 paper, Corinne Den Hartog discusses her research with teachers, illustrating that forgiveness education can be beneficial for students and that schools can play a critical role in teaching students what forgiveness means and how to forgive, and what effective apologies look like.

Here are my research-based thoughts on how to better teach forgiveness and apologies.

The problem with premature forgiveness and coerced apologies

I began studying interpersonal forgiveness in 1987 as a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin–Madison under the guidance of Robert Enright. At that time, forgiveness was primarily a focus of philosophy and religion and had not been widely examined from a psychological perspective. Our main goal was to define forgiveness as a psychological construct and moral virtue, distinct from concepts such as reconciliation, forgetting, and condoning, and then to clarify what the process entailed.

We developed one of the first comprehensive models of forgiveness, known as the Enright Process Model. The model includes four phases, as described by Robert Enright and colleagues in a 1991 book chapter:

• The uncovering phase, where individuals admit that they were hurt and recognize and explore painful emotions;
• The decision phase, in which the decision to forgive is made after exploring what forgiveness is and is not;
• The work phase, which involves expanding one’s view of the offender, recognizing the offender’s humanity, and developing empathy and compassion for them; and
• The deepening phase, in which individuals find meaning, emotional relief, and freedom from resentment.

When parents and educators put pressure on children and adolescents to forgive immediately, both parties feel compelled to skip phases and use scripted words before they genuinely feel remorse or understand their behavior. Research shows that young children can distinguish genuine from coerced apologies, and that forced apologies often fail to reduce negative feelings or may even increase resentment. As Craig E. Smith and his colleagues argue in a 2018 paper:

Coercing your child to apologize is going to backfire. Other kids don’t view that apologizer as likable. The teachable element of having the child apologize has gone away and the goal of the apology prompt—to help your child express remorse, soothe someone else’s hurt feelings, and make your child more likable—is lost.

The other problem with forced situations is that the injured party is pressured to forgive immediately after receiving an apology. Research has illustrated that forgiveness does not usually occur immediately, as it is a gradual process that involves emotional awareness and regulation, moral choice, and cognitive understanding as discussed in the curriculum. Asking a child to forgive before they’ve had time to process their pain and express their feelings short-circuits important emotional work and teaches them to suppress their feelings instead of understanding, expressing, and then moving beyond them. A student in my forgiveness class related to being pressured to forgive before she was ready:

One thing I really connected with was the reminder that forgiveness takes time. I grew up hearing phrases like “just forgive and move on,” but that never worked for me. Trying to rush it only made me feel like I was failing at forgiveness. Learning that quick forgiveness doesn’t always lead to real forgiveness makes me feel validated. My process was slow, and maybe that’s why it felt real when I finally reached it.

Although parents and educators often want to jump to the last phase of forgiving, peace and reconciliation (if possible), a more effective approach encourages the injured to take as much time as necessary to work through their emotions before forgiving. As discussed in my and Eva Chen’s 2023 paper, true forgiveness requires time and self-reflection. It cannot be demanded by others or achieved instantly through words alone. Skipping steps fails to recognize the complexity involved in the process of forgiveness. It also teaches children that forgiveness and relationship repair are more about listening to adults than listening to their hearts.

In our 2010 study on a sample of the general population’s understanding of forgiveness, we found that another common misconception about forgiveness is that one cannot forgive unless they receive an apology from the offender.

That may be true for reconciliation, but not forgiveness. Forgiveness is something individuals can do all on their own, for their own well-being, without any response from the offender. Forgiveness can sometimes lead to reconciliation between the injured party and the offender, but it does not have to. One may require an apology for the friendship to continue, but if that is not desired or possible, forgiveness can still occur. If we require the offender to apologize before forgiving, we give the offender control and power over our forgiveness and healing.

Uncomfortable emotions and validation

This entire process can involve some powerful and uncomfortable emotions. As psychologist Lisa Damour reminds us, unpleasant emotions are not “bad”; they are normal, healthy, and necessary. She prefers the term uncomfortable emotions to “negative” ones because the latter implies that feelings like anger, sadness, or anxiety are wrong. She writes that “psychological health is not about being free from emotional discomfort, but about having the right feeling at the right time and being able to bear the unpleasant ones.”

As Marc Brackett, founding director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, explains in a 2025 conversation, our skill in dealing with emotions influences how much success and well-being we can achieve. Educators and parents can nurture this skill by teaching that all emotions are normal and natural, and it is what we do with our emotions that can be considered good or bad. When we teach children that uncomfortable emotions are normal and survivable, we empower students to express, rather than suppress them, a crucial part of forgiveness.

Phase One of Enright’s forgiveness process model helps individuals process their feelings after experiencing hurt from or conflict with another. Having an adult validate their feelings helps children recognize that their emotions are acceptable and important. Without validation, students may learn to suppress and distrust their feelings. As described by Sarah Gonser in a 2022 article, emotional literacy is the ability to recognize, name, and express emotions in healthy ways and is an important part of social-emotional learning.

As child therapist Violet Oaklander emphasizes in her 2007 book, Windows to Our Children, it’s important to help children recognize and express all emotions, including anger. “Anger is an honest, normal feeling,” she writes. “Everyone gets angry. I get angry. You get angry. It’s what we do with these feelings—whether we can accept them, how we express them—that causes all the trouble.”

Unfortunately, children often receive mixed messages about anger. They experience adults’ anger but are discouraged, and sometimes even punished, from expressing it themselves. As a result, they learn to suppress, deflect, or deny anger, which, as Oaklander observes, can become a “hidden block to one’s sense of wholeness and well-being.”

Helping kids choose apology and forgiveness

There is an alternative. When adults validate children’s emotions, they model that forgiveness is not denial of pain, but healthy processing of it. It also teaches children that they can handle their pain and helps them develop resiliency for future challenges.

Consider two seventh-grade students, Amelia and Andrew. During a group project, Andrew made a hurtful comment about Amelia’s presentation skills in front of their classmates. Amelia felt embarrassed and angry, and the teacher told Andrew that he was out of line. After reflecting and discussing with the teacher, Andrew sincerely apologized: “I’m sorry for what I said about you in front of everyone. It was mean, and I shouldn’t have done it.”

Although Amelia appreciated the apology, she still felt hurt and wasn’t ready to forgive. Instead of insisting she do so immediately, the teacher validated her feelings: “It’s OK that you’re still upset, Amelia. What Andrew said was hurtful, and it’s natural to need some time.”

That simple validation allowed Amelia to process her emotions. Over the next few days, as Andrew treated her with kindness and respect, her hurt subsided. Eventually, when she felt ready, Amelia told Andrew she forgave him. This experience not only repaired their friendship but taught both students that forgiveness takes time and is a personal choice when one feels ready, rather than a response to pressure.

As we see in Andrew’s example, a sincere apology requires acknowledging specific harm, taking responsibility, expressing remorse, and making amends. When these components are present, apologies are associated with reduced anger and greater empathy, as found by Andrew Howell and colleagues in a 2012 study on guilt, empathy, and apology. Here is some practical guidance for parents and educators in helping children craft good apologies, as described by Kara Newhouse in a 2023 Mindshift article and podcast:

• Pause and validate. Normalize all feelings. When a child is hurt, start by naming and validating their feelings: “You look really upset. That makes sense—I’d feel angry, too, if someone did that.”
• Encourage empathy through reflection. Ask the child who caused harm to reflect: “Tell me what happened from your point of view. How do you think that made your _____ feel?” and “What can you do to make amends?”
• Teach a complete apology. Example of structure to use: “I’m sorry for [specific behavior]. I see that it made you feel [hurt/angry/sad]. I will [action to make it right].”
• Avoid forcing closure. Give children time to process their feelings and behavior before asking them to forgive or apologize. Healing does not occur on a timeline. Encourage the injured child to respond honestly: “Thank you for apologizing. I’m still hurt and need more time.”
• Model emotional honesty. Adults can share their own feelings calmly and respectfully. Children will learn that expression of all feelings requires strength, not weakness.
• Celebrate progress, not perfection. Praise effort toward understanding and the development of empathy and compassion, not just compliance with expected behavior.

These steps show that forgiveness is a process and unfolds gradually, not immediately. Children need time to build up their moral muscle, and education on forgiveness and effective apologies help children develop these skills—and learn to make their own choices. Children benefit when they understand that forgiveness is voluntary, something they can choose after working through their emotions. As one student in my Interpersonal Forgiveness class emphasizes:

Another thing I would want the educator to be sure to stress is the involvement of choice. Unless it is the hurt party’s willful choice to forgive another, no true emotional or personal healing will start. They will keep harboring the feelings of anger and resentment, without giving them the space to be expressed. Forgiveness happens on our own timelines. No one else can decide how we move through the process.

Forgiveness and apology are powerful, but only when they are sincere and reflect emotional honesty. By teaching children that forgiveness is a process, not an obligation, adults help them develop moral strength and emotional literacy.

The caveat, though, is that the size of the impact varies by nation, as does its nature.

Researchers with the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard’s Institute for Quantitative Social Science enrolled more than 200,000 participants to complete annual surveys about forgiveness practices and 56 measures of well-being one year later.

They found a connection between regular acts of forgiveness and a rise in the sense of psychological, more than physical, well-being and prosocial and character changes.

“We did find evidence of psychological effects, like happiness, and mental-health-related things like depression,” said Richard Cowden, an IQSS research scientist and lead author of the study. “But we also found, in some cases, stronger associations for character and prosocial behavior outcomes like gratitude and an orientation to promote good. I thought that was interesting: Forgiveness is a pathway to building character and other aspects of one’s volitional life.”

The work was published in January in the journal npj Mental Health Research and builds on results from the program’s initial survey, released in 2024, which examined the distribution of forgiveness in those nations, which represent between 50% and 60% of the global population.

The first survey established baseline values for the survey nations and included questions about childhood to illuminate predictors of forgiveness. The second wave, conducted a year later, allows researchers to examine potential effects over time, Cowden said.

The survey was designed to evaluate levels of forgiveness as a practice and personal characteristic rather than a single discrete act, asking, “How often have you forgiven those who have hurt you?”

“I would characterize this as a measure of dispositional forgivingness, which is the tendency to forgive others across time and situations, the habitual practice of forgiveness,” Cowden said. “It’s capturing more of a disposition than a state-like quality.”

Data from the third yearly survey have already come in and await analysis. In addition, researchers are gathering data for the fourth wave, Cowden said. Five annual surveys are planned.

Cowden said the results so far are multilayered and complex.

High levels of forgiveness appear to be a national or cultural attribute of some nations, like South Africa. Other countries, like Japan and Turkey, displayed lower levels.

While the research generally indicated an association between higher forgiveness and greater well-being a year later, the strength of the association varied country to country and in some cases was counterintuitive, requiring a closer look at local circumstances.

For example, South Africa, Cowden said, had high national forgiveness but somewhat weaker associations with well-being about a year later. With high rates of poverty and crime, that could be a case of local circumstances overriding a broader trend.

Similarly, nations with high rates of forgiveness may also have cultures that encourage the behavior, so its benefits potentially could be tamped down because it is widely expected.

“You find more consistent evidence of associations in some countries across the outcomes than others,” Cowden said. “Part of the beauty of the study is that it is trying to consider culture and context.”

Cowden said the overall association, drawn from the results of different nations for 56 well-being variables, was not strong but not trivial either, particularly when considering its impacts at a population level.

The study seeks a deeper understanding of something that cultures and religious traditions have valued as a moral virtue for thousands of years, Cowden said.

Though forgiveness is commonly practiced, we don’t fully understand either its personal impacts or its global contours, he said.

