Nourish your anger and blame for what is wrong

Preaching forgiveness reveals the pedagogic nature of some therapies. In addition, it exposes the powerlessness of the preachers. In a sense, it is odd that they call themselves "therapists" at all. "Priests" would be more apt. What ultimately emerges is the continuation of the blindness inherited in childhood, the blindness that a real therapy could relieve. What is constantly repeated to patients -until they believe it, and the therapist is mollified - is: "Your hate is making you ill. You must forgive and forget. Then you will be well." But it was not hatred that drove patients to mute desperation in their childhood, by alienating them from their feelings and their needs. It was such morality with which they were constantly pressured.

It was my experience that it was precisely the opposite of forgiveness - namely, rebellion against mistreatment suffered, the recognition and condemnation of my parents' misleading opinions and actions, and the articulation of my own needs - that ultimately freed me from the past. - Alice Miller