[anbende]

Oof, as a psychologist that deals a lot with people who were abused and mistreated, this is a pretty big generalization.

Yes, as we age we come to see things from a more experienced perspective and the perspectives of the adults we grew up with and change, but going all the way to "that is why it is important to forgive your parents" is a big big step.

It is typically a good idea to try to get to forgiveness, you're right, but there's a lot of very indefensible behavior out there.

[thenerdhead]

Forgiveness is a loaded word.

I am not talking about forgiveness as an act, but as an attitude here. You probably know better than most of us what that means.

The attitude can be generalized as you just did in even your response. The act however, shouldn't.

[thanksbucko]

You may have a skewed view of the frequency of that level of abuse, due to the (very important) work you do. When it comes to humans there are exceptions to every rule, but not every single exception needs be called out. Not everything is “problematic” nor worth an “oof”.

[anbende]

It’s simply an example, though a somewhat extreme one, of the problem with the GP’s generalization.

I think it actually relates to the original article. There’s a difference between mere interpretation and what actually happened.

“You should forgive your parents, because one day you’ll be older and see their perspective” collapses “interpretations develop and mature” with “some events are a problem”.

Both can be forgiven and it’s probably a good idea to do so. I think it’s not helpful to generalize in that way.

Also abuse happens a lot. It may not be the majority but it is NOT rare.

I stand by my objection in this case

[keepamovin]

Thank you. This is important to say, seriously. This kind of "pop psych" notion that you should just "forgive your parents" even if they abused you, definitely is retraumatizing and works to try diminish the impact of the abuse and your feelings about it. Which shouldn't be minimized, but processed, I think. Especially because, it seems a lot of times, people coming from that situation don't see how fucked up it was, because it was their only experience, and until they see how good parents behave they don't realize how poorly they were mistreated. I think this is why it's important to face it, and process it, rather than never understand or just "forgive".

BTW~~what kind of psychological process, thought do people you treat go through when they forgive really abusive people or behavior, people that meant to hurt them, with malice? How does forgiveness look like for the person going choosing it and what are the effects? Sorry, it's a big question! No probs if you don't want to or can't answer it! :)

[anbende]

Thanks for saying this. It's really heartening to see people with this understanding.

So typically there's a lot of exposure, facilitation, and processing work FIRST. There's not really a route to forgiveness in my opinion until someone is pretty deeply in touch with all the feelings associated with how they were treated. I take a mindful self-compassion approach to experiencing and reprocessing memories and emotions drawing a lot from Paul Gilbert, a self-compassion researcher and advocate in the UK.

Once a lot of the feelings have been processed, including anger and resentment, we often get to a point where the anger doesn't seem to serve much purpose for the person anymore. It's not covering up something they didn't want to feel (guilt, shame, sadness, fear, etc) and it's not "punishing their parents" in a way that many people hold on to. More often than not, the client just spontaneously forgives at that point, and forgiveness looks like seeing the situation as a bad one that everyone involved was stuck in and no longer having a need for the perpetrator to suffer or take responsibility.

So acceptance and compassion then processing and reprocessing with self-compassion. Sometimes a discussion of blame and forgiveness and what they do and don't mean.

[mrguyorama]

We have statistics and they are not pretty. The CDC reports that 1 out of every 7 children have experienced child abuse or neglect in the last year. That doesn't even include stuff that technically isn't abuse or neglect but rather just damaging parenting: Plenty of kids had their parents impress upon them some personal neurosis out of their own traumatized problems, and now you start another cycle of that person causing issues in their kids unless they get help for that or find ways to avoid it.

I would consider one out of seven to be "problematic" and "oof" worthy

[simonh]

I think it's fair to say it's something we should all strive for if we're able.