“We’re social beings, and we don’t exist well without social relationships, and if relationships are part of what it means to be human, we’re inevitably going to experience hurts along the way because nobody is perfect.”

Cowden described forgiveness as a “muscle we can build” through practice, and that would be relatively simple to deploy as an intervention under appropriate conditions.

He cited a study published in 2024 that tested the effectiveness of a self-directed forgiveness workbook, based on the widely studied REACH forgiveness model. The three-hour resource was given to people in South Africa, Hong Kong, Colombia, Indonesia, and Ukraine. Respondents reported improved forgiveness, anxiety, depression, and overall well-being.

“If everybody who had unresolved hurts were to experience more forgiveness, the population-level benefits to health and well-being could be quite substantial,” Cowden said.

This article was originally published on Harvard News. Read the original article.

During a nightmarish two weeks, my daughter was diagnosed with bacterial sepsis. She lived and is now a healthy eight year old, but for years, I felt stuck in remorse and guilt for not trusting my first instinct to call the emergency line.

A new study explored why some people can forgive themselves after a wrongdoing or failure, while others remain stuck in perpetual guilt and shame.

When the past is present

The researchers surveyed 80 U.S. adults online and asked them to describe in writing in as much detail as possible a time they could—or could not—forgive themselves, ranging from betraying another’s trust to neglecting an obligation to accidentally causing harm or staying too long in a toxic relationship.

One of the study’s coauthors, Lydia Woodyatt, describes self-forgiveness as “the process of understanding our failure or wrongdoing and its impact, and taking that seriously, while also being able to move forward and release ourselves from a sense of self-condemnation.”

Participants also answered follow-up questions about why the event still affected them, what they had done to move forward, what got in the way, and how they feel about it now. Most participants spent about seven to 10 minutes writing their responses. The research team then analyzed these answers to identify recurring emotional and psychological patterns.

Participants who struggled to forgive themselves often felt trapped in the past, replaying events and living with guilt. Many constantly re-experienced the event in their minds, including the intense emotions it evoked. One participant wrote, “It is just something that plays over in my mind a lot, and it’s like the event keeps happening and I feel all the emotions all over again.”

Others said the event still affects their relationships, work, and self-esteem years later. This is because rumination can trap us in a guilt cycle, says therapist Saba Harouni Lurie. She recommends “reality testing” as a way to see that you may be partially to blame for something, but that there are likely other factors at play.

In the study, those who forgave themselves described making a conscious choice and concerted effort to do so. “I needed to forgive myself so I could stop blaming myself and stop looking toward the past when I needed to be looking toward the future,” wrote one participant.

Those who experienced self-forgiveness seemed to have less intrusive emotions than those who were unable to forgive, though some admitted they still harbored negative emotions around the event itself.

The weight of personal responsibility—how much guilt a person carried for what happened

In the relationships they wrote about, many participants experienced a heightened obligation for the other person’s well-being, especially when it involved family, friends, or caregiving roles. Participants often struggled with the belief that they should have foreseen harm and prevented it.

In one account, a participant reflected on his father’s suicide. “All I would have had to have done is talked to him more that morning or offer to go on a walk with him. I still feel immense loss and guilt. I can never undo what was done.”

In the study, participants who were able to forgive themselves often reached a turning point when they accepted the limits of their control, recognizing that while they may have regrets, they could not have predicted or prevented everything. Rather than erasing their sadness or regret, this reframing seemed to help them move past self-blame toward a more realistic understanding of their role in what happened.

For example, one participant wrote: “The only real barrier to forgiving . . . was coming to the conclusion that things don’t always work out the way you want them to. So the barrier was trying to get over the idea that I could do something that just wasn’t doable at the time.”

When our choices clash with our values

Many participants said their mistakes felt incompatible with the kind of person they believed themselves to be, and felt they didn’t deserve self-forgiveness because what they had done couldn’t be undone.

“I never thought I was the kind of person who would ever cheat,” one participant admitted.

Psychologist Lisa Larsen says it’s vital to be honest about our mistakes without letting them define us—to recognize a bad choice and know you’re capable of better ones.

Self-compassion plays a central role, too. Lurie says, “Offering yourself care and kindness, even and especially when you’re in the wrong or have done something you regret, is crucial.” Taking accountability doesn’t have to mean self-punishment.

Participants who forgave themselves tended to accept their imperfections and recommit to their personal values.

One mother admitted, “In order to be the best parent I could be, I had to forgive myself and focus on my daughter. I just had to make myself understand that there were many factors that contributed to my daughter’s depression, and I was not solely to blame.”

How we cope matters

Those who forgave themselves didn’t avoid their pain but worked through it. Although participants used similar strategies (e.g., conversing with friends, attending therapy, staying busy), people who forgave themselves processed emotions rather than being distracted from them.

Different therapeutic strategies for this might include narrative or cognitive processing therapy, mindfulness, journaling, art therapy, and EMDR, suggests Chloë Bean, a somatic trauma therapist.

Bean invites her clients to notice what arises physically when they contemplate self-forgiveness: “What ideas, images, words, or behaviors come up? Does a part of you want forgiveness while another part resists it? Is there confusion around that inner conflict?”

When we can approach life as an ongoing practice of learning rather than obtaining perfection, Bean says, we create room for curiosity and openness, rather than fearing our mistakes.

Avoidance or suppression, by contrast, often reinforces unpleasant thoughts. As one participant shared, “I have to just put the situation out of my mind. It’s not very effective.”

But self-forgiveness doesn’t mean forgetting, says Larsen. Instead, it’s about working through the emotions and choosing self-compassion.

The ongoing work of letting go

Woodyatt hopes this emerging research on shame and regret helps clinicians, counselors, and mental health support workers to improve their practice.

As the study suggests, self-forgiveness isn’t a linear process, but one that requires time, reflection, and self-kindness.

For Christians, forgiveness and love are the two cardinal virtues. Even back then, however, that prescient administrator could see where the country was heading: toward increasing political polarization and more frequent mental health problems. He wanted to engage the methods of Christian practical theology to heal minds and relationships, and he wanted to start by joining his faith’s conception of forgiveness—prayer, restraint, looking to mature models, seeking God’s help—with the burgeoning science of forgiveness. He reached out to me as both scientist and Christian because I had published and spoken in both secular and religious venues about forgiveness.

We shaped a two-week forgiveness campaign. We worked with staff and students to design many activities that they thought would increase awareness of forgiveness—newspaper articles and ads, debates, chapel speakers, banners adorning a popular walkway, an endorsement from the university president, and more.

During the weeks of the campaign, I also trained about 50 group leaders to run secular and Christian-oriented REACH Forgiveness groups, which are psycho-educational interventions that have been found in over 30 studies worldwide to be able to help people forgive, flourish, enhance their well-being, and reduce depression and anxiety. The acronym REACH stands for five steps:

R = Recall the hurt;
E = Empathize with the offender;
A = Altruistic undeserved gift of forgiveness;
C = Commit to the forgiveness experienced; and
H = Hold on to forgiveness when doubts arise.

The aim: to help participants to make a decision to eschew payback and to treat the offender more humanely. Other activities surround these core steps, such as identifying the most difficult event a participant has successfully forgiven, defining emotional and decisional forgiveness, identifying the benefits of forgiveness to the forgiver, and working through other hurts and offenses to generalize gains.

Some students were randomized to either complete a six-hour REACH Forgiveness group or serve as the control group who were exposed only to the campaign (without the REACH group). Unsurprisingly, we found that the REACH Forgiveness groups—my principal focus at the time—were more effective than the campaign alone.

After we published the results, I was contacted by leaders at Asbury University, a Christian university in Kentucky. They wanted to conduct a similar campaign, and they also wanted to test the effects of writing forgiveness essays against the REACH Forgiveness groups. Again, we found that the groups were more effective than both a writing exercise and the campaign that everyone on campus experienced.

However, I also found that just being exposed to a campus-wide forgiveness campaign had helped the two communities become more forgiving. So, I applied to the Fetzer Institute for a grant to assess forgiveness campaigns at nine Christian universities. I compiled a list of potential forgiveness-promoting activities, and I encouraged each school to select half of their activities from the standard list and use their creativity for the other half.

At the same time, I was working with faith leaders in churches to design campaigns around forgiveness. I consulted with a large church in the Philadelphia area and a medium-sized church in Adelaide, Australia. I directed a campaign at the church that I attend in Richmond, Virginia, giving me a hands-on slant on running deeper dives. Those projects were done simply as service in congregations who were interested in them, and not for publication. By 2018, I did an after-action review of the campaigns at both faith-based universities and congregations. We assessed forgiveness of a target offense, dispositional forgivingness, well-being, hope, and reduced depression and anxiety. 

What emerged from this work are some insights into how to build forgiveness in faith-based communities—and which can be applied to secular ones, as well.

The elements of deep dives

I came to refer to the combination of a public-facing campaign, REACH groups (and later workbooks), and scientific assessment as “deep dives.” At that point, all completed deep dives were in faith-based communities that already valued forgiveness. I had learned things pertinent to those communities that I hoped to use in the future in secular communities.

First, we learned that it was essential to have leadership at the highest level of university president and provost or senior pastor and other assistant pastors engaged in active advocacy and support, not just a token endorsement.

Second, deep dives needed to focus on clear messages. We used three:

• Forgiveness has benefits to the forgiver;
• There are two types of forgiveness that are not always experienced in tandem—a decision to treat the offender more humanely and an emotional change; and
• There are local resources available to help.

Third, in faith-based communities, we had emphasized awareness-raising over actually practicing forgiveness. Awareness-raising is important, but we found that many students and religious attenders did not have skills to forgive, suggesting a fourth element was needed: to help people go beyond awareness-raising and to actively practice forgiveness in various contexts.

We also discovered that church-based campaigns were different from university-based counterparts in age distribution and living environment. Activities had to be tailored to more diverse living situations in congregations than in universities. Also, universities had an educational mindset and on-campus living compared to a community church with a geographically distributed congregation and educationally diverse mindsets. In congregations, people might only come together once a week and perhaps a second time in a small group. With a university, though, interactions were more frequent and more diverse. Sporting events, encounters in dormitories or other living units (like fraternity or sorority houses), classes, and extracurricular activities provided many opportunities to interact in educational and non-educational ways each week.

Secular applications

Another grant from the Templeton World Charity Foundation (TWCF) helped extend this work to secular venues in Indonesia, South Africa, and Colombia. We have (so far) published the results of our effort in Colombia.

There, we conducted a four-week community-wide forgiveness deep-dive involving students, faculty, and staff at the Universidad del Sinú in Monteria, Colombia, a private secular university. We started by assessing 3,000 of 9,000 students at the beginning and end of the deep dive, looking for changes in forgiveness, mental health, and flourishing. We also evaluated their engagement with, and the effectiveness of, the 16 types of activity, such as getting at least nine out of 10 answers correct on a forgiveness-knowledge test, completing a REACH Forgiveness workbook, attending a forgiveness webinar, watching and discussing forgiveness-themed movies, listening to forgiveness podcasts from world-renowned experts, sitting under a “forgiveness tree” to reflect on forgiving an offender, and writing about one’s experience and posting it at a “forgiveness wall.”

In examining the results, we addressed three main research questions.

The first: “Did the deep dive successfully foster increased forgiveness, mental health, and flourishing?” It did. In fact, averaged across all of the students, the effects were half as large as participating in an intensive forgiveness intervention. That is astounding for a public health intervention in which, like many public health initiatives, not every student got engaged.

