Empathy the Key to Self-Forgiveness

Many clients who come to see us in counseling have a very hard time forgiving themselves. I remember a client recently told me that he would never be able to forgive himself. He had struggled with an addiction most of his life and was now in his 60’s. He was at a developmental stage where he was beginning to look back over his life and reflect on what his life had been like. Of course as all “good” therapists try to do, I offered some encouraging words. I told him that it is possible to forgive himself and let go of the self-condemnation. I knew if he didn’t eventually, he would be stuck in the cycle of addiction that often begins and ends in shame. He was having no part of what I said. He looked sternly at me and said he can’t. What I had learned over the years was, I had to accept him where he was. I knew one day he might be able to look at things different. It was a timing thing and I had to let him just be where he was at in his thinking and emotions.

Most of the time clients, eventually come to a place where they see the benefit of forgiving themselves, staying present and having a future focus. In my work with clients who have had an abortion in their past, they often have a hard time forgiving themselves. Most clients report that the most difficult thing for them is that they not only are responsible for the decision, but it was a decision that could never be changed no matter what they did or thought.

Years ago when I began to understand the brain and how it is affected by both current and past trauma, I discovered an important factor to offer a client in their healing process of being able to forgive themselves. I learned that the pre-frontal cortex basically decreases activity and the limbic system increases, not only at the time a person finds out they are pregnant, but also if they have had previous trauma. Being able to offer this information to my clients, was the first step in helping them understand why they made the decision they did back then, and how they now look at the decision differently. Understanding that if a person has had previous trauma in their life leading up to the abortion decision, their brain would basically go off line and they would act out of their fight or flight response.

Several years ago I developed a tool that I call the “fly over”. This tool is basically used to help the client imagine that they can get in a plane and fly back through their past. Almost like in the movie Back to the Future. In flying back, they are able to write down all the things that happened to them prior to the abortion decision. This tool combined with their understanding of the brain research, has been highly effective in helping clients forgive themselves through the eyes of empathy. They are then able to understand what led up to their choice and why their brain may have caused them to think in an irrational way at the time of crisis.
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If you are a therapist that works with clients who have a hard time forgiving themselves, whether because of addiction or a traumatic decision, I would encourage you first to assess the timing when your client is ready to consider self-forgiveness. I would also encourage you to find a tool like I did. You can also help your client fly back over their life and not judge themselves for just the decision. With eyes of empathy, they are better able to see themselves as to what led up to the decision in a new way.