New Ideas in Psychology

[ Souring the Mind ] [ Assimilation ] [ Role of Narcissism ]

[ Backlash ] [ Stages of Resolution ]

Beware the hatred.

There is a major feature of forgiveness that the person needs to be aware of and to be wary of. Forgiveness occurs during the stage of narcissism in the abreaction of pride. Forgiveness always creates a backlash – the following stage of pride generates an intense degree of hatred, hatred against the very conditions or situations that forgiveness was felt towards. The deeper the feeling of forgiveness, the greater is the intensity of pride in its hate mode. And the subsequent bitterness is just as bad. It is best to avoid social company whilst the hatred and bitterness are being worked through.

For example, suppose that, in the past, someone had hurt me. In order to forgive that person and let go of the relationship with them, I have to live through the hurts, in all their intensities, that I had received from that person. Correspondingly, I have to work my way through all the hatreds that I had generated towards that person. Hence deep wounds may require many rounds of forgiveness to effect a total detachment from the relationship.

Alternatively, I may decide that now I am willing to improve a present relationship that is poor or bad. I am willing to abandon my veto on participating in that relationship. I forgive the person. Yet still when I switch to pride (in mode of hatred), I dwell on all the times that I have been hurt by that relationship and other ones. I feel the rejection and the pain that I have been subjected to. My mood becomes very unpleasant.

In general, any anti-social or individualist attitude that has ‘hard’ boundaries (that is, any rigidity or aggressiveness in such an attitude) is a defensive manoeuvre to protect oneself from being psychologically hurt by other people. When such an attitude is replaced by another attitude which has ‘soft ’ boundaries (for example, the attitude that one should be friendly or caring to other people) then there is normally a backlash. The backlash occurs because the person is now releasing the stored-up anxiety over becoming vulnerable.

Usually acceptance produces a backlash too, but sometimes it does not appear to. Acceptance does not always involve the resolution of past anxiety, as forgiveness does ; instead it often focuses on acquiring a realistic (instead of a romantic) self-image on which the person can base future idealism. If a backlash is produced, then it is not felt as severely as that which forgiveness produces.

Sometimes the stage of forgiveness seems to have been by-passed ; then the stage of acceptance produces a backlash as severe as would have been generated if the forgiveness had been passed through. The psychological pain that has been built into the person's character and identity cannot be reduced by avoiding stages of resolution.

Forgiveness does most of the work of resolving a problem, and is eventually followed by the acceptance of that problem as a learning stage in one’s personal evolution.

The overall theme of sorrow resolution is that a romantic / dramatic view of the world is generated in order to facilitate forgiveness, and then acceptance removes the romanticism and produces a realistic world view.

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Copyright © 2002 Ian Heath
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