The second research question was, “Did the number of types of activities affect the amount of forgiveness, mental health, and flourishing that people experienced?” Again, the answer was yes, and we found engagement matters. For three or fewer activities, people experienced essentially no gains. But from four to 16 types of activities, each additional activity they completed yielded more forgiveness and flourishing—and less depression and anxiety.

The third research question was, “Which types of activities were most effective at promoting forgiveness, mental health, and flourishing, and most popular in attracting users?” We found that if an activity took more than about four hours, students rarely used it—but those who did benefited. If it took less than an hour, many students used it but it had little or no effect. Those that were both often-used and effective took between one and four hours. (So, as you plan your own deep dive, you should opt for interesting activities. Like the baby bear in The Three Bears, they are not too brief, don’t take too long, but are just right!)

Practical lessons

Putting all of our experience together, we have learned several practical lessons. These can help you design an effective and efficient forgiveness deep dive for your organization:

1. Identify a limited community for intervention—ideally one that wants to become more forgiving.

2. Leaders are crucial. Engage lay leaders who can galvanize people to act and have large personal networks. Encourage administrators to actively advocate participation, not merely give token endorsement. Recruit enough leaders that work gets distributed and you don’t end up doing all of it.

3. Establish three types of goals: awareness-raising, education (i.e., how to define forgiveness, know the benefits, and know where to get free interventions), and skill-development in forgiving and maximizing mental health.

4. Tailor activities to your community. Make sure the activities are ones that your people want to engage in! In addition, include proven effective activities that require people to spend time actively trying to forgive particular hurts. Choose activities that require time, but not too much time; effort, but not too much; variety, but not too much.

5. Seek to convince people that they can forgive more if they work at it. Few activities (up to three) over the course of the deep dive won’t benefit them much; four to 13 have increasingly larger effects.

6. To prevent dropout or missed sessions, use existing groups to which people already have a loyalty and set a time limit for the deep dive at no more than seven weeks for faith communities and one month for universities. For ad hoc forgiveness-related groups, limit time commitments per meeting and number of meetings, and make sure people know they are time-limited.

7. Deep dives for churches should be timed for events like Lent, Advent, or the approach of Yom Kippur. University deep dives should try to avoid midterms or finals.

We all live in many communities. We know too well that in each one, people harbor grudges that can make things unpleasant for others within the community when the grudges leak out. Public health and mental health campaigns almost never eradicate the target maladies.

But it’s fun to ask ourselves what-if questions. What if one local forgiveness campaign could stop half of the unpleasantness that leaks out this year? What if the person inspired to forgive more were someone holding a grudge against me? What if it affected my romantic partner or children? What if I could become a more forgiving person? What if this became a widely used community intervention? Could this actually make the world a better place?

At 17, Amanda sat with her family, her counselor Lisa*, and her parents’ marriage counselor David* in front of a group of trainees taking a 2002 class at an Indiana church’s large counseling center. The church’s counseling program takes a particular Christian approach to counseling, which tends to be popular in conservative Reformed traditions—an approach that sees the Bible as the ultimate authority on problems and values theology over psychology.

The counseling trainees ate while observing the family’s session. “It was dinner and a show,” Amanda recalls, calling the dynamic “coercive.”

At this point, Amanda’s mother had known about the abuse for two years, but her father avoided criminal charges after hiring a lawyer and moving out. Amanda worried that her dad would abuse others; she couldn’t forgive him with this awareness.

Earlier that day, Lisa met with Amanda and her mother, separately, trying to prepare them to include her father at her grandma’s funeral—the extended family did not know her parents were separated. When she was done, Amanda waited in the car during her parents’ marriage counseling. “My mom came out and said we had another session with [David] and Dad that I needed to come to. [Lisa] met us at the side door and let us in and led us into a big room,” said Amanda. The adults held the extra session to elicit forgiveness from Amanda, which turned out to also be a training lesson.

She recalls that her father hemmed and hawed when David asked him to start the session. David said, “Don’t you mean…” and prompted her father to repeat lines after him to ask for forgiveness. Then, it was Amanda’s turn. She couldn’t bring herself to grant it, so David filled in the silence by asking if Amanda forgave him. She nodded and said nothing.

Then the counselors defined forgiveness as never speaking about the abuse again. To close the session, David prayed for restored trust to the point that Amanda would one day set her future daughters on her dad’s lap.

Not long after, when Amanda was in college, Lisa terminated counseling. “I did not agree with their definition for forgiveness,” Amanda says. “I don’t think we should use Christian words like that without defining what they mean.”

Can forgiveness be authentic if it feels forced? From a child forced to say “I’m sorry” by a parent to a survivor pressured to reconcile with their abuser, a coercive dynamic to forgive exists in many settings. But research and individual experiences show that people can still find and practice real forgiveness after being harmed by these dynamics, when handled with care. It requires understanding the contexts in which pressure to forgive exists and the patience to move slowly through the process.

What is genuine forgiveness?

Psychologist Loren Toussaint, a professor at Luther College, says an unequal power dynamic can pressure us to let people off the hook for the sake of social harmony. Aside from extreme cases like Amanda’s, “the two places you see that are in parent-child relationships and employee-employer relations,” says Toussaint. “There’s a certain sense of uneasiness. . . . If I don’t forgive, there’s going to be ramifications because I’m subordinate to this person. In that case, especially, it’s really hard to guarantee and know that someone is engaging in authentic forgiveness.”

Real forgiveness cannot be rushed. It can begin with a decision not to retaliate. Or it can be an early declaration to forgive or at minimum not to be unforgiving. Yet it may take years of processing the harm—feeling anger again and again, seeking justice or accountability, wrestling with whether any form of reconciliation is safe or healthy. Ultimately, you might arrive at a place of seeing an offender in their full humanity—thinking honestly about their capacities and limits—and wishing them genuine growth and wellness. Forgiveness is a process.

Toussaint recalls a promotion denied years ago and the offense he took from his dean’s decision. Yet after the slight, “the very first time I ran into him in person, I ran over with my hand extended,” says Toussaint. “The problem is that if you’ve been hurt by someone who is still in power over you, it’s really hard to know that you’re not forgiving out of perceived obligation to protect yourself.”

For Toussaint, who is Catholic, he also felt compelled to forgive because of his own faith’s teachings. “That’s probably true for a lot of people even if they might not claim a faith,” he says. “They have a spiritual view on life or a philosophical view on life where they feel this is important: Somewhere we should find the will to forgive.”

Realistically, though he intended to forgive his dean early on, he did not notice that he had released the resentment until years later.

Amanda’s case also contains unequal power dynamics—religious settings uniquely hold additional authority that at times can lead to serious harm.

How coerced forgiveness causes harm

Spiritual and moral authority in religious institutions can slip into coercive dynamics that perpetuate violence—including psychological, sexual, and even economic violence, posit attorney Renato Vera Osuna and Anahi Martinez Zuniga, in a 2025 paper for the International Journal for Research and Innovation in Social Science. They draw from sociologists who conceptualize structural and symbolic violence to describe how spiritual harm can manifest. Spiritual harm can become obscured, they write, since laws do not encompass it as a crime. They argue for legal recognition of spiritual abuse, “the creation of independent oversight bodies, and institutional reforms grounded in transparency, horizontal governance, and human rights principles.”

Osuna and Zuniga reviewed reports where coercion or cover-up occurred in Catholic, evangelical, and non-denominational contexts in North America, Latin America, and Europe. Then, they interviewed victims, legal practitioners, psychologists, and clergy in specific cases. Many cases silenced or re-victimized people who tried to report abuse or challenge authority. Osuna and Zuniga identified control mechanisms such as various ways of concealing perpetrators (including transferring leaders to new locations), threats of exclusion from the community, accusations of attacking the church, and theological reinterpretations.

Psychologists have also worked to define the unique contours of harm that might arise in these settings. Since 1994, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Illnesses, which helps mental health professionals accurately diagnose problems, has included “religious or spiritual problem.” Recently, in fall 2025, the manual added “moral problem” within the same category. People experiencing religious problems may develop post-traumatic stress or they might not—either way, they will benefit from counselors with specific clinical training on these kinds of circumstances.

“Sometimes clinical work has neglected the moral dimension . . . many world religions point to the moral dimension, and we cannot bring about full healing without addressing the moral dimension,” said Tyler VanderWeele, the director of the Human Flourishing Project at Harvard University, during a 2024 conference.

Religions provide a strong social identity for people and become the lens through which people understand the world. Religious leaders and institutions uniquely wield a particular kind of spiritual and moral authority.

VanderWeele and other psychologists are defining and measuring the newer concept of moral injury. Moral problems do not only arise in religious settings, but they can be a prominent part of a religious experience. However people perceive rightness and wrongness in the world, a transgression can violate their deeply held moral assumptions.

While originally conceptualized in the context of veterans, and then health care workers, and usually focused on perpetrating or witnessing wrongdoing—moral injury has expanded more recently to include the experiences of victims. When people question their own goodness, or the goodness of God or a higher power, or of their faith leaders or faith system, it can upend their mental health.

VanderWeele described a moral trauma spectrum of severity and persistence that could cause you to struggle with forgiveness, and lead to a number of other symptoms, such as guilt, shame, and powerlessness, experienced across a range of debilitation.

Harvard psychologist Heidi Ellis and her colleagues have also attempted to define and measure how religious abuse uniquely entangles people, but research is in the beginning stages of developing assessment tools. Prevalence may vary based on demographic factors—with relatively high rates within specific populations, such as gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender individuals in Latter Day Saints communities and Native Americans who have experienced foster care. Their review of this small body of literature found three consistent factors at play: misuse of power, psychological harm, and spiritual harm.

In Amanda’s conservative evangelical context, the word “forgiveness” meant something theologically that protected her abusive father rather than holding him accountable. Her counselors wanted her to believe the best about him because forgiveness meant a relationship could be restored.

“I’ve heard many, many stories that abuse survivors were counseled” in similar ways, she says. Amanda stays in touch with other abuse survivors and continues to advocate for victims in the church when fresh stories surface. She believes forgiveness is possible, but if handled improperly, the intention to reconcile can actually cause harm.

How positivity and spiritual bypassing cause harm

One common error in Christian contexts is to move toward forgiveness too quickly or aggressively, without first addressing practical issues or abuse survivors’ concerns. “I have never had to tell a survivor who is a Christian, ‘Hey, it’s about time you have to talk about forgiveness.’ I usually have to hold them back a little bit,” said Justin Holcomb, a Florida bishop in the Episcopal Church, during a 2019 conference talk.

He explained that’s because they hear about forgiveness all the time. He also reprimanded those in survivors’ support systems, including pastors: “When they come to you with their story, the first word out of your mouth better not be to heap burden on them with the command to forgive.”

That resonated with Amanda, who referenced his talk as supportive of her experience. Survivors first need time to process what happened to them, she says. “We can’t forgive until we understand what’s happened . . . . Thinking about forgiveness can’t be the first thing that we do because it minimizes the sin.”

We wouldn’t put a Band-Aid on a nine-inch gash on our kid’s leg, she pointed out. “We have to be able to understand that weight.”

Focusing on healing problems at the spiritual level while ignoring the practical solutions—called spiritual bypassing—can stymie efforts to look honestly at what is needed when an offense takes place.

Whether in religious settings or not, Ellen Sinclair writes how forgiveness interventions can frame difficult events with positive thinking but miss treating the actual problem of relational harm. An artificially positive outlook can blind people from taking the realistic view of an abusive situation. In a review, Sinclair found that domestic abuse victims who were optimistic were more likely to miscalculate their risk, and spouses who forgave an unremorseful partner were also likely to experience continued abuse. Misapplied, a positive approach might have the impact of blaming the victim for not being able to cope in the face of injustice.

