Certainly I'm aware that this flies in the face of some of our most cherished religious, spiritual, philosophical, and psychological principles. According to the Judeo-Christian ethic, "To err is human, to forgive divine." I am also aware that there are many experts in the various helping professions who sincerely believe that forgiveness is not only the first step but often the only step necessary for inner peace. I disagree completely.

In fact, it is not necessary to forgive your parents in order to feel better about yourself and to change your life!

Early in my professional career I too believed that to forgive people who had injured you, especially parents, was an important part of the healing process. I often encouraged clients -- many of whom had been severely mistreated -- to forgive cruel or abusive parents. In addition, many of my clients entered therapy claiming to have already forgiven their toxic parents, but I discovered that, more often than not, they didn't feel any better for having forgiven. They still felt bad about themselves. They still had their symptoms. Forgiving hadn't created any significant or lasting changes for them. In fact, some of them felt even more inadequate. They'd say things such as: "Maybe I didn't forgive enough"; "My minister said I didn't truly forgive in my heart"; or, "Can't I do anything right?"

At this point, you may be asking yourself, "Isn't the first step to forgive my parents?" My answer is no. This may shock, anger, dismay, or confuse many of you. Most of us have been led to believe exactly the opposite -- that forgiveness is the first step toward healing.

But the other facet of forgiveness was not as clear-cut. I felt there was something wrong with unquestioningly absolving someone of his rightful responsibility, particularly if he had severely mistreated an innocent child. Why in the world should you "pardon" a father who terrorized and battered you, who made your childhood a living hell? How are you supposed to "overlook" the fact that you had to come home to a dark house and nurse your drunken mother almost every day? And do you really have to "forgive" a father who raped you at the age of 7?

I took a long, hard look at the concept of forgiveness. I began to wonder if it could actually impede progress rather than enhance it.

I came to realize that there are two facets to forgiveness: giving up the need for revenge, and absolving the guilty party of responsibility. I didn't have much trouble accepting the idea that people have to let go of the need to get even. Revenge is a very normal but negative motivation. It bogs you down in obsessive fantasies about striking back to get satisfaction; it creates a lot of frustration and un-happiness; it works against your emotional well-being. Despite how sweet revenge may feel for a moment, it keeps stirring up the emotional chaos between you and your parents, wasting precious time and energy. Letting go of your need for revenge is difficult, but it is clearly a healthy step.

The Forgiveness Trap

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that this absolution was really another form of denial: "If I forgive you, we can pretend that what happened wasn't so terrible." I came to realize that this aspect of forgiveness was actually preventing a lot of people from getting on with their lives.

One of the most dangerous things about forgiveness is that it undercuts your ability to let go of your pent-up emotions. How can you acknowledge your anger against a parent whom you've already forgiven? Responsibility can go only one of two places: outward, onto the people who have hurt you, or inward, into yourself. Someone's got to be responsible. So you may forgive your parents but end up hating yourself all the more in exchange.

I also noticed that many clients rushed to forgiveness to avoid much of the painful work of therapy. They believed that by forgiving they could find a shortcut to feeling better. A handful of them "forgave," left therapy, and wound up sinking even deeper into depression or anxiety.

I remember an especially touching session with a client named Stephanie, whose experience illustrates some of the typical problems of premature forgiveness. Stephanie, 27, was an extremely devout born-again Christian when I met her. At age 11, Stephanie had been raped by her stepfather. He had continued to abuse her until her mother threw him out of the house (for other reasons) a year later. Over the next four years, Stephanie had been molested by several of her mother's many boyfriends. She ran away from home at 16 and became a prostitute. Seven years later, she was almost beaten to death by a client. While recovering in the hospital Stephanie met an orderly who persuaded her to visit his church. A few years later they married and had a son. She was genuinely attempting to rebuild her life. But, despite her new family and her new religion, Stephanie was miserable. She spent two years in therapy, but still she couldn't shake her intense depression. That's when she came to me.

Several of these clients clung to their fantasies: "All I have to do is forgive and I will be healed, I will have wonderful mental health, everybody is going to love everybody, we'll hug a lot, and we'll finally be happy." Clients all too often discovered that the empty promise of forgiveness had merely set them up for bitter disappointment. Some of them experienced a rush of well-being, but it didn't last because nothing had really changed in the way they felt or in their family interactions.

Stephanie did her work dutifully, but she refused to tap in to her rage. Little by little, however, she began to have outbursts of anger on behalf of other people. For example, one night she embraced another group member, saying, "Your father was a monster, I hate him!"

A few weeks later, her own repressed rage finally came out. She screamed, cursed, and accused her parents of destroying her childhood and crippling her adult years. Afterward, I hugged her as she sobbed. I could feel her body relax. When she was calmer, I teasingly asked, "What kind of way is that for a nice Christian girl to behave?" I will never forget her reply:

I put Stephanie in one of my incest-victims' groups. In her first session, Stephanie assured us that she had made her peace and had forgiven both her stepfather and her cold, inadequate mother. I told her that if she wanted to get rid of her depression she might have to "unforgive" for a while, to get in touch with her anger. She insisted that she believed deeply in forgiveness, that she didn't need to get angry to get better. A fairly intense struggle developed between us, partly because I was asking her to do something painful, but also because her religious beliefs contradicted her psychological needs.

I also believe that forgiveness is appropriate only when parents do something to earn it. Toxic parents, especially the more abusive ones, need to acknowledge what happened, take responsibility, and show a willingness to make amends. If you unilaterally absolve parents who continue to treat you badly, who deny much of your reality and feelings, and who continue to project blame onto you, you may seriously impede the emotional work you need to do. If one or both parents are dead, you can still heal the damage, by forgiving yourself and releasing much of the hold that they had over your emotional well-being.

I guess God wants me to get better more than He wants me to forgive.

People can forgive toxic parents, but they should do it at the conclusion -- not at the beginning -- of their emotional housecleaning. People need to get angry about what happened to them. They need to grieve over the fact that they never had the parental love they yearned for. They need to stop diminishing or discounting the damage that was done to them. Too often, "forgive and forget" means "pretend it didn't happen."

That night was the turning point for her.

At this point, you may be wondering, understandably, if you will remain bitter and angry for the rest of your life if you don't forgive your parents. In fact, quite the opposite is true. What I have seen over the years is that emotional and mental peace comes as a result of releasing yourself from your toxic parents' control, without necessarily having to forgive them. And that release can come only after you've worked through your intense feelings of outrage and grief and after you've put the responsibility on their shoulders, where it belongs.