Human Defenses Against Forgiveness
An extremely important area of daily life is often left unexplored--that is the resistance we have to true forgiveness. Many disciplines of study need to be combined in order to provide the world with an understanding of how to forgive and to recognize the internal barriers we place in the way of that much needed freedom. This article is a contribution to that effort. I hope to touch on the conscious and unconscious motives for maintaining hatred and refusing to love.
Genuine forgiveness is a way of life which requires great courage and is extremely rare. It is perhaps the hardest thing to do consistently and yet it is the one which brings the most psychological health.
There simply is no substitute for the healing power of forgiveness whenever we give or receive deep psychological or moral injury. A major experimental research study has already observed the positive psychological effect of forgiveness. It significantly reduces anxiety, depression, and hostility and increases self-confidence, self-esteem, and hope in traumatized persons.
Hatred and forgiveness involve the mind, the heart, and the will. Thus they involve our thinking, our feeling, and our deciding-however, it is important to realize that the essence, the very core of both love and hate, is in the heart of a person. Therefore, he can exercise his will-for both love and hate are free decisions, not primarily emotions or ideas.
In order to genuinely forgive, we must often first explore the defensive motives for the hatred, bitterness, or resentment. Otherwise we will either refuse to forgive or offer a form of false forgiveness.
Hatred as a Defense Mechanism
When I speak of hatred, I mean the hatred of a person, not of a behavior or an injustice and I propose that such hatred is pathological, or unhealthy. Hatred is also a defense mechanism, yet it should be noted that this does not imply that all defense mechanisms are pathological. Some mechanisms, such as sublimation or repression, are healthy when employed properly. The development of a proper measure of self worth often requires defensive or protective psychological responses-much as the body wards of threats to its integrity.
What follows are examples of the various defenses that the person can find useful. These use of one or more of these mechanisms depends for a large part on the the type of hatred the person exercises-how appealing it is, how powerful it is, and how entrenched it is in the person. What is being defended (or protected)) through hatred is the narcissism of the psyche, or the comfort and pride of the one who carries the hatred.
Defense against painful memories or feelings-As long as a person hates, he is able to ward off the underlying hurt and sadness caused by the person who gives rise to the hate. In other words, hatred defends the person against the source memories and thus defends one from the reality of a depressing, humiliating, or inadequate past.
Defense against the vulnerability of love-The expression of hatred tends to keep others at a distance and can thus protect one from intimate relationships. Many people are willing to forgive only when they realize that this process does not mean that they have to allow themselves to be vulnerable to an insensitive person.
Defense against admitting one's own flawed character-the hatred of oneself or others can defend against the perception and need to accept that one has defects and that others have positive attributes. In this way, hatred can reinforce irrational beliefs in one's omnipotent or idealized self.
Maintenance of self-pity-hatred of one's self or others allows the one who hates to benefit from a "sick role." The self-pity and victim status are so popular in today's culture allow one to cover up one's own shame, inadequacy, or failures.
Maintenance of self-indulgence-Hate is a form of laziness that keeps the person from having enough energy and time to actually realize realistic goals where failure would be unbearable. If the person is frightened of the world, hatred keeps the world with its challenges at a distance. The one hated is blamed for the person's failures.
Maintenance of a desired relationship-Forgiveness has the potential to be destructive of a relationship that is only maintained through hatred. Without the 'hate-relationship,' there is no guarantee that the one hated can be "controlled" because now the relationship is based on reality. It is possible that without hatred as a tie, there will be no surviving positive relationship at all. This prospect leads some to hold on in the only way possible, even such a negative way, in order to avoid feelings of emptiness.
Defense against social anxieties and rejection-Hatred against others can defend against the anxiety over loss of love. Consider a person dependent on the respect of his peers who thus supports hatred of a social or racial class of people. This masks his own feelings of being rejected, based on his own lack of self-esteem or his having tied his worth to the opinions of others. It results in often aggressive forms of hatred and pathological behavior.