Toussaint says forgiveness within faith communities can be difficult because teachings can be inadequate. “There is a tendency especially in a religious setting to be prescriptive about forgiveness,” he says. Sacred text in Christian traditions and others suggests that forgiveness is not optional.

“But the second reason is that most people are being told what to do and they’re confused about what they are being asked to do,” says Toussaint. “Most people believe they are being asked to, number one, forgo any simultaneous requirement of justice and that they are to reconcile and even . . . to immediately reconcile.”

Growing and finding meaning after forced forgiveness

Amanda actually stayed at the same church and found growth through a full understanding of who Jesus is to her. She is among those who find strength and resilience within their faith community. People can have seemingly opposite responses to religious abuse, found psychologist Paula Swindle, who wrote her dissertation on the subject. Some, like Amanda, make their faith even more central to their identity but others leave their faith group—either disaffiliating altogether or changing to a new church or denomination.

Here’s how Amanda stayed: A new pastor took leadership of her childhood church, knowing that many people had been harmed by the church culture. So, he sought out Amanda, got to know her, and waited patiently for her to share her story. When Amanda was 23, her youngest sister revealed that she’d also been abused by their father and came to live with Amanda, bringing the family’s whole history to light.

Her pastor began talking with Amanda about the real meaning of forgiveness. “One of the things we talked about: that David’s view of forgiveness actually makes the offended party have to be the savior,” says Amanda. “When you forgive someone, you take the relational weight upon yourself rather than putting it on the offender. I was expected to carry the uncomfortableness and not make my dad carry it.”

Amanda explained that she’s come to believe the Christian scripture’s understanding of forgiveness, but that actually means not standing in the way of who can carry that relational weight. Her father needs Jesus’s forgiveness, she says, but we can’t offer a watered-down version. Jesus does offer forgiveness, but “he doesn’t take away the consequences for sin here in this world,” says Amanda. “Relational consequences stay.” She referenced the biblical story of David murdering Bathsheba’s husband to cover up his predatory relationship and adultery, which resulted in losing his son and his kingdom’s unity.

When her father repented, Amanda’s counselors wanted her to believe the best about him. Her response: “I say we should believe the truth about others. I need to believe that my dad has abused multiple children, and there’s no reason to believe that he will stop if given access to children. It’s having a realistic view of what is best for him. I think that does mean making sure he doesn’t have access to children again. I don’t think that’s in his best interest,” she says.

Since Amanda began sharing her story almost seven years ago, she receives requests from churches to consult on behalf of victims. As a victim, “you don’t even know what you need. But you need someone else to be able to say it for you,” she says.

First, she cautions churches about the power dynamics unique to religion and faith leaders that law scholars and psychologists are working to describe.

In addition, she points out how abusers can manipulate communities. Many churches love to help people who admit they are sinners, says Amanda. When an abuser acts repentant—in a conservative Christian context “repentant” means not only feeling sorry but also intending to do no wrong again—this almost invites wrongdoers to manipulate that good faith.

Lastly, she advises clear definitions of forgiveness. Genuine forgiveness is more like a seed, says Amanda. It lodged in her years ago, but decades later “it’s something that continues to grow, and I continue to deepen that understanding.”

You’ve tried facilitating talking circles and mediations, but the students aren’t interested. They trust you, but not each other. Plus, their past experience with discipline responses make them equate accountability with punishment, forgiveness with weakness. You can understand why they’re hesitant to trust adults to help them resolve the conflict they’re in. Heading to your car, you can’t help but wonder: “Does it have to be like this? Is there another way?”

This vignette represents the tension that educators often navigate when trying to support students through conflict and/or harm-repair. Often viewed as endpoint destinations, accountability and forgiveness can feel like faraway ideals. When framed as skillsets, however, they can offer relational practices that students will use for the rest of their lives.

The costs of punishment

Conflict and harm in schools aren’t just inconvenient. They strain relationships, undermine learning, and erode safety and belonging. When incidents occur, traditional responses often default to exclusion—detentions, suspensions, expulsions, and even arrests.

Research shows, however, that punitive responses often cause more harm than they do good. For example, research suggests that students who attend schools with higher suspension rates are 15–20 percent more likely to be arrested and incarcerated as adults and are also less likely to attend a four-year college, with male pupils and students of color being most affected.

These outcomes persist, in large part, because punitive policies and practices prioritize rules and punishment, and do not offer access to relational care or addressing root causes of behavior. As a result, accountability and forgiveness can often look and feel like superficial apologies and forced reconciliation. Accountability often feels synonymous with guilt, shame, and exclusion.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. There is an alternative: a restorative lens that approaches accountability and forgiveness as relational skills—ones everyone can learn, practice, and deepen together.

A restorative approach

Restorative practices are rooted in Indigenous philosophies and have been adopted by schools worldwide. Their central belief? We are all interconnected. Harm doesn’t just break a rule—it disturbs the social fabric and the well-being of a whole community. Thus the restorative responses aim for healing instead of punishment.

Traditional disciplinary systems view incidents of harm as acts of individual moral failing. A student makes a mistake, and the response is often to shame them and remove them from the group, isolating both the “offender” and those affected by the incident. But by sidelining relationships and focusing on punishment, these systems do little to teach, heal, or promote belonging.

Restorative practices take a different path, asking: What circumstances or unmet needs —internal and external—contributed to this incident? Through this lens of harm, the process shifts from “Who’s at fault?” to “What does healing look like here?” The goal isn’t just to move past the incident, but to attend to every person’s humanity, dignity, and need to heal.

Accountability as daily practice

We often imagine accountability as a one-time act—a confession, an apology, or a consequence. But restorative practices view accountability as a lifelong relational skill. Like any skill, it can be nurtured and developed through intentional practice. Accountability shifts from being an admission of guilt to an opportunity to make right: with self, with others, and with community.

What does meaningful accountability look like? It’s a lifelong practice that is built through everyday reflection and repetition, gradually shaping how we act and relate to others. Accountability is centered on connection, not coercion.

As a skillset, accountability includes:

• Honest self-awareness: Recognizing my actions and their impacts without defining myself by my mistakes.
• Accepting harm: Acknowledging what happened and how it affected others, moving toward empathy and responsibility.
• Identifying patterns and root causes: Understanding personal and systemic factors to make meaningful change.
• Unlearning old behaviors: Noticing harmful triggers and building healthier responses.
• Learning new behaviors: Practicing and reinforcing positive actions, supported by relationships and community.

How accountability fuels forgiveness

Forgiveness is often misunderstood in restorative practices. It’s not a condition of being restorative—and certainly not something that can be pressured or prescribed. Although not a requirement of restorative practices, forgiveness can be a potential outcome of genuine accountability: empathy, growth, and changed behavior.

Restorative justice explores harm, not as isolated incidents, but the surfacing of unmet needs often stemming from trauma, interpersonal dynamics, and broader systemic inequities. As restorative justice practitioner Danielle Sered says, “No one enters violence for the first time by committing it.”

By painting a fuller picture of the conditions in which harm happens, we are often able to develop more empathy for people and situations, which sets the stage for meaningful accountability, dialogue, and repair. Research backs this up. Studies show that when students experience empathy in the aftermath of harm—rather than being shamed or “othered”—they are more likely to take responsibility, repair relationships, and avoid future conflict.

Further, restorative justice believes that, because of the inequitable design of our systems, we all cause harm. Sometimes in small ways, other times in big ways. Acknowledging this and building our own self-awareness and accountability around this idea helps us build understanding that when harm occurs, the self is not the act.

When we can face the harm we’ve caused—without the shame—we can begin to reconnect with our own humanity. And once we can see ourselves with compassion, it becomes easier to truly see and care for others, even those that we’ve caused harm to. We are not the worst things that have happened to us–or that we have done–but we do have a responsibility to tend to the healing of both.

Cultivating accountability skills

In Barbara Coloroso’s discussion of discipline, she argues that punishment and discipline have been conflated—but in fact they mean very different things and have very different outcomes. Discipline, she says, is designed to do four things:


• Show a person what they’ve done without judgement;
• give them as must ownership of the incident or problem that they can handle;
• support them with options for problem-solving and repair; and
• most importantly, leave the dignity of the person intact.

What are some ways this looks like in practice? Consider these concrete steps:

1. Create safe, nonjudgmental spaces

• Ask, “What happened?” and not “Why did you do that?”
• Focus on listening—without interruption or judgment.

2. Reframe accountability and shame

• Shift language from “Who’s to blame?” to “What needs to change—in me, in us, in our school?”
• Normalize making mistakes and emphasize repair over punishment.

3. Address trauma and ownership separately

• Recognize that trauma can help explain actions but does not excuse harm.
• Offer support and guidance but hold space for responsibility.

4. Model honest self-reflection

• Educators and leaders can share times they’ve made mistakes and how they’ve tried to repair them.
• Students notice and emulate adult vulnerability and growth.

5. Practice community repair

• When conflict impacts a group, invite everyone to co-create solutions and agreements.
• For example: group agreements, joint service, or collaborative art marking repair.

6. Broaden the frame

• Ask what systems, conditions, or policies helped create the harm.
• Don’t place all responsibility on individuals; locate accountability in both people and structures.

7. Encourage repetition and small wins

• Treat each circle, check-in, or restorative dialogue as practice.
• Celebrate progress, and don’t expect perfection.

Accountability within a punitive system

Developing meaningful accountability skills is lifelong work that can often feel at-odds with immediate responses or urgent needs from people that have been affected by an incident of harm. As a non-prescriptive and often non-linear process, accountability looks different person to person, relationship to relationship, incident to incident. Trauma, certain belief systems, and lack of relational trust are all examples of barriers to meaningful accountability.

In all of these ways, restorative justice is not an easy fix. While accountability is a goal, healing for people impacted from harm cannot depend exclusively on it. It’s important to remember, as Dr. Fania Davis says, that multiple pathways to healing exist.

A broader challenge to meaningful accountability is the reality that most educators and students are forced to operate inside larger systems, beliefs, and practices that default to punishment. We may not be able to change policy overnight—but we can embody restorative ways of being in our everyday interactions, habits, and decisions. “Ways of being” refers to the overarching values, mindsets, and belief systems that inform one’s actions. At heart, restorative ways of being serve as a compass to guide leaders as they navigate the tension of operating restoratively inside punitive systems.

Instead of searching for “the answer,” ask: “What steps can I try first?” and “How can I center everyone’s humanity as I move forward?” How we make decisions, despite challenging circumstances, can move us closer toward greater alignment with a future world we believe is possible.

Schools as communities of healing

Meaningful accountability isn’t just about fixing the past. It’s also about investing in a future where harm is less likely to occur—by strengthening relationships, networks, and systems of belonging. Mia Mingus, a transformative justice and disability advocate, invites us to ponder:

• What if accountability was hard, but not scary?
• What would it look like if accountability was relational, not connected to exclusion?
• What would forgiveness feel like to be offered authentically, not demanded?
• What if, when harm happened, our default was to gather—to listen, reflect, and repair as a community?

When we offer connection instead of isolation, accountability becomes less about punishment and more about growth. The more we nurture and deepen relationships—the more resources we have for healing when harm occurs. By working to embed these practices, we lay a foundation where everyone—students, educators, parents—can heal, belong, and thrive.

This happenstance involvement profoundly impacted the course of his life. Now living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, he leads community members whose lives have been impacted by the criminal justice system through the same course.

Jackson understood forgiveness as a spiritual concept from growing up in the church, but it didn’t click until he was able “to connect the dots between the spiritual and the scientific part,” he says. For him, forgiveness applied to the hurt he had caused others but also to the hurt he experienced from others’ wrongdoing. You forgive, he says, “without trying to diminish [the wrong]. You’re not forgiving that person because of them. You’re forgiving them because of you.”

