As Julia Hogan, LPC, told me, “it’s impossible to truly forget a wrong that has been committed against you. It happened. It happened to you, and you experienced how hurtful it was. That is something that is impossible to erase from your memory. Nor would it be fair to you to ask you to forget that the wrong happened despite the harm that you’ve suffered. You are allowed to acknowledge the hurt that you’ve suffered and it is often beneficial for someone to say, ‘Yes, I’ve been wronged by someone.’”
The thing is, if someone tries to forgive and forget, it’s possible they haven’t really forgiven, because by the quick act of “forgetting,” they haven’t fully processed the wrong they’ve been done. And acknowledging the wrong is essential to real forgiveness.
The leading researchers on forgiveness, Drs. Robert Enright and Richard Fitzgibbons, describe forgiveness as “people, upon rationally determining that they have been unfairly treated, forgive when they willfully abandon resentment and related responses (to which they have a right), and endeavor to respond to the wrongdoer based on the moral principle of beneficence which may include compassion, unconditional worth, generosity, and moral love (to which the wrongdoer, by nature of the hurtful act or acts, has no right).”
https://verilymag.com/2016/07/how-to-forgive-someone-forgiveness-forgive-and-forget-trauma-survivors
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