Defense of narcissism-Most importantly, hatred allows one to protect his self-love and pride. One scenario is that a person will hate himself for failing to meet his self-chosen ideals or infantile, unrealistic expectations. That is, hatred defends against attacks on one's narcissistic ego and wards off shame. More commonly, though, hatred defends one's superiority as he has the moral high ground over the "sinful" or "horrible" person who hurt him. Such feelings of moral superiority are probably the most frequently observed rewards of hatred.
Aside from the important defensive aspects of hatred, there is the pleasure that the expression of hatred provides. The joy in the expression of violence, anger, etc. has long been known. Hatred and revenge provide purpose in life and make people feel alive and powerful. The pleasure of revenge in fantasy or fact is a common theme in literature and the media, because the control of others, of course, has obvious rewards. Because of these positive rewards deriving from hatred, it is not surprising that forgiveness is viewed by many people as weakness-as forsaking a source of power.
In short, hate and all that it supports (narcissism, protection from shame, feelings of moral superiority, and the desire to keep hold of a relationship that might be lost through forgiveness, moral laziness, denial of reality, power over others, self-pity, and the sheer pleasure of hating) are usually easier than the riskier behavior leading to true healing. Nonetheless, forgiveness is the positive and only proper response to pain and suffering.
Forms of False Forgiveness
Unfortunately, the effort to forgive without taking the time to work through the source of hatred can lead a person to pursue forms of false forgiveness. This can be done through conscious or unconscious motives and the healing power of forgiveness will not be found.
Forgiveness is often bestowed in an unhealthy way, such as when a wife "forgives" her husband because she feels morally superior to him and only forgives because it is "the thing to do." This type of psuedo-forgiveness is more common in women than men, from my experience.
Elsewhere, forgiveness can be extended without direct confrontation with one's hatred of the other. This seems to be more common in men, who want to solve the problem from a practical point of view, but without confronting his own feelings or the relationship in any honest or specific way.
A person is also capable of forcing a positive attitude or forced feelings of affection and thus this false form of forgiveness still masks a strong, repressed hatred. It is also possible to pursue forgiveness as a way to escape reality, as a way to undo the harm by making the offense "magically" disappear. This is not real forgiveness given as a gift to the other-rather it is for one's own benefit.
Forgiveness can also be falsely given in language or behavior in order to maintain an unhealthy dependency on the other or to maintain a masochistic relationship. Such dependency is usually rooted in a painfully negative self-concept. The psuedo-forgiveness can also ward off abandonment by a person who is intrinsically and tragically tied to the one who hurts him. This is oftne seen within abusive marriages and in parent-child relationships. This can go deeper than just dependency because the person cannot function independently. He is, in fact, actually fused in a symbiotic way to the abuser.
Finally, forgiveness can be given to another in a twisted way to force the one forgiven to admit his guilt, allowing the forgiver to escape his portion of responsibility for his own contribution to the harm. Let us recalls that genuine forgiveness is a free gift without any demand for return or any strings attached. Psuedo-forgiveness defends against the painful, necessary, and ultimately healthy process of true forgiveness.
Seeking Christ's Help
The humanly impossible task of forgiving others for the deep hurts you have received, or of accepting God's generous forgiveness of yourself for the sins you have committed becomes possible through the wonderful sacrament of reconciliation. It is there for our healing, peace, joy, and freedom.
When the injuries, deprivations and traumas you have received, particularly as children and adolescents, are creating anxiety, panic, depression, resentment, and confusion, it is important to realize that Christ identifies with us whenever we are injured in a deep, personal, and unjust way. We suffer-He suffers. We feel betrayed, angry, or sad, and so does He-our Brother, our Friend, our Savior. He is not "above it all" and "out there." He is down here, with you. He is you. This is Catholic theology.
There are circumstances, though, when Christ calls us to professional counseling. Here he gives us the courage, humility, and hope to confront the roots of our pain and work through it. Great care should be taken to assure that the professional counselor chosen is experienced in this area and loyal to Christ. Always know that there is no wound He cannot heal. And always trust Him to accompany you in the journey to becoming whole, His new creation. Christ wants nothing less. He died for this very reason and has given us all the means to make this possible.
© Canticle, The Voice of Today's Catholic Woman
This item 2936 digitally provided courtesy of CatholicCulture.org