“I didn’t know the impact that anger could have on your physical, mental, and spiritual well-being. It takes a lot to hate people,” says Jackson. What did he learn? “The greatest enemy of hate is forgiveness. It has that much power.”

When he got out of prison, Jackson reached out to the psychologist who led his therapy to let him know what an impact it made.

Understanding why

In 1994, Robert Enright, a psychology professor at the University of Wisconsin, founded the International Forgiveness Institute, leading the scientific study of forgiveness. His books The Forgiving Life and Forgiveness Therapy lay out his groundbreaking work in the therapeutic field. In 2016, Enright’s lab began offering forgiveness therapy to men incarcerated at Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage, Wis., where Enright met Jackson. In 2018, Lifan Yu, one of Enright’s graduate students, continued that research with a new cohort of men there.

Building on Enright’s work, Yu’s therapy sessions did not focus on the crimes inmates committed but instead examined how their personal history of abuse led them to harbor anger and had negatively impacted their mental health.

“Why did they choose to harm others?” Yu wonders. “Prisoners themselves are victims before they committed a crime,” she says. “They bear that for their whole lives. ... That’s the reason they chose to hurt others.”

Similar to Jackson’s experience with Enright, Yu brought together a group of 12 men to read Enright’s book 8 Keys to Forgiveness alongside 12 others in a control group that used the Carey Guides, a collection of cognitive behavioral tools and worksheets for prison personnel to create positive change with inmates and used widely throughout the prison system.

“Everyone in the group had stories to tell about how they had been used, abused, and/or misused by those they trusted and/or looked up to. We became close like a family and knew the group was a safe place to deal with anger and resentment,” wrote one participant in an anonymous letter given to Yu at the end of the study.

Before the group met, individuals responded to surveys measuring anger, depression, and anxiety, as well as orientation toward forgiveness and more. All the selected men had significantly impaired mental health. After completing the six-month therapy, Yu sent the survey again. The experimental group saw significant improvement while the control group remained the same. The research team then decided to offer the program to the control group. The results again indicated growth.

Yu followed up with both groups six months after they completed the therapy: Both retained growth, indicating the long-term effectiveness of forgiveness therapy.

The letter to Yu from the anonymous participant continued:

I was able to see how the way I was raised had a very negative and profound impact on me. ... I forgave others from my past for the wrongs they inflicted on me. I don’t feel the pain anymore. I have been in many groups, programs, and counseling sessions but was never able to understand why I kept hurting people. This was the only program that ever asked me, ‘“hat happened to you to make you the way you are?”

Breaking cycles of harm

Therapies in prison often focus on correcting behaviors to prevent repeat offenses, rather than aiming for improving mental health overall, says Yu. That approach fails to make a connection between the crimes committed and the personal abuse history of the perpetrator.

Sylvester Jackson’s story is an example. He was sexually abused from age seven to 13. At age 14, he sexually abused another person for the first time. “I didn’t have no outlet for those things. I grew to the point that I wasn’t going to be the one being hurt; I was going to be the one doing the hurt,” he says.

“My first experience with hate started with my father and seeing how he disregarded us, and then I find out he was on the other side of the city taking care of other people’s kids,” Jackson says.

Eventually, Jackson was living on the streets of Chicago and became involved with a gang. At age 27, Jackson served his first prison sentence in Texas for stolen checks. When Jackson got out, he rediscovered his faith and did well for several years but again sank into mental illness after his mother died in 2002. During this time, Jackson sexually assaulted his youngest daughter. “She came into my life unfortunately when I was in a spiral,” he says. “I passed the abuse on that I had, and that led me to prison.”

In 2007, Jackson was imprisoned in Wisconsin, where he remained for 10 years. There he encountered Enright and forgiveness therapy. Jackson prayed for help. “I tried suicide, and I thought, ‘OK [God], if you aren’t going to kill me, then help me live. If you are who you say you are, I need you to show me yourself,’” he says. Jackson asked for God to restore his mind. Forgiveness therapy was part of the answer to that prayer.

Jackson’s story illustrates a prevalent reality: Yu and her colleagues found higher rates of adverse, traumatic experiences in medium- and maximum-security prison populations than in the general public. Yu and her team began exploring whether therapy programs in prison can assist in psychological healing and contribute to lower recidivism rates. The forgiveness therapy study confirmed the connection between the types of abuse individuals experienced and the types of crimes they committed.

The research of Yu and others showed that among 103 men surveyed in the initial phase of the study, 90% reported a childhood abuse—almost all reported more than one abuse—and 82% said the abuse still negatively influenced them. Of the 33 men who reported sexual abuse, 67% of them were convicted for sexual assault. Of the 70 men who reported physical abuse and familial neglect, 80% were incarcerated for violent crimes, such as armed robbery, homicide, or felony murder.

Surprisingly, Yu also found that 46% of the men had never shared their past abuse and trauma with anyone else, and most had never had anyone recognize their hurt or help them heal. “In essence, they were re-traumatized by holding in their pain,” says Yu.

What leads to a changed life?

Aaron Griffith, a Duke Divinity School historian who wrote God’s Law and Order: The Politics of Punishment in Evangelical America, says, “Most people who actually go into prison ministry or chaplaincy or work ... realize pretty quickly that those who come in [to prison] come with harms that have been done to them.”

But it can be hard for Christians with a strong “law and order” belief system and a bent toward saving individual souls to understand the cycles of harm many prisoners experience. “There’s a resistance to see [them as caught] in cycles of abuse or harm or violence,” says Griffith. “For evangelical Christians, that resistance comes because they can be narrowly focused on conversion. They are looking for the seamless narrative: ‘I’m a sinner, and now I’m going to be saved.’”

While evangelical Christians shaped prison policy substantially in the mid-20th century, Griffith wrote, many Christians of various traditions have also been strong advocates for restorative justice practices within and alongside the incarceration system. Restorative justice advocates see it as a way to address the root causes of crime, including individuals’ deeper wounds and injustice within the carceral system. Forgiveness therapy is not quite restorative justice, Griffith noted, and perhaps that is an advantage.

A restorative justice approach centers the victim first and works with all involved in the crime to determine what would advance repair for damage caused. Forgiveness therapy, on the other hand, does not require the participation of the victim. Focusing on forgiveness alone, however, may not attend enough to what the offender owes the victim and what repairing the harm might look like. One benefit of restorative justice, therefore, is that it’s careful not to force forgiveness, but to address the needs of all parties, starting with the victim, so that transformation can occur.

In any case, therapeutic approaches that measure emotions or virtues, writes Abilene Christian University associate professor Brad East, can never quite grasp the bigger realities of forgiveness. “Even in the best circumstances—two friends, a wrong done, followed by acknowledgement, repentance, forgiveness, and restoration—the experience is never perfect, never complete. All human forgiveness this side of death is partial, piecemeal, a marathon measured daily in inches lost or won,” he writes in “The Theological Terrain of Forgiveness,” in Comment magazine.

Forgiveness therapy in prison will reach a very small percentage of the nearly 2 million people locked up in the U.S. in 2025—and that is not likely to change. While prison psychologists and chaplains are aware of the enormous need, Griffith says “our criminal justice system is not set up to actually deal with this.”

Theologies of sin and redemption

In 1976, according to Griffith, evangelicals ramped up their promotion of a more punitive carceral system. The National Association of Evangelicals took the position that God does not offer forgiveness of sins without first a penalty being paid, equating crime with sin. From then until now, writes Griffith, “more law and order, not the spiritual redemption of criminals, became the primary evangelical answer to lawlessness.”

Psychologist Blake Riek, a professor at Calvin University, said that there are basically two theologies at play when it comes to crime. One end of the spectrum says all humans are sinful, while the other reminds us of the dignity of all people.

Each theology can cause people to believe different things about themselves and others. “Are prisoners bad people? Or people who have done a bad thing?” Riek asks. “It really makes a difference in the ways people view themselves [and others].”

Shame and guilt are both moral emotions that result when we deviate from our internalized standards. Riek’s own research found that when a person dwells on thoughts that they are inherently bad, it leads to shame, and people get stuck there. Shame does not lead to seeking forgiveness. Feeling guilty, however, increases the likelihood that a person will seek forgiveness. A large study published in 2007 found that feelings of guilt at the beginning of a prison term correlated with lower rates of recidivism, and feelings of shame correlated with higher rates. “Guilt—because it focuses on the action—is, in a sense, fixable,” says Riek.

One benefit to Enright and Yu’s approach is that it doesn’t rely on shame to produce changed behavior and instead offers dignity to incarcerated individuals. The anonymous letter to Yu suggested the need for such interventions to come much earlier in the trauma process. “I truly believe if I would have done the forgiveness program the first time I went to rehab or even prison, I would not be in prison now,” the inmate wrote.

Sylvester Jackson could not keep to himself the transformation he experienced through forgiveness therapy. “I felt that it freed me from such anguish, it can help someone else,” he says. “There are so many people today walking around being controlled by people who are long gone who abused them, and they don’t know how to let them go.”

Jackson launched Believers for Change, a nonprofit run by his wife Lavansa Jackson, to support formerly incarcerated people as they reenter society. The Jacksons offer the same forgiveness program that changed Sylvester’s life, followed by a restorative justice process to heal families that have been torn apart by personal harms and the prison system.

“Hurt people hurt people,” Sylvester Jackson says. “But healed people can also heal people.”

Reprinted with permission from Sojourners, a Christian organization dedicated to social justice, peace, and faith-driven activism: (800) 714-7474. This article was created with the support of a project of the Greater Good Science Center, Putting the Science of Forgiveness into Practice.

Other times, they take a little more practice and work. That’s the case with many of this year’s top scientific insights, which deal with big topics like forgiveness, trust, morality, meaning, and purpose. While we probably can’t cultivate these overnight, they are no less important to living a good and happy life—and especially important for thriving societies. 

The final insights were selected by experts on our staff, after soliciting nominations from our network of nearly 400 researchers. We hope they help you consider what you’d like to invite into your life and your community as we head into 2026.

1. Feeling hopeful—even more so than just feeling good—may bring us a sense of meaning

Some of us may struggle to find a sense of meaning in life, especially when times are tough. But according to a new set of studies published this year in the journal Emotion, one important pathway to a meaningful life is by cultivating hope. 

Over the course of a college semester, students who felt more hopeful at one moment in time reported higher levels of meaning later in the semester. The researchers found unique effects for hope—general positive emotions didn’t have the same effect. In other words, among all the good feelings we can have, hope may play a particularly important role in a meaningful life.

Moreover, just feeling hopeful—even if we don’t necessarily think it’s realistic—seems to be beneficial. In one survey, the emotion of hope had a stronger link to meaning than did people’s beliefs about whether they could attain a good outcome.

In another study, researchers asked some participants to read an optimistic news story, while other participants read a pessimistic story. Those who read the optimistic article tended to report feeling more hope, and, in turn, readers who felt more hopeful reported a greater overall sense of meaning in life. This tells us that our feelings of hope and meaning can shift moment to moment, and they are influenced by the things we encounter in daily life.

When we’re facing tough times, taking time to cultivate hope—for example, by seeking out positive news or reminding ourselves that tough circumstances can improve—can help us to see the world around us as more meaningful.

2. A strong sense of right and wrong makes for a happier, more meaningful life

Does striving to be a good person feel good? Or does making ethical choices entail a certain amount of self-sacrifice?

Philosophical debates about the relationship between morality and happiness are longstanding, but this year a paper published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology weighed in with evidence that doing good and feeling good go hand in hand.

