Forgiveness in Counseling: Caution, Definition, and Application

This chapter highlights that forgiveness is a decision that clients should be helped to make and that advocacy has little place in the counseling session. It specifically confirms the value of forgiveness in the counseling setting and offers some guidelines for its effective application. There are at least three approaches to justice, altering in the extent to which they are proactive or reactive, past or future oriented, limited or general: (1) retributive justice, (2) restorative justice, and (3) pervasive justice. The pragmatic model needs an in-depth investigation of alternatives; their practical and moral costs and their benefits. It is concluded that there can be no relief unless the offender confesses and asks forgiveness, and argues that repentance is poor therapy and of questionable morality, because it leaves clients in a state of helpless dependence on the person or persons who offended them in the first place. © 2002 by Oxford University Press, Inc. All rights reserved.

Journal Abbreviation: Before Forgiving: Cautionary Views of Forgiveness in Psychother. DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195145205.003.0006