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The Forgiving Self: The Road from Resentment to Connection
Why do we harden our hearts, even against those we want to love? Why do we find it so hard to admit being wrong? Why are the worst grudges the ones we hold against ourselves? Using movies, people in the news, and sessions from his practice, psychologist and award- winning author Robert Karen illuminates the struggle between our wish to repair our relationships on one side and our tendency to see ourselves as victims who want revenge on the other.
When we nurse our resentments, Karen says, we are acting from an insecure aspect of the self that harbors unresolved pain from childhood. But we also have a forgiving self which is not compliant or fake, but rather the strongest, most loving part of who we are. Through it, we are able to voice anger without doing damage, to acknowledge our own part in what has gone wrong, to see the flaws in ourselves and others as part of our humanity.
Karen demonstrates how we can move beyond our feelings of being wronged without betraying our legitimate anger and need for repair. The forgiving self, when we are able to locate it, brings relief from compulsive self-hatred and bitterness, and allows for a re-emergence of love.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
When we nurse our resentments, Karen says, we are acting from an insecure aspect of the self that harbors unresolved pain from childhood. But we also have a forgiving self which is not compliant or fake, but rather the strongest, most loving part of who we are. Through it, we are able to voice anger without doing damage, to acknowledge our own part in what has gone wrong, to see the flaws in ourselves and others as part of our humanity.
Karen demonstrates how we can move beyond our feelings of being wronged without betraying our legitimate anger and need for repair. The forgiving self, when we are able to locate it, brings relief from compulsive self-hatred and bitterness, and allows for a re-emergence of love.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
306 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 16, 2001
62 people are currently reading
382 people want to read
About the author
Robert Karen
8 books15 followersRobert Karen is a clinical psychologist in private practice and an award-winning author. He is Assistant Clinical Professor at the Derner Institute of Advanced Psychological Studies, Adelphi University.
(back cover of Becoming Attached)
(back cover of Becoming Attached)
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
May 21, 2009
An insightful and thought-provoking journey through the psychological landscape of forgiveness -- what is risked and what is to gain, why it is difficult and why it is also necessary. As a psychoanalyst, Karen does not promote the typical and popular platitudes. Rather, he well describes the difficult and complicated terrain through which we all must navigate when we are wounded, or wound others.
October 8, 2015
This has been a real balm to my spirit!
November 2, 2017
It has been hard for me to find books about forgiveness that aren’t facile, moralistic/preachy. When I saw that Robert Karen authored a book about it, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it. Karen is the author of one of my all-time favorite books—Becoming Attached, which offers a very thorough and thoughtful history of attachment research.
I found this book, The Forgiving Self, just as comprehensive and thoughtful. I feel so inspired and personally challenged by it.
I found this book, The Forgiving Self, just as comprehensive and thoughtful. I feel so inspired and personally challenged by it.
December 28, 2023
Recommended by my therapist. And wow it hugged me in so many ways. I'll gift it to you if I can't hug you physically just lemme know
October 9, 2025
I started this book a few years ago and I've read it slowly, in bits until recently when I decided to finish it. For me, this book is like medicine, and even reading little bits at a time is sufficient to help me find my way out of feelings of resentment when it feels like there's no way out. It works because this book is largely an open meditation on the topics of resentment and forgiveness and way we cycle in and out of them in relationships.
It's also interesting to reflect on how the principles explored here work on a macro scale in society as so much of our politics now are politics of deeply entrenched resentments. Resentment is an under explored topic so I appreciate having come across this book.
It's also interesting to reflect on how the principles explored here work on a macro scale in society as so much of our politics now are politics of deeply entrenched resentments. Resentment is an under explored topic so I appreciate having come across this book.
May 15, 2023
I stumbled upon this book after realizing I have a long-standing habit of holding onto resentment, bearing grudges, and wanting to blame others. I normally would skip over a book with a title that could imply a moralistic tone, but some part deep inside recognized that something in me needed to change and I was desperate enough to give reading it a try. To say the book has been life changing and profound is no over statement.
This book is not written from a religious perspective. It cuts to the heart of how blame and resentment develop and how destructive these attitudes can be to leading emotionally healthy and satisfying lives. In short, blame is a way of relating to the world that is a poor substitute for mourning our losses and processing our trauma. As author Robert Karen so eloquently writes:
“Blame is a way we lie to ourselves. It is not just a way of refusing to look at who we are or avoiding responsibility. It is also a defense against knowing our pain. To face that pain is to begin to mourn what was too overwhelming to be mourned before. To face it and not blame it on the person who happened to stir it up is certainly the road less taken.”
