December 2024: "A Psychoanalytic View of Forgiveness” presented by Oscar Romero MD, ABPsa, FIPA (Emeritus)

Directly or indirectly, we are suffering from trauma inflicted upon all living beings.. Countries shift into dangerous sociopolitical positions in an effort to affirm certainty, and we suffer as a result. In Kafka’s Metamorphosis, a traveling salesman wakes up to find that he has become a giant, grotesque insect. The central character and his family suffer the traumatic effects of this devastating transformation. A country can wake up to find itself transformed into an ugly despotic regime. In all these situations, there is trauma and a sense of victimhood. What does recovery and healing mean? What shape does it take in our nation(s) and in our consulting rooms? Romero proposes that psychoanalysis offers a response to these challenges by exploring the concept of forgiveness as a psychoanalytic process. Forgiveness is a transformation that can be fostered in the psychoanalytic treatment and can be applied in the resolution of conflicts. He suggests that this process requires a modification of internal object representations as part of recovery. He moves forgiveness from a superficial gesture to a deeper transformation by the work of forgiveness, analogous to the process of dream work. Romero advocates further research of this concept in psychoanalysis and suggests that it is applicable to treatment with individuals and with larger groups in community contexts. A clinical vignette is offered to facilitate understanding of forgiveness as a psychoanalytic concept. Objectives 1. Understand the difference between the concept of forgiveness as an interpersonal or relational gesture and the psychoanalytic meaning as a laborious intrapsychic process. 2. Approach the psychoanalytic phenomenon of forgiveness as a therapeutic tool for healing trauma resulting from aggression suffered by both participants in the analytic relationship. 3. Apply the concept of psychoanalytic forgiveness to intersubjective contexts, including group and family relationships and efforts to resolve institutional and international conflicts.