Forgiveness. Few concepts in the psychological universe can electrify a room like that one little word. In some circles it’s a spiritual badge of honour; in others it’s a manipulative cudgel. And for many trauma survivors, it’s the most emotionally loaded F-word in existence.
Which is exactly why psychiatrist, IFS trainer, and author Frank Anderson leaned right into it during his recent Common Threads workshop on forgiveness, opening with a confession: “Forgiveness is nothing I ever thought I’d be talking about… It’s like the F-word.”
What followed was not a cosy, rose-tinted sermon about letting go. It was a raw, nuanced, deeply embodied re-examination of what forgiveness actually is, and what it must never be.
Anderson didn’t teach a quick spiritual hack or “five easy steps to inner peace.” Instead, he dismantled the myths, walked straight into the complexity, and, in true Frank style, found a way to make even the heaviest material feel alive, grounded, and disarmingly hopeful.
“You Don’t Become a Trauma Expert Without a Trauma History”
Before the psychology and philosophy came the truth. Anderson shared openly that his understanding of forgiveness came not from textbooks, but from surviving his own father, the man who was both his primary abuser and, later, the unexpected catalyst for Anderson’s awakening to compassion.
“I was able to release enough of the pain that I carried that I saw the fragility and the woundedness in him,” Anderson said. “That allowed my heart to open and forgive him… It was the ultimate freedom.”
It’s a radical claim – freedom through forgiveness – but as he explained, it didn’t come from bypassing pain or prematurely “turning the other cheek.” It came after years of therapy, parts work, somatic work, and a slow unwinding of the transgenerational patterns he’d inherited.
Healing first. Forgiveness after.
This became one of the central pillars of the workshop.
Why Forgiveness Is Often Weaponised
Anderson spoke plainly about how culture, families, and even therapeutic communities tend to shove forgiveness into the healing process long before a person’s nervous system is ready.
It’s often:
- Forced (“Tell your sister you’re sorry!”)
- Premature (“You should forgive to move on”)
- Used to bypass pain (“Just let it go”)
- Framed as a moral obligation rather than a personal choice
“Forgiveness can be harmful when it perpetuates patterns of abuse or absolves offenders of responsibility,” Anderson said.
He shared the example of clients in narcissistic relationships, many of whom have been pressured into forgiveness so early it becomes a continuation of the harm.
His stance is refreshingly direct:
Forgive if you want to. Don’t if you don’t. And never before the wound is healed.
The Most Controversial Claim: Everyone Holds ‘Perpetrator Energy’
If there was a moment that made attendees sit bolt upright, it was this:
“Every victim absorbs perpetrator energy.”
Not in a blame-shifting way. Not in a moralistic way. But in the sense that trauma imprints patterns. If a child grows up under rage, violence, manipulation, or neglect, their nervous system absorbs the shape of it.
Anderson has seen it in his own life. He described how, growing up terrified of anger, he unknowingly recreated that pattern with his own children until he healed enough to meet their anger with calm rather than fear.
Once a person acknowledges their own capacity for harm, not as condemnation but as human complexity, something counterintuitive happens:
It becomes easier to see the humanity in the person who harmed them.
And that is where forgiveness becomes possible, not as a moral duty, but as expansion.
The Moment the Room Shifted
Halfway through the workshop, something rare happened: a live, collective healing moment.
DK, one of the facilitators, shared her own truth – raw, vulnerable, still in motion – about preparing to confront the parent who had abandoned her. She spoke about recognising how she’d buried her pain under professional expertise. How she’d worn competence like armour. How she was finally touching the anger underneath.
Anderson stopped everything.
He guided her, and the entire group, through bilateral processing to encode the corrective experience of being witnessed and held in community. The chat exploded with solidarity. DK wept. Parts of her “danced,” as she put it.
It wasn’t a performance. It was what happens when the theory of relational healing becomes real in real time.
The Core of His Message: Trauma Blocks Love. Love Heals Trauma
One of Anderson’s guiding mantras is deceptively simple:
“Trauma blocks love. Love heals trauma.”
Not romantic love. Not obligatory love. Not placating love.
Soul-level, nervous-system-settling, connection-based love.
He emphasised repeatedly that trauma is interpersonal, and therefore, healing must be interpersonal too. Not done in isolation. Not done alone. Not done by thinking your way out of it.
Which is why forgiveness, in his view, belongs at the end of the healing arc, not the beginning.
So What Is Forgiveness, Then? The Desmond Tutu Model
To make the concept practical and human, Anderson drew on Desmond Tutu’s Fourfold Path of Forgiveness, which mirrors what he sees clinically. The stages:
1. Tell Your Story
Not to get stuck in it, but so the body knows it’s no longer holding it alone.
2. Name Where It Hurts
No bypassