Forgiving the Unforgivable: An Exploration of Contradictions between Forgiveness

Utilizing a symbolic interactionist framework, this article analyzes data from 30 semistructured interviews of individuals who have lost loved ones to homicide and 32 months of concurrent participant observation of relevant social networks and local events, including self-help group meetings, in order to explore the factors that foster or impede forgiveness after homicide as well as the association between forgiveness-related feeling rules and lived experience of forgiveness. Key findings include the discovery of a forgiveness-fostering factor that had been previously overlooked (evidence of pro-social change) and evidence that the internal emotional transformation of forgiveness remains possible through understanding and empathy, despite several factors that may make forgiveness of extreme harm more challenging and/or less likely than forgiveness of more minor harm. Findings demonstrate that discrepancies between one’s forgiveness-related feeling rules and actual lived experiences of forgiveness are overcome through a redefinition of the situation, including with regard to remorse, severity, and intentionality