Page 139 - EMCAPP-Journal No. 5

A Portrait of a Christian Psychologist: Paul C. Vitz

ment about how much and how authentic the play the role of the jury, which is to identify the
remorse should be. How much does the client facts and to note what standards have been vio-
have to demonstrate his remorse before earning lated. However, as the above description makes
this right to forgive himself? Is the “bad” self’s clear, the client should never also be the judge
remorse genuine or not? Indeed, why can’t who passes sentence or determines the penalty.
the transgressor’s new, abstract, transcendent Some people are only hanging judges when it
“good” self just say to the lower “bad” self, “Let comes to their own behavior. As Exline, Bau-
bygones be bygones” and be done with it? Af- meister, Zell , Kraft & Witvliet (2008) have put
ter all the judgment of one’s own actions implies it, “Unfortunately, objective and dispassionate
that there are no objective standards, thus we appraisals of transgressions may be relatively
are back in moral subjectivity and the possibility rare and difficult.” (p.495) The self-forgiveness
of what might be called cheap self-forgiveness. model does not account for such difficulties in-
That subjectivity clouds human judgment is well trinsic to the act of self evaluation during self-
known. Social psychologists have documented forgiveness.
this under our tendency toward attribution er- In defense of self-forgiveness, however, there is
rors (Fleming & Darley (1989), McGraw (1987), the interpretation that in the ordinary interper-
Strube & Roemmele (1985),). Attribution errors sonal case “forgiveness…belongs to the offen-
are of two types. The most common are those ded, one who does have subjective hurts” (En-
where clients blame situational factors for their right & Fitzgibbons, 2000, p. 39). By such logic,
bad conduct, thereby avoiding personal respon- a person who seemingly only offended himself
sibility. On the other hand, the person almost ought then to be allowed to forgive himself.
always takes responsibility for good conduct. Everett Worthington has written about the pro-
The tendency to blame situational factors can blems this involves: “To forgive myself, I am in
lead to cheap self-forgiveness where the person two roles at the same time. I am the victim. I
fails to accept a proper degree of their own per- realize that my sinful act damaged me at the
sonal responsibility. core of my being. But, I am also the transgres-
At the other extreme are those less common at- sor; I did the sinful act. That dual role makes
tribution errors that over-emphasize guilt and self-forgiveness complicated” (Worthington,
shame; and thus contribute to masochistic ten- 2003, p. 225). We argue however that such a
dencies. Such attribution errors, which are also dual role is more than just a complication; in-
supported through the splitting intrinsic to self- stead it is something that inherently cannot be
forgiveness, encourage condemnation by a pu- done with objectivity. To follow up on the ear-
nitive bad self or sometimes by a harsh parental lier illustration, in deciding to reduce or even
super ego. This kind of unrealistic self-condem- eliminate a deserved sentence, the judge should
nation seems to occur fairly often in the cases not be the one personally wronged by the de-
addressed by self-forgiveness advocates. While fendant. In other words, there are objective
both types of attribution errors are also possible checks and balances intended to dissuade peop-
within interpersonal forgiveness, these errors le from passing judgment on malefactors one of
are more likely with the increased subjectivity whom can be the self. In short, the conflict of
which self-forgiveness models facilitate. interest inherent to self-forgiveness can exag-
Moreover, rare is the transgressor who has the gerate emotional bias and cognitive distortions.
objectivity to judge fairly the consequences of For a final piece of supporting evidence, consi-
his actions (Vitz, 1999). As an analogy, in a fair der the research of Kees van den Bos. His stu-
trial the functions of the jury and judge remain dies revealed that:
vitally distinct. A mistrial would be declared if
there was any evidence of contamination of the … when constructing justice judgments under
functions of the role of the jury, judge, defendant conditions of information uncertainty, people
and/or plaintiff. Many people delude themsel- may refer to the affective state they were in and,
ves about their own conduct when moral inter- as a result, may experience more positive justice
pretation is involved. The client can certainly perceptions when in a positive affective state

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