Across three different studies, researchers asked groups of adults, from undergraduate students in the U.S. to engineers in China, about how happy they were, including how often they felt positive and negative emotions, and how satisfied they were with life. The researchers also asked how much they had a sense of meaning and purpose. Finally, participants nominated people they knew (like friends, partners, family members, teachers, and coworkers) who could weigh in on how moral the participants were. While there are many ways to think about morality, for the purpose of this paper it included traits like being compassionate, respectful, fair, loyal, dependable, and honest.

The result? In general, they found, people who were seen as more moral by family and friends themselves reported being happier and having a greater sense of meaning in life. 

Why would being moral make us happier? “Highly moral individuals might be happier in part because they have better relationships with other people,” the researchers found in some initial analyses. But because these are correlational studies, it could also be that being happy promotes more upstanding behavior. What’s clear, at least, is that being moral and being happy don’t seem to be in conflict.

In other words, treating people well doesn’t have to come at your own expense—which is perhaps more evidence that everyone’s well-being is interconnected.

3. Your well-being influences your mitochondrial health

Centuries of thought have been dedicated to the mind-body connection: the idea that mental states like contentment or distress directly influence the body in ways that shape physical health.

In a paper published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, researchers identify one new pathway through which this may be occurring: our mitochondria.

Mitochondria, the tiny organelles in our cells that convert energy from nutrients in the blood into currency that the body can use, are sensitive to what is going on in our mental lives. They ramp up production to strengthen defense to threats; they trigger inflammatory responses to help the body fight off pathogens. Subjected to intense or long-term stress, they weaken and toss DNA debris into the bloodstream.

In the paper, the researchers highlight evidence that our psychological and social experiences affect our mitochondria in important ways. For example, they share the finding that people with a greater sense of purpose and more social support in life have higher levels of mitochondrial proteins in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex of the brain, a region that supports paying attention as well as reinterpreting and expressing emotions in agile and constructive ways. Other research finds that factors like how big our social networks are, our social activity later in life, personal growth, and self-acceptance may make a difference to our mitochondrial health, too.

Currently, we tend to evaluate and treat mental and physical health independently, as separate conditions, rather than considering them as integrated or interdependent. While it may seem obvious that how we think and feel would impact how our bodies work, there is still some mystery around exactly how mental and social factors translate into physical processes that affect health. Looking more closely at mitochondrial function could help us better understand the mind-body connection and come up with better practices to support holistic well-being.

4. Just about every activity is more enjoyable in the company of others

Students use body doubling (online or in-person) to power through final exam studying. Reading and knitting groups congregate in coffee shops and on porches to engage in hobbies together—often in silence. Why this impulse to be together?

A study published in Social Psychological and Personality Science found that almost anything we do is more enjoyable with other people. Researchers at the University of British Columbia looked at surveys from 41,094 participants over four years, who rated 105,766 activities they engaged in. These fell into more than 80 categories of daily activities, from eating to yard work to crafting. For every single activity, participants consistently rated it as more enjoyable when engaged in alongside another person.

“Whether we are eating, reading, or even cleaning up around the house, happiness thrives in the company of others,” the authors conclude.

Not only does happiness thrive in the company of others, but another study this year suggests that happiness experienced together may be even better for our health than happiness experienced alone.

A study led by researchers at the University of California, Davis, analyzed interactions between couples in Germany and Canada (642 people total, all 56 to 89 years old). Multiple times a day, participants rated their mood, froze a sample of their saliva to be tested for cortisol, and noted whether they were with their partner.

The results were striking. Couples who experienced emotional resonance, meaning they were together and experiencing higher than usual connection, also measured lower cortisol levels as compared with their personal norm for that time of day—and lower than when they experienced positive emotions by themselves. Persistent high levels of cortisol can cause high blood pressure, high blood sugar, weakened immunity, and other harms to our health.

“Sharing in positive emotions with your relationship partner is really meaningful,” says the lead author of the study, Tomiko Yoneda of the University of California, Davis. “Even those small moments of joy or social connection can have a supportive effect on your physiology and, basically, support better health as we age.”

5. When you forgive, your memories don’t fade, but your misery does

When we’ve been wronged, it can be hard to forgive. Perhaps we worry that forgiveness means forgetting what happened to us, letting other people off the hook somehow.

But a study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology found that this isn’t the way forgiveness works. Rather than helping us forget, forgiveness seems to keep our memories intact while lessening the suffering we feel recalling them.

In the study, participants recalled and wrote about a time when they were harmed by another person, noting how severe the transgression was and whether or not they’d forgiven the person. Then, they filled out questionnaires on the specifics of the harm (such as where it took place, how vivid it was in their minds, and sensory details) and its emotional characteristics (such as the intensity of the feelings they had at the time and how they felt now recalling the event).

By running analyses, the researchers found that people who had forgiven recalled just as much detail as those who hadn’t, but also felt less emotionally burdened thinking about the event. This implies that forgiveness does not equal forgetting.

“One possibility is to think that when we forgive, we change our judgment of what happened during the wrongdoing. But I think that’s just wrong,” says De Brigard, one of the study coauthors. “We still consider the people that wronged us as being culpable and morally responsible for what happened to us.”

This suggests that forgiving someone can protect our well-being without impacting our pursuit of justice or amends for the harm we’ve suffered.

6. Trusting in other people and institutions can improve our well-being across our lives

Trust is paramount to a functioning society, where we depend on each other to make things work. Yet a recent Pew Research Center poll suggests social trust may be eroding in many places.

A new paper published in Psychological Bulletin shows us how problematic this is. In an analysis of over 500 studies involving over 2.5 million participants around the world, researchers found that people who tended to trust others more at any level (i.e., within their relationships, institutions, or government) were happier and more satisfied with life than those who trusted less—and experiencing greater well-being fostered more trust down the road, too.

This suggests that fostering greater trust would be a worthy goal for bettering our lives. But how to do that? One simple way might be to realize that our distrust of others is sometimes misguided, as another 2025 study published in Nature Human Behaviour found.

In the study, students living in some freshman dorms saw a series of posters providing accurate messages about their classmates’ willingness to engage in positive social behavior (e.g., “95% of undergraduate students are likely to help others who are feeling down”). These students also attended a one-hour freshman workshop where, in addition to the regular curriculum, they were educated about their peers’ empathy and social goals. Some dorms had the campaign posters and added lessons, while others didn’t.

All first-year dorm residents took surveys later in the semester, reporting on how empathic their peers seemed, how much they themselves took social risks, and how much time they spent socializing. Those whose misconceptions had been corrected estimated their peers’ empathy levels more accurately and were more likely to take risks and socialize—a sign of social trust.

This finding tracks well with past studies finding that correcting wrong assumptions can improve trust and social interactions. For example, research has found that people generally share a desire to protect democracy, are more ethical, and want to connect across difference more than we think, and correcting those misperceptions has positive consequences. Perhaps, understanding that people are more trustworthy than we give them credit for might help build bridges between people, making us all better off.

7. Where purpose comes from and how it benefits us may be similar across cultures

Research finds that people with a sense of purpose in life tend to enjoy greater health, happiness, and economic success, among other benefits. Yet much research on purpose has been conducted in Western cultures using general surveys of purpose, making it unclear if cultural influences affect these claims.

But a study published this year in The Journal of Positive Psychology offers new insights, suggesting that people prioritize similar sources of purpose across very different cultural backgrounds, and benefit in much the same way from having a sense of purpose.

In the study, over 1,000 people from Japan, India, Poland, and the United States reported how happy, meaningful, and psychologically rich their lives were—all aspects of “the good life.” They also rated how 16 different sources of purpose guided their behavior and decision making, considering both self-focused sources of purpose (like health, wealth, and inner peace) and more outward-focused sources of purpose (like caring for family, having a positive impact, and serving your country and community).

In analyses, researchers found that happiness, self-sufficiency, and family were in the top five sources of purpose for each country, while religion and recognition were in the bottom five. There was also large agreement on which sources of purpose went along with elements of “the good life.” For example, people who said their purpose came from mattering were the most likely to have a more meaningful life, while people pursuing inner peace, positive impact, and physical health felt happier. Those pursuing service to others had the strongest sense of psychological richness (a form of well-being involving diverse, challenging, and interesting activities that evoke complex emotions and change your perspective).

While there were variations, too, the most striking parts of the study were the unexpected similarities.

“What stands out from our finding is just how much agreement there was within these four quite different countries about what kinds of purposes are associated with a good life,” says coauthor Stephen Heine. “Though the goal of our paper was to highlight many sources of purpose, our take-home message is that having any kind of purpose is key to having a good life.”

8. Children as young as five prefer adults who express doubt to those who are overly confident

Intellectual humility involves recognizing the limits of our own knowledge and staying open to changing our minds in light of new information. It helps us get along better with others and bridge differences, making it a virtue worth cultivating in our children.

While it may seem like intellectual humility is beyond the understanding of young children, a study published this year in Developmental Psychology found that even five and a half years olds already recognize the value of humility and prefer humbler adults to more arrogant adults.

In the study, 111 children were presented with an ambiguous object (e.g., something that could be a sponge or a rock) or an ambiguous word (e.g., “bat,” which could be an animal or sports equipment). Then, they watched two adults identify the object or word and express doubt (or not) about it.

Each adult presented themselves as amiable and initially identified the object or word in the same way. But the humbler person modeled more uncertainty, saying their identification could be wrong, while the more arrogant person said they were sure they were right.

Afterward, the children rated who they thought was smarter and nicer, and whom they liked more and would rather learn from. In analyses, the researchers found that children five and a half years and older, no matter their gender, preferred humbler people to arrogant people in every way, with that preference growing stronger with every additional year of age.

This suggests that young children recognize the benefits of humility and that adults can model uncertainty for children. Learning it’s OK to admit you don’t know something could help children in their future relationships, including across group differences.

“There is power in saying, ‘I’m not entirely sure and my knowledge is fallible and so is yours; maybe we can come together and talk,’” says coauthor Shauna Bowes of Vanderbilt University. “I think the earlier in life kids learn to do this, the better.”

9. People are forming relationships with robots—whether we like the trend or not

Artificial intelligence has invaded almost every aspect of human life, from media creation to food systems to transportation. Personal relationships are no exception.

AI companies such as Xiaoice and Replika explicitly market their chatbots as companions, boyfriends, and girlfriends. That label rings true for tens of millions of users who are developing bonds with these robots, whose algorithms are built to validate our feelings and respond to our bids for attention instantly.

About 20% of high school students have formed a romantic relationship with a chatbot, or know someone who has, according to a survey from the Center for Democracy and Technology. Among U.S. adults, about the same percentage have chatted with an AI simulating a romantic partner, with usage higher among young adults aged 18 to 30, about 31% of men and 23% of women, according to a study by the Wheatley Institute at Brigham Young University.

Users describe daily lives intertwined with AI romantic partners, from watching television together to relying on them for nonjudgmental emotional support, according to a systematic review in Computers in Human Behavior Reports that examined 23 studies on romantic AI. While these interactions can foster self-reflection and personal growth, they also raise dangers such as emotional manipulation and erosion of real-life, human relationships.

An article in Perspectives on Psychological Science assessed the degree to which AI chatbot relationships mimic the functions of human relationships, and explored the risks. The authors, psychologists at the University of California, Los Angeles, concluded that humans and their chatbot partners can influence each other, generate feelings of closeness, and facilitate growth.

However, they identified areas of concern, including the risk of chatbots responding inappropriately in moments of crisis, normalizing problematic behavior, and creating dependency.