Karen has a chapter on how we flee from mourning and uses the example of child losing a parent at an early age to illustrate how people survive trauma by cutting themselves off from their feelings, not mourning the loss and instead building up rigid defenses. This unprocessed pain leads to habitual resentment and grudges. We need to mourn to process our pain. If instead we push it down, we are controlled by it more and more. I lost my dad when I was 4, and this chapter poignantly brought to life what I have experienced and yet could not articulate.
The book has beautiful prose, written with depth of insight and filled with empathy. He draws on examples from movies,tv, and literature as well as former clients to paint a picture of how complex we are as humans. We can and do experience myriad emotions simultaneously- for example,love,hate, envy and fear. He says the way forward is not to suppress the less desirable emotions but to acknowledge and even embrace them, knowing they can all be held together and covered by love. It is only by accepting these feelings that we can begin to inch towards real forgiveness and healing.
A book for anyone wanting to go deep and learn more about themselves and about the human condition.
This book is not written from a religious perspective. It cuts to the heart of how blame and resentment develop and how destructive these attitudes can be to leading emotionally healthy and satisfying lives. In short, blame is a way of relating to the world that is a poor substitute for mourning our losses and processing our trauma. As author Robert Karen so eloquently writes:
“Blame is a way we lie to ourselves. It is not just a way of refusing to look at who we are or avoiding responsibility. It is also a defense against knowing our pain. To face that pain is to begin to mourn what was too overwhelming to be mourned before. To face it and not blame it on the person who happened to stir it up is certainly the road less taken.”
Karen has a chapter on how we flee from mourning and uses the example of child losing a parent at an early age to illustrate how people survive trauma by cutting themselves off from their feelings, not mourning the loss and instead building up rigid defenses. This unprocessed pain leads to habitual resentment and grudges. We need to mourn to process our pain. If instead we push it down, we are controlled by it more and more. I lost my dad when I was 4, and this chapter poignantly brought to life what I have experienced and yet could not articulate.
The book has beautiful prose, written with depth of insight and filled with empathy. He draws on examples from movies,tv, and literature as well as former clients to paint a picture of how complex we are as humans. We can and do experience myriad emotions simultaneously- for example,love,hate, envy and fear. He says the way forward is not to suppress the less desirable emotions but to acknowledge and even embrace them, knowing they can all be held together and covered by love. It is only by accepting these feelings that we can begin to inch towards real forgiveness and healing.
A book for anyone wanting to go deep and learn more about themselves and about the human condition.
April 1, 2013
We read this book for our book group. It did make for stimulating discussion, but it wasn't a favorite read of mine. I basically disagreed with many of the author's claims and theories. I did find many of his thoughts interesting and conducive to self examination. He made some valid points including that if we start from a place where we feel secure and "like" ourselves, it is far easier to forgive others when they have wronged us. One thing I didn't like was his assumption that we all carry this inner rage and anger from our childhood. I couldn't relate - I don't feel it. I'm sure he would think I just need to "dig deeper". He's a bit too Freudian for my taste. But it is important to forgive - I know that to be true. And I do believe that our childhood and the way we are brought up by our parents - whether we feel loved and secure, or not - affects us for the remainder of our life for better or worse. But even those effects are surmountable and we can overcome those effects with determination and through the power of the atonement. So, this book gives the reader a lot to think about... and a book group a lot to talk about. Would I recommend it? Probably not.
May 23, 2022
Overall ok. Just didn’t get what I needed from it
October 20, 2025
DNF October 2025
I picked up this book because the title literally mentions resentment; I'm not really sure that resentment ever fully joined the chat...
I think the only thing(s) I got from this book was that,
1) To mourn is to reexperience and process pain that could not be processed before
2) One of the sections I actually did pay attention to had something to do with mourning someone who is still alive. Apparently it was so unimpactful, that even though I had liked it when I read it, I already forget what the concept was actually about - no more than 36 hours later.
Thoughts as I was reading:
Page 22: I got 4 pages into the intro and thought, "this is way too long of an intro" and skipped to part 1
Page 29: I'm bored and not grasping anything. They're just words on a page.
Page 66: He'll start talking about a topic or concept that I'm interested in, but then sways somewhere else with it.
By this point, I started jumping around to different sections of the book.
Page 74: It blows my mind how much murderous rage is being written about, especially in children. Wtf!
Page 75: I feel like a lot of this is more directed at parents than the child.
