Critical reflections for the construction of a psychosocial perspective on forgiveness.

Abstract

Forgiveness is understood as overcoming negative emotions associated with resentment. The approach to forgiveness has historically been dominated by a moral perspective. The objective of this article is to critically reflect on forgiveness from a primarily psychosocial perspective. The conclusions of this reflective exercise are: (a) forgiveness is a process generally motivated by moral, interpersonal or social, and/or personal suffering reasons; (b) for forgiveness to be authentic, it must take place in the emotional realm, in addition to the decisional one; (c) personality type can facilitate or hinder authentic forgiveness; (d) forgiving other people is essentially different from so-called self-forgiveness.