“Because chatbots make only superficial requests of their users, relationships with them cannot provide the benefits of negotiating with and sacrificing for a partner and may reinforce undesirable behaviors,” they wrote.

These developments “expose gaps in human connection and show how intimacy can be shaped by technology,” Sahar Habib Ghazi writes in Greater Good. “Understanding AI love may help us better understand ourselves, and the human bonds we continue to seek.”

10. If we put a country’s wealth aside, we can see what other factors bolster happiness

Every year, the World Happiness Report ignites conversations about which countries are thriving and which ones seem to be struggling—and why that might be. While in general wealthier countries tend to be happier, some nations do far better than their economic resources would predict, while others underperform despite relative affluence.

In a paper published in May by the European Journal of Social Psychology, psychologist Mohsen Joshanloo took the conversation to a new level with an idea called wealth-adjusted life satisfaction (WALS). Instead of asking simply “how happy is this country?,” WALS asks “how happy given its wealth?” By statistically isolating the portion of life satisfaction explained by a country’s GDP per capita, this measure reveals how effective each society seems to be in converting material resources into well-being.

The results are revealing. Countries like Nicaragua, Nepal, and Kyrgyzstan far outperform expectations, reporting levels of life satisfaction that rival or exceed those of much wealthier nations. Conversely, places such as South Korea, Hong Kong, and Bahrain score lower than their GDP might suggest, indicating that wealth alone isn’t enough.

What distinguishes the happiness “over-achievers”? The study highlights several non-economic forces that seem to matter: job quality and meaningful work, a sense of autonomy and freedom, social connections and community engagement, and everyday enjoyment. These factors help explain why some societies—despite material limitations—are still able to sustain high levels of life satisfaction.

This study suggests that instead of focusing narrowly on economic growth as a key to human flourishing, governments and corporations might make targeted investments in community, meaningful work, personal freedom, and livable, lively cities and towns.

As Joshanloo concludes in a Greater Good essay, “Ultimately, building societies that prioritize the wise use of resources for human well-being may be the clearest path toward a more hopeful and humane future.”

Behind each of these numbers is a story of loss, love, confusion, and hope. Family estrangement is rarely a sudden rupture. More often, it unfolds slowly—a series of misunderstandings, hurt feelings, mismatched expectations, or unresolved conflicts that accumulate over months, if not years.

Parents and adult children are navigating these decisions in a world where the vocabulary of psychology and therapy has become deeply woven into public life. Terms like “boundaries,” “trauma,” “toxicity,” and “emotional safety” have entered everyday conversation, giving people new ways to name their distress—but also new frameworks for interpreting family relationships through the lens of harm. While this evolution has helped some break free from genuinely destructive dynamics, it has also made family life more fragile, as ordinary imperfections or intergenerational differences can be experienced as evidence of deeper wounds. Understanding how these cultural forces interact with personal histories is essential to making sense of why so many families today find themselves struggling to stay connected.

As a psychologist who researches estrangement and works with estranged families, my practice has become flooded with parents and adult children desperate to figure out how to navigate their relationships. I’ve learned that reconciliation is difficult not because families are uniquely broken, but because both generations are operating with profoundly different assumptions about what love, repair, and responsibility require.

The modern culture of family estrangement

Over the past half-century, family life has undergone dramatic shifts, reshaping how we think about the bonds between parents and their adult children. Today’s cultural focus on self-actualization and emotional health has recast decisions about maintaining—or severing—relationships not merely as personal choices, but as acts of psychological self-preservation. Within this framework, cutting ties with a parent or an adult child may be seen as a legitimate or even courageous step toward safeguarding one’s mental health, pursuing personal growth, asserting a gender identity or sexual orientation, clarifying a political stance, or simply seeking happiness and independence.

While family tensions and the wish to distance oneself are nothing new, framing estrangement as a necessary part of self-development reflects a distinctly modern mindset. “For most of history, family relationships were based on mutual obligations rather than on mutual understanding,” the historian Stephanie Coontz told me. “Parents or children might reproach one another for failing to honor a duty, but the idea that a relative could be faulted for failing to affirm one’s identity would have been incomprehensible.”

Estranged parents and adult children often come to the table with vastly different assumptions about what healing or reconciliation requires. Some of the greatest challenges stem from the changing definitions of what constitutes harm, abuse, trauma, or neglect. When the goal of parenting was primarily to raise a functional, independent adult, the standards for success were relatively clear. But as that goal expanded to include raising a happy, emotionally attuned, and socially fluent individual, the range of potential parental shortcomings has widened accordingly. Behaviors once considered normal—or even well-intentioned—are now seen as damaging or formative in ways that demand redress.

Unlike previous generations in Western societies, where values like filial duty and respect for elders were the organizing forces of family life, today’s parent–adult child relationships operate according to what British sociologist Anthony Giddens termed “pure relationships”—those sustained not by obligation, but by alignment with one’s aspirations for happiness, personal growth, and mental health. These relationships require emotional intelligence, self-awareness, and communication skills that weren’t expected of earlier generations of families.

There’s good news and bad news here. For those who can develop these skills, the reward is often a more open and meaningful connection with their adult children. As one father in my practice told me, “It was very hard to accept my daughter’s criticisms of how I made her feel when I raised her. But it was only through empathizing and taking responsibility for my actions that she chose to come back into my life. Now I feel like we’re closer than ever.”

The bad news is that many otherwise loving and functional parents are being cut off based on therapeutic narratives that may overstate harm and equate estrangement with healing or empowerment. While some parents cut off their adult children due to incompatible beliefs around religion, sexuality, gender identity, mental illness, and addictions, studies find that the vast majority of estrangements are initiated by the adult child.

Why reconciliation is so hard

These cultural shifts shape not only why families become estranged, but also why coming back together is so profoundly challenging. Many parents feel they did the best they could, sometimes under difficult circumstances. Others believe their parenting was good overall, even if imperfect. Some fear that acknowledging past mistakes will be used against them or will only deepen their shame and sense of loss. While these concerns are understandable, taking responsibility is almost always a necessary—if not sufficient—step toward reconciliation.

Sadly, not every parent can offer that. The same qualities that may have complicated parenting—unresolved trauma, difficulty with emotional regulation, rigid views on authority—can also interfere with attempts at reconciliation. A parent who never addressed their own childhood wounds may shut down or lash out when an adult child tries to talk about painful memories. “You think you had it bad? I would’ve killed for the childhood you had” is a not uncommon, though not typically helpful, response.

Others may experience the request for accountability as a reversal of the natural order—why should they, the parent, now be answerable to the child? For some, especially in cultures that emphasize parental authority and filial obligation, the very idea of apologizing to an adult child feels not only uncomfortable, but offensive.

And yet reconciliation doesn’t fail only because of a parent’s limitations. Some adult children reject sincere attempts at repair not because the parent is unwilling to change, but because of their own struggles—with addiction, mental illness, or the influence of a romantic partner who discourages any connection with the family of origin. In other cases, poorly trained therapists may inadvertently make things worse—encouraging cutoff without exploring other options, misdiagnosing parents, or framing estrangement as a sign of autonomy rather than a possible form of conflict avoidance.

The power and challenge of making amends

While I don’t recommend that a parent directly ask their adult child for forgiveness, they can create the conditions for it through actions that help the child feel genuinely cared for and understood. One of the most effective ways to do this is with a sincere letter of amends. At its core, a strong letter acknowledges past mistakes—large and small—and expresses genuine empathy for the child’s experience and its impact on their development. It avoids common pitfalls like defensiveness, blame-shifting, or self-loathing. Instead, it communicates a willingness to listen, to grow, and to take the child’s pain seriously—even when the parent doesn’t fully agree with the details or characterizations.

Amends letters matter—not just because they say “I’m sorry,” but because they convey the psychological capacities that contemporary relationships demand: self-reflection, humility, and openness to change. They are often the clearest signal that the parent is invested not only in reconciliation, but in becoming the kind of person their adult child can relate to now—not just the parent they remember.

Writing one, however, is often emotionally grueling for parents. It can stir intense guilt, regret, or shame. Some parents worry: “If I admit to this, what does it say about who I am?” Therapists working with estranged parents should approach these roadblocks with compassion. Resistance is rarely about stubbornness—it’s often tangled up with grief, fear, and identity loss. Helping parents move through these emotions, while still encouraging emotional generosity and accountability, allows the process to become one of strength, not surrender. And for many, openly acknowledging mistakes—or what their child experienced as such—can be unexpectedly liberating, easing the burden of guilt or regret they’ve carried for years.

That said, writing an amends letter doesn’t guarantee reconciliation. Some adult children, no matter how sincere the gesture, won’t respond. Others may require time or remain unsure whether a relationship can be repaired. But the act of writing the letter can still serve as a meaningful psychological milestone—for the parent, and, potentially, for the child.

What forgiveness requires of adult children

Forgiveness and reconciliation also require reflection and, in many cases, work on the part of the adult child, if that’s their goal. For those who have experienced genuine harm—neglect, rejection, abuse—this can be especially difficult. Forgiveness is not forgetting, excusing, or minimizing what happened. Rather, it’s a gradual and often nonlinear process that may include grieving the parent they wished they had, accepting the limitations of the parent they do have, and making meaning out of early experiences that may have once felt senseless or overwhelming.

For some, forgiveness may feel impossible—at least for a time. The wounds are still fresh, the harm never acknowledged, or the safety of the relationship still in question. In these cases, maintaining distance may be a necessary and self-protective act. And even for those who do want reconciliation, the fear of being hurt again—or of having their pain minimized—can make forgiveness feel like too much to ask. Some may not trust their own ability to set limits on hurtful behavior while remaining in contact. Or they don’t feel sufficiently distanced from the parent’s influence to know they can hold on to their feelings of self-esteem if the parent behaves in ways they find hurtful. In other words, the parent’s voice is still too powerful an influence.

While therapy and self-help culture have helped many identify painful patterns and validate childhood experiences, these same tools have sometimes fostered a kind of psychological determinism—one that places heavy emphasis on parental mistakes as the central or sole cause of adult suffering. The reality is more complex.

Research has found that while early caregiving matters, so do many other forces: genetics, temperament, peer relationships, siblings, class, cohort, historical context, and simple bad luck. Not every struggle with boundaries, mental illness, attachment, or trust is the direct result of parenting.

For adult children who are open to it, expanding this view can be liberating. It doesn’t erase what happened, but it may soften the grip of the past. It may allow them to see their parents not only through the lens of harm, but also through the lens of limitation, fallibility, or even shared humanity. It may also shift the focus from needing a parent to change in order to feel whole, to developing an identity that no longer depends on parental validation or alignment. As one newly reconciled adult child told me, “If you keep insisting that your parent has to change in order to have a relationship with you, maybe you’re the one who should change.”

Forgiveness, in this light, becomes not about condoning or reconciling, but about loosening the hold of grievance—especially when that grievance has begun to shape one’s sense of self. It’s about reclaiming personal agency, and making space for the kind of life the adult child wants to lead, regardless of what the parent can or cannot offer.

Therapists can support this process by helping adult children reflect on whether continued estrangement still serves their well-being, or whether it has come to reinforce a narrative that no longer feels aligned with who they are becoming. For some, estrangement may still be necessary. For others, the door may inch open. Either way, forgiveness—when it’s possible—is not an erasure of the past. It’s a decision to live less at the mercy of feeling hurt or wronged.

Decades of research find that forgiveness—whether or not it leads to full reconciliation—can lower stress, improve physical health, and strengthen emotional resilience. For adult children, the act of forgiving a parent can reduce the lingering physiological effects of anger and grief, while fostering greater empathy and perspective taking. When that forgiveness is paired with a genuine willingness to re-engage, it can also reopen pathways to shared history, mutual support, and the repair of broken bonds.

