The Importance of Forgiveness

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Answering "Who am I?" gets complicated when struggling with emotional wounds.

Without a clear plan for altering a negative identity, it can settle into a consistent pattern of defeatism.

Forgiving can address the emotional wounds and also begin to change one's identity more positively.

Having studied forgiveness for over 40 years, I am saddened that injustices—and the pain and suffering—alter a person's identity. One indication is a consistent finding of low self-esteem in those who were treated badly (see, for example, Lin and team, 2004; Reed and Enright, 2006). If one's identity is not consistently established in adolescence (Erik Erikson 1968, 1994), then it is easier to slip into identity confusion, or a lack of consistency in answering the question, "Who am I?" If some people's identity is not firm, consistent, and fair in how they treat others and themselves, that identity can become distorted, often to the detriment of those who were treated unfairly. Low scores on forgiveness and self-esteem scales are signs that unjust treatment has damaged identity.

A central question: When people are treated deeply unjustly and begin to dislike even themselves, how can they establish a more wholesome, adaptive identity? Forgiving others accurately can establish or even re-establish an adaptive, healthy identity. Here are six ideas to consider. Before turning to these six ideas, take a moment to understand what forgiving others "accurately" is. According to a recent philosophical analysis (Song, Enright, and Kim, 2025), forgiveness is the moral virtue of deliberately being good to those who have not been good to you and following through on this. It takes time, often more than 12 weeks of work (Baskin and Enright, 2004), and it focuses on the offending person, not the self—you. The........

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