Forgiving & Not Forgiving: A New Approach to Resolving Intimate Betrayal - Hardcover

Safer, Jeanne

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0380975793 ISBN 13: 9780380975792

Publisher: Avon Books, 1999

Synopsis

A practicing psychotherapist challenges conventional wisdom about the subject of forgiveness, drawing on personal experience and interviews with others as she addresses such questions as Is forgiving always appropriate? and Can closure and healing exist without forgiveness? 15,000 first printing.

About this title

About the Author

Jeanne Safer, Ph.D. has been a practicing psychotherapist for more than twenty years. She has written articles for The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Utne Reader, Self, New Woman, and many other publications, and is the author of Beyond Motherhood: Choosing a Life Without Children.

Reviews

In a stimulating book that seeks to challenge the common wisdom, psychotherapist Safer (Beyond Motherhood: Choosing a Life Without Children) examines our Judeo-Christian concept of forgiveness. Though positioned for general readers, the tone and style of this book are more thoughtful than prescriptive; it will most likely find its market among mental health professionals and others with the background to absorb Safer's sophisticated arguments. The "intimate betrayals" involve hurtful behavior by family, lovers and friends, and exclude actions by strangers. Though marital infidelity is included, the majority of examples are of breaches between parents and children, some of which are quite disturbing. Forgiveness, Safer says, is not a "natural" reaction to damaging behaviors, though it's a cornerstone of our society. Drawing on her 25-year practice, she describes traumatic acts of family brutality, incest, alcoholism and compulsive gambling. She analyzes how the individuals involved have resolved their betrayals, evaluating each approach in relation to religious thought, as explained by a Jewish Reform rabbi and a Catholic priest. In essence, Safer is suggesting that a reasoned process for coming to terms with wrongdoing is more appropriate than the kind of blanket forgiveness that's prevalent today. The end result may not be forgiveness, but the value, she says, is in thorough examination and increased self-knowledge. The required steps in the process are "re-engaging" (with the betrayer, the act, the ensuing emotions and reactions) and "recognizing" the significance of the ordeal, which allow "reinterpretation" of the motives of both parties. Agent, Jennifer Rudolph Walsh of the Virginia Barber Literary Agency. (Aug.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A useful, intellectually and rhetorically nuanced work whose focus is more on not forgiving than on forgiving. Safer (Beyond Motherhood: Choosing a Life Without Children, not reviewed), a New York Citybased psychotherapist and journalist, argues that, on TV talk shows and elsewhere in American life, there currently rages an epidemic of false forgiveness. Those who have been betrayed by parents or other family members, lovers, or once- close friends forgive too quickly and superficially, without really having confronted the in-depth betrayals and other serious breaches of trust they have suffered. Although Safer doesnt oppose interpersonal reconciliation, she believes forgiveness is a three- part complex process of mourning and understanding, requiring one to reengage with the experience of betrayal, recognize its emotional impact, and reinterpret its meaning from a broader prospective. A real strength: Safer avoids polarized thinking and presents many options; she contends there can be partial forgiveness (the forgiver and the betrayer are partly reconciled, but the forgiver retains partial anger) as well as partial unforgiveness (an individual and his or her betrayer resume contact without becoming reconciled). And she maintains that, when there is no remorse from someone who has committed a nearly soul- destroying act (for example, incest or extreme hostility toward a child on the part of a parent), not forgiving at all may be necessary for the victims integrity, autonomy, and well-being. Safer occasionally lapses into psychobabble. But these are isolated exceptions to a generally clear, thoughtful, balanced effort filled with fascinating anecdotal material (including the authors struggle to achieve some forgiveness toward her philandering, family- and trust-shattering father). Safer rightly sees forgiveness as emotional work and as an important but hardly compulsory response in cases of interpersonal antagonism. In urging readers to choose a point on the continuum between total forgiveness and total unforgiveness, she strikes a significant blow against the kind of facile emotional mushiness sometimes celebrated by the media. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Safer, a therapist with more than 25 years of experience, claims that sometimes the only way to achieve inner peace is by going against the prevalent Judeo-Christian belief that forgiving your enemies is unequivocally the right thing to do. She distinguishes between true and false forgiveness and, rather than accepting that dichotomy, creates a new category she calls thoughtful unforgiveness. She points out that if you lie to yourself about having forgiven someone when you really haven't, you're going to cause yourself far more psychic pain than if you acknowledge that you are not yet ready to forgive. While this is not a particularly amazing bit of news, libraries that have collected some of the recent titles lauding forgiveness as a panacea may wish to add this book as an alternative viewpoint.APamela A. Matthews, Gettysburg Coll. Lib., PA
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Avon Books
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0380975793
• ISBN 13: 9780380975792
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 210