Estrangement is rarely a simple story of villains and victims. Repair, when it’s possible, asks something of everyone involved. Forgiveness—whether it leads to reconciliation or simply to a gentler inner stance—remains one of the most powerful tools we have for loosening the grip of grievance and restoring a sense of agency, compassion, and emotional freedom.

In a time when more families are growing apart, remembering our shared humanity may be the first step toward finding our way back to one another—or, at the very least, toward carrying our histories with greater freedom and clarity.

Forgiveness was something I first encountered in the dark silence of a Catholic confessional as a child. I still remember the heavy wooden booth, the tiny grate that slid open with a reverberating scrape, and the sudden appearance of a priest’s face on the other side. Outside, I could hear my classmates, knelt in rows, murmuring Rosaries until their sins had been counted and cleansed. Inside, I whispered my own wrongs, waiting for penance to be assigned.

I am no longer a practicing Catholic, though I still hold reverence for Catholicism’s liturgical cadence and sacramental beauty. Those early experiences of confession, however, left me wrestling with forgiveness for many decades afterward. Only later did I begin to grasp forgiveness as something lived in the open, spoken between people, sought without shame, extended not only by God but through us to one another.

Even now, as a “born again” Christian, I confess I don’t have forgiveness figured out. I wrestle with it daily. Especially in a world where forgiveness is so often misunderstood. Where it is weaponized to silence victims, politicized into culture wars, or withheld in a climate that prizes condemnation over restoration. Too often, forgiveness seems either cheap and hollow or impossibly out of reach.

And yet I believe forgiveness still matters. It matters for our relationships, for our communities, for our faith, and for our future. And so I turn first to science and then to the three Abrahamic faiths, not to claim forgiveness is simple, but to show how their prayers, rituals, and practices can teach us to forgive in ways that are honest and courageous, liberating and transformative.

What forgiveness is—and what it is not

Too often, forgiveness is mistaken for forgetting, excusing, or minimizing harm. It is demanded of victims before they have even named their wounds. It is confused with weakness, or used as a shield to avoid the harder work of truth and justice. But forgiveness, rightly understood, is none of these things.

As psychologist Everett Worthington reminds us, “Forgiveness is distinct from condoning, excusing, or forgetting; it is a prosocial change in motivation toward a transgressor.” It is not about pretending the harm never happened. It is about choosing to respond differently to the harm that did.

Michael McCullough and his coauthors go further, describing forgiveness as “a set of motivational changes whereby one becomes decreasingly motivated to retaliate against an offending partner, decreasingly motivated to maintain estrangement from the offender, and increasingly motivated by conciliation and goodwill.” Forgiveness, then, is not amnesia. It is alchemy. The transformation of anger into something that no longer poisons the soul, releasing the grip of vengeance so that new life can grow in its place. Forgiveness does not minimize loss; it defies the logic of hatred.

The sacred languages echo this truth. In Hebrew, salach speaks of God’s mercy, a divine pardon that is not earned but given. In Greek, aphiēmi means “to let go,” as one might release a debtor from chains. In Latin, remissio refers to loosening, to slackening what once bound tightly. Each word suggests movement, not the erasure of harm, but the refusal to let harm dictate the future. Forgiveness does not rewrite the past; it rewrites our relationship to it.

The Hebrew Scriptures command, “You shall not hate your brother in your heart . . . but you shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:17–18). The Qur’an promises, “The recompense for an injury is an injury equal thereto; but if a person forgives and makes reconciliation, his reward is due from Allah” (Qur’an 42:40). And in the Gospel of Luke, Christians are reminded to “Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven” (Luke 6:37).

These are not relics of a distant age. They are maps, drawn across centuries, showing us how to return to one another, how to resist the pull of vengeance, how to begin again.

Forgiveness as ritual and responsibility in Judaism

In Jewish life, forgiveness is not abstract. It is lived through ritual, prayer, and the hard work of repairing relationships. Nowhere is this clearer than on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, when Jews gather to seek renewal and reconciliation. Central to the day’s liturgy is Ashamnu, the communal confession, an alphabetic acrostic recited together: “We have trespassed, we have betrayed, we have stolen…” Spoken in the plural, the prayer reflects the Jewish belief that wrongdoing and forgiveness are not just individual but communal responsibilities.

Yet prayer alone is not enough. Jewish law insists that divine forgiveness atones only for sins against God—failures in ritual, broken promises, neglected commandments. For wrongs committed against other people, no prayer, however heartfelt, is sufficient. The Mishnah teaches: “For transgressions between a person and God, Yom Kippur atones; for transgressions between one person and another, Yom Kippur does not atone until one appeases the other.” In practice, this means that in the days leading up to Yom Kippur, Jews are expected to reach out directly to those they have harmed, acknowledging wrongdoing and seeking forgiveness.

This process is guided by the steps of teshuvah (repentance): recognizing the wrong, confessing it, making restitution when possible, and resolving not to repeat it. Tradition even teaches that if one sincerely asks three times and forgiveness is still refused, the responsibility shifts to the one withholding it. What matters most is the attempt—the courage to ask, the humility to admit fault, and the willingness to change.

In this way, Jewish practice binds ritual to real life. The prayers of Yom Kippur provide the language of confession, but they are not an end in themselves. They are meant to propel people outward, into face-to-face encounters where reconciliation can begin. Forgiveness, in Judaism, is never only between a person and God. It is lived in community, where honesty, humility, and action give the prayers their true meaning.

Forgiveness as prayer and petition in Islam

The concept of forgiveness (maghfira) occupies a central position in Islamic theology and ethics, serving as both a divine attribute and a human virtue that believers are called to embody. Perhaps no incident in Islamic history illustrates the transformative power of forgiveness more profoundly than the Prophet Muhammad’s (peace be upon him) journey to Taif in 619 CE. This pivotal event, preserved in Ibn Ishaq’s Sirat Rasul Allah and authenticated in the collections of Bukhari and Muslim, demonstrates how genuine forgiveness transcends personal vindication to become a catalyst for spiritual transformation and divine mercy.

The journey came during the Prophet’s “Year of Grief,” after the deaths of his wife Khadijah and his uncle Abu Talib. Seeking support, he traveled to the city of Taif, only to be rejected, mocked, and driven out with stones. Bloodied and exhausted, he sought refuge in a nearby orchard. There, the Angel of the Mountains offered to crush Taif in retribution. The Prophet refused, saying instead: “No. I hope that Allah will bring forth from their descendants people who will worship Allah alone.”

The Taif incident illuminates three dimensions of forgiveness in Islam: the vertical dimension of seeking divine mercy, the horizontal dimension of forgiving others, and the temporal dimension of hope beyond immediate pain. It also reveals forgiveness in Islam as a divine attribute that believers are called to embody, not through suppression of legitimate grievances, but through the transcendence of personal ego in service of universal mercy.

The Taif story continues to shape Muslim ethics: Forgiveness is not weakness or naïve acceptance, but a principled choice to break cycles of vengeance. It is mercy rooted in strength, extending outward with hope for generations yet to come.

Forgiveness as practice and presence in Christianity

In Christianity, forgiveness is prayed, spoken, and enacted. It rings in the Lord’s Prayer, so familiar we can say it on autopilot. Yet it remains as disruptive today as when Jesus first taught it: “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Matthew 6:12). In that single line, forgiveness received and forgiveness extended are bound together.

The church has embodied this teaching in its worship. In Catholic and Orthodox traditions, confession offers a sacred space where sins are named aloud and words of absolution free the penitent from guilt: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). In many Protestant communities, the communion table carries a similar weight. Paul urges believers, “Everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink from the cup” (1 Corinthians 11:28). Forgiveness, in other words, is not an afterthought but the condition for belonging.

The stories of Scripture illustrate forgiveness as lived reality. Joseph, betrayed and sold into slavery by his brothers, meets them again in famine and chooses provision over payback: “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good” (Genesis 50:20). In Luke 15:11–32, traditionally known as the Parable of the Prodigal Son, a father does not wait for apology or proof of repentance. Seeing his son still “a long way off,” he runs to meet him, embraces him, and declares, “This son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.” His forgiveness arrives before the confession, a grace that precedes remorse. And on the cross, Jesus mirrors that same divine impulse, interceding not after repentance but in the very midst of cruelty: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). Both moments reveal forgiveness not as reaction but as initiation. Love choosing mercy before it is even deserved.

These stories reveal the heart of Christian forgiveness: It does not erase wounds or cancel justice, but it refuses to let injury write the final chapter. Forgiveness is deliberate, often costly, and deeply transformative. It asks Christians not only to receive God’s grace but to extend it outward, in families, workplaces, and communities fractured by resentment.

Yet the challenge for Christians today is to let forgiveness leave the sanctuary and enter our homes, our workplaces, our communities, and even our digital life; to ask for it when we have done harm; to offer it when bitterness calcifies; and to build communities where truth is spoken, lest bitterness become the final word.

Practicing forgiveness in daily life

The practices of forgiveness in Judaism, Islam, and Christianity are not only theological treasures. They are lifelines. And scientific research offers evidence for what these traditions have long proclaimed: Forgiveness reduces depression and anxiety, improves physical health, and strengthens relationships. It can fortify marriages, restore friendships, and help rebuild communities. Peace researcher Yaacov Auerbach has even found in his research that forgiveness in conflict zones can help rebuild trust and make peace possible where politics cannot.

In a polarized United States, forgiveness can break cycles of contempt. In international conflicts, it creates space for coexistence when negotiations collapse. Its applications are as wide as human failure itself.

But if forgiveness is to shape our future, it must move beyond holy days into ordinary time, available to the devout and the doubtful alike.

From Judaism, you can borrow the rhythm of the High Holy Days. Consider creating “seasons” of reconciliation, once a year or once a month, to reflect on harm done, seek those you have hurt, and ask forgiveness directly. It might be in a letter, a text, a phone call, or a conversation over coffee. It’s possible to adapt communal confession to your setting: families or teams occasionally saying aloud, We overlooked. We failed to listen. We hurt each other.

From Islam, you could receive the daily cadence of istighfar, the continual seeking of forgiveness from God and others. Consider building micro-practices of reflection: Pause at lunch or before bed to ask, Where did I cause harm today? Where must I forgive? Let Ramadan’s emphasis on purification remind us that cleansing the heart of resentment is as vital as abstaining from food. To fast, in this sense, is to be released—from anger, pride, the need for retribution, so that forgiveness can take root and reconciliation can follow.

From Christianity, embrace simple habits that travel well. The Lord’s Prayer, “Forgive us . . . as we forgive,” is a daily challenge. Confession can look like journaling, therapy, or trusted conversations where we speak truth about our failings and meet compassion. Consider letting communion’s logic inspire tables where hard things are said and forgiveness is extended across a meal.

Forgiveness is not perfection. It is practice—ordinary, repeated acts of release that anyone can attempt.

The call is simple, though never easy: Take one step. Reach out to the one you have avoided. Speak the harm you have carried. Release what weighs you down. Begin again. For forgiveness is not only a path to personal peace, but one of the most powerful tools we have for renewing the world. And in this fractured moment, there may be no greater work for us to do.

Shaykh Ibad Wali is the executive director and resident scholar of Hillside Islamic Center, specializing in the Islamic Law of Inheritance. He is also the senior Muslim advisor for The One America Movement.

Rabbi Frederick Reeves is the senior clergy of KAM Isaiah Israel Congregation in Chicago, Illinois, and the director of Jewish Programs at the One America Movement.