As a trauma psychotherapist and a survivor of childhood physical and emotional neglect, I ask my therapists questions that other clients don’t, as it’s impossible to turn off the therapist’s part of my brain. I asked questions of my clinicians such as “What’s my official diagnosis, and what’s my unofficial diagnosis?,” “What’s that intervention called?,” and “Do you have two sets of notes, and if so, what do you write about me in the ‘other’ set of notes?” My therapists answered all my questions except for one that stopped them dead in their tracks: “Do I need to forgive my parents in order to make additional progress in my recovery?” I asked. “Will not forgiving make me feel stuck?”

“What do you think?” asked my talk therapist, which is the typical response of a therapist who’s trained never to give advice.

“Let’s see what happens when you focus on that,” replied my EMDR therapist as she turned on the bilateral stimulation tappers, which vibrated back and forth in my hands.

“I’m not sure. Did you try taking the ten milligram dose? Notice any changes?” deflected my psychiatrist.

“When you think of forgiving your parents, what do you notice in your body?” asked my somatic therapist.

“The hell if I know. What do you think?” asked my sassy psychologist.

I didn’t receive a straight answer, but I needed one. I had not forgiven my parents. This didn’t matter so much concerning my father, as he’d been dead for years, and I’d never felt attached to him. However, my mother was still living, and I was attached to her as a young child. Her incapabilities as a parent had had a significant negative impact on me, and even after I’ve undergone years of therapy, they still do—and always will. I knew I didn’t—and couldn’t—forgive her. Yet, I had made so much progress in my recovery. How was this possible? Was I in denial? Was I missing out on an experience that would propel me forward? Was forgiveness the missing piece?

I went to my colleagues for answers. When one asks clinicians questions as a peer rather than as a client, they tend to be more direct. I asked them, “Do you believe trauma survivors need to forgive their offenders to progress in their recovery?”

“Yes, if they can forgive, they should. It would improve their lives and strengthen their relationships,” said a marriage and family therapist.

“I can’t say for sure. I’ve had clients who forgave and those who didn’t, and I honestly haven’t noticed a difference in treatment outcomes,” said a trauma therapist.

“Absolutely. Forgiveness is the key to healing. You cannot truly heal without forgiveness. I encourage all my clients to forgive,” said a Christian counselor.

“I think it all depends on what the client needs. I’ve had many clients who didn’t forgive, and they made great progress in therapy,” said a psychologist.

“Everyone needs to forgive. Holding grudges isn’t good for mental or physical health,” said a child therapist.

“If forgiveness were a proven cure-all we’d recommend it to every patient. As you know, nothing in psychology is all-or-nothing,” said a psychiatrist.

There was no consensus among my colleagues. How could that be? How could we not know? As a trauma survivor and as a trauma therapist, how could I not know? Did I need to forgive my mother to continue progressing in my recovery? Did my clients need to forgive their offenders?

I spent the next three years researching forgiveness from the perspectives of psychology, sociology, philosophy, and religion as it applies to trauma survivors in recovery. I interviewed mental health clinicians, scholars, religious leaders, social advocates, and forgiveness therapy practitioners. I listened as my trauma survivor clients shared their own perceptions, experiences, and struggles with forgiveness. As a result, I formulated the thesis that forgiveness should be considered an elective option—not a requirement—in trauma recovery.

How can we avoid harming trauma survivors with forgiveness? We can offer forgiveness not as a recovery requirement but as an elective. When a student attends college in America, they have several optional courses they must complete, called electives. A few of my college electives were creative writing, feminist literature, and badminton. I did not need to take a feminist literature class to earn a degree in psychology, but I found it to be a helpful addition to my academic course of study. Many students wouldn’t find a feminist literature course helpful and are free to choose a different elective.

What happens when we consider forgiveness as an elective? You may choose to forgive, you may choose not to, and you may not initially choose to forgive yet find that you unintentionally experience organic forgiveness. You may forgive on your own terms in your own time, while others may experience various levels of forgiveness (which may fluctuate over time). You might choose to withhold, resist, or forgo forgiveness. You might not be capable of authentic forgiveness no matter how hard you try and therefore cannot make a choice. Elective forgiveness can meet you where you are at in each moment regarding your capabilities, as it creates an environment where forgiveness is no longer an obligatory component of trauma recovery. When I permitted myself to consider forgiveness as an elective, I experienced forgiveness for some of my offenders and not for others, and I continued to progress in my recovery.

Forgiveness should never be forced, pressured, encouraged, or recommended for trauma survivors in recovery. Elective forgiveness can take the experience of forgiveness off the recovery table unless you need it to be on your table or it organically appears. In contrast, forgiveness should never be discouraged, shunned, or sabotaged in recovery when it does not negatively impact your safety. Forgiveness should be viewed as an elective component of trauma recovery. You should have the agency to explore, discover, embrace, ignore, oppose, or withhold forgiveness throughout your recovery. This neutral approach to forgiveness can be helpful to you and anyone involved in their recovery journeys, such as mental health clinicians, family, friends, life coaches, religious leaders, and community members.

I’m not antiforgiveness. My thesis is not that forgiveness is always wrong or clinically counterproductive; indeed, many trauma survivors benefit from forgiving their offenders. My position, rather, is that forgiveness is not universally necessary for trauma recovery and that not only are suppositions to the contrary poorly supported by actual empirical research, but they are also problematic for both ethical and clinical reasons. To question forgiveness feels like an act of all-out rebellion. As philosopher Jeffrie Murphy would say, I am “bucking a trendy and almost messianic sentimental movement that sees forgiveness as a nearly universal panacea for all mental, moral, and spiritual ills.”

If you are a trauma survivor, you may choose to forgive or not to forgive, or you might not be able to forgive at all. I hope that your journey is based on your specific recovery needs. If you are a mental health clinician, you’ll need to determine how you perceive forgiveness in trauma recovery. I hope your clinician integration is based on the specific needs of your clients and not your own. If you are a family member, friend, or loved one of a trauma survivor, you will have to decide whether you will accept the survivor’s choice to incorporate or exclude forgiveness as part of their recovery journey or their inability to forgive. I hope you know that whatever your loved one chooses may be precisely what they need, and that an unwillingness to embrace their journey may have deleterious effects on their recovery.

Forgiveness is not a panacea, nor are any of the practical skills I share in You Don’t Need to Forgive. I encourage you to use the insights and skills that work for you, and to abandon the rest.

This is an excerpt from the introduction of You Don’t Need to Forgive.