Page 118: Most of the people he uses in his example stories are just plain idiots. Which makes the example kind of useless.
I jumped around a bit more to other sections until I finally gave up.
I found this book extremely boring. So much so, that I literally couldn't grasp at anything, because I was falling asleep. The writing style was absolutely dreadful. There were so many movie or book references that he would use as examples and it made me lose interest almost instantly. As I said earlier, a lot of his clients that he used as examples were complete idiots that needed MAJOR help. Honestly, help probably wouldn't even benefit them; they're clearly NPC's...
I picked up this book because the title literally mentions resentment; I'm not really sure that resentment ever fully joined the chat...
I think the only thing(s) I got from this book was that,
1) To mourn is to reexperience and process pain that could not be processed before
2) One of the sections I actually did pay attention to had something to do with mourning someone who is still alive. Apparently it was so unimpactful, that even though I had liked it when I read it, I already forget what the concept was actually about - no more than 36 hours later.
Thoughts as I was reading:
Page 22: I got 4 pages into the intro and thought, "this is way too long of an intro" and skipped to part 1
Page 29: I'm bored and not grasping anything. They're just words on a page.
Page 66: He'll start talking about a topic or concept that I'm interested in, but then sways somewhere else with it.
By this point, I started jumping around to different sections of the book.
Page 74: It blows my mind how much murderous rage is being written about, especially in children. Wtf!
Page 75: I feel like a lot of this is more directed at parents than the child.
Page 118: Most of the people he uses in his example stories are just plain idiots. Which makes the example kind of useless.
I jumped around a bit more to other sections until I finally gave up.
I found this book extremely boring. So much so, that I literally couldn't grasp at anything, because I was falling asleep. The writing style was absolutely dreadful. There were so many movie or book references that he would use as examples and it made me lose interest almost instantly. As I said earlier, a lot of his clients that he used as examples were complete idiots that needed MAJOR help. Honestly, help probably wouldn't even benefit them; they're clearly NPC's...
March 22, 2023
Some good advise, but rambles on at length too often about movies, some of his own patients…. I understand fully that one’s mental health is their responsibility, but not much is said at all about the roles and responsibilities of trigger people and what to do about them. Made me feel more like the victim than before reading
January 1, 2024
A guide to emotional health
All my life, I thought that emotional health involved curing myself of my negatives. After reading this book, I realized that my negatives define me as much as my positives do, and I can never deal with my negatives if I don’t accept them, and indeed, love them, and forgive myself.
All my life, I thought that emotional health involved curing myself of my negatives. After reading this book, I realized that my negatives define me as much as my positives do, and I can never deal with my negatives if I don’t accept them, and indeed, love them, and forgive myself.
March 15, 2024
4.5 *
Livro denso, foi uma leitura demorada. São muitas ideias e provocações de reflexões que me exigiram ir com calma. Vim procurando uma perspectiva, mas achei outras um pouco diferentes, mas bastante ricas. Uma forma interessante de olhar pras várias camadas que compõe a construção do Perdão.
Bem rico.
Livro denso, foi uma leitura demorada. São muitas ideias e provocações de reflexões que me exigiram ir com calma. Vim procurando uma perspectiva, mas achei outras um pouco diferentes, mas bastante ricas. Uma forma interessante de olhar pras várias camadas que compõe a construção do Perdão.
Bem rico.
April 2, 2016
This book took a really long time for me to read and digest, especially given that it's not an incredibly long book. I love the concepts. There are pages in my book that are saturated in underlines and highlights and sticky notes. I like that Karen leaves a lot of room for the nitty-gritty aspects of the forgiveness process and acknowledges that grudges, anger, resentment are a recurring theme of our lives, even if we are actively working on self-awareness and self-improvement. It definitely didn't feel idealistic and over-simplified like some other books from the genre tend to be.
I didn't love the stories, quotes, and media references that he used. They just didn't elevate the book, if anything they were distracting from his own personal profound thoughts expressed in his eloquent writing. There were a few stories that resonated, but most were just OK. Also, his work is very psycho-analytical and while I really appreciate the concepts of loss, resentment, protest, and repair, I didn't always follow the connection to parents as being THE explanation for the way we experience our world, relationships, and emotions.
I've been reading a lot on forgiveness lately, and this book touches on some really important concepts and perspectives that are not well accessed by other works. Most importantly, this book seems to resonate with those who are most hurt and trapped in their own islands of resentment and disconnection and shame--where some other more idyllic works serve to further alienate those individuals or those inner experiences.
I didn't love the stories, quotes, and media references that he used. They just didn't elevate the book, if anything they were distracting from his own personal profound thoughts expressed in his eloquent writing. There were a few stories that resonated, but most were just OK. Also, his work is very psycho-analytical and while I really appreciate the concepts of loss, resentment, protest, and repair, I didn't always follow the connection to parents as being THE explanation for the way we experience our world, relationships, and emotions.
I've been reading a lot on forgiveness lately, and this book touches on some really important concepts and perspectives that are not well accessed by other works. Most importantly, this book seems to resonate with those who are most hurt and trapped in their own islands of resentment and disconnection and shame--where some other more idyllic works serve to further alienate those individuals or those inner experiences.
April 20, 2013
Outstanding book! It is one of those reads that I love to read slowly and savor the insights and points makes. Prose is very beautiful. It made me want to read it aloud.
In The Forgiving Self Dr. Karen discusses the path we take in repairing damaged relationships when we suffer an interpersonal injury or betrayal. How does the betrayal impact us? What do we do with our pain? Ho do we handle the relationship going forward? How does it affect our sense of our "self?" Dr. Karen tackles these types of question in this book, using psychodynamic and attachment theory as a bases to his exploration of this topic.
I loved this book. I was familiar with Dr. Karen's work since I had read Becoming Attached: First Relationships and How They Shape Our Capacity to Love years ago. Both books are rich with psychological insights and material, yet are approachable to everyone. As I read this book I felt challenged to examine how I experience interpersonal pain. It pushed me to find greater acceptance with myself and to deal with others more honestly.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to explore relationship issues from an in-depth psychological perspective.
In The Forgiving Self Dr. Karen discusses the path we take in repairing damaged relationships when we suffer an interpersonal injury or betrayal. How does the betrayal impact us? What do we do with our pain? Ho do we handle the relationship going forward? How does it affect our sense of our "self?" Dr. Karen tackles these types of question in this book, using psychodynamic and attachment theory as a bases to his exploration of this topic.
I loved this book. I was familiar with Dr. Karen's work since I had read Becoming Attached: First Relationships and How They Shape Our Capacity to Love years ago. Both books are rich with psychological insights and material, yet are approachable to everyone. As I read this book I felt challenged to examine how I experience interpersonal pain. It pushed me to find greater acceptance with myself and to deal with others more honestly.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to explore relationship issues from an in-depth psychological perspective.
September 26, 2012
A profound and transformative book that explores the power of forgiveness - of others and of oneself. This can be a dense and troubling read too, although helped along with some very affective references to literature and popular culture.
Karen argues forcefully our relationships are often hampered by deep-seated conflicts and inner dramas originating in our family and parental relationship. It also suggests forgiveness can't be an automatic response either, but has to come from an authentic understanding of the pain we all experience, and a willingness to see it with real clarity so we can move on.
I read this after also having read the wonderful "Dance of Anger" by Harriett Lerner this summer, and it's a worthy companion. But unless you're already steeped in the subject, you might want to read her more accessible book first.
Karen argues forcefully our relationships are often hampered by deep-seated conflicts and inner dramas originating in our family and parental relationship. It also suggests forgiveness can't be an automatic response either, but has to come from an authentic understanding of the pain we all experience, and a willingness to see it with real clarity so we can move on.
I read this after also having read the wonderful "Dance of Anger" by Harriett Lerner this summer, and it's a worthy companion. But unless you're already steeped in the subject, you might want to read her more accessible book first.
February 12, 2014
SUCH a cheesy title, but all in all a profoundly useful book. Dr. Karen takes a long view on the subject, examining why we hold a grudge, and how such an outlook is useful to us, as well as offering many insights into how to move from a place of grudge bearing to a place of repair and ultimately connection in our interpersonal relationships. A book for anyone who as been asked too many times to disavow their feelings and forgive another in an instantaneous sense, and has lost in the process.
April 30, 2015
Some of this feels like street psychology, some of it is very cliche. For those bits, the book looses a star. The rest of it is insightful, rich in case studies and forces self-questioning. For that this book is a tool which frequently gets picked off the bookshelf.
February 15, 2009
This book is helping me understand the psychology of forgiveness - excellent.
August 24, 2012
Wasn't really all that I was hoping it would be. The examples he used weren't overly relevant to me purposes.
August 3, 2016
Really liked this - some great ideas about forgiveness and the practical stages one takes to get there. Recommend for anyone in ministry or counseling.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews