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Why We Don't Forgive: A Biblical and Object Relations Theoretical Model for Understanding Failures in the Forgiveness Process

Very little has been written about why individuals often do not forgive or why their efforts to do so may not be successful. The existing literature concerning psychological concepts of forgiveness generally presumes them to be universally applicable without regard to individual differences in the forgiver's developmental maturity level, personality structure, or psychopathological state. This article expands and elaborates the author's earlier psychologically and theologically integrated model of forgiveness (Pingleton, 1989) to offer a psychodynamic understanding of how and why individuals may become pathologically resistant to or fixated in the forgiveness process. Accordingly, a paradigmatic depiction of relevant biblical principles and Object Relations developmental theory is introduced, from which diagnostic and psychotherapeutic implications for conceptualizing forgiveness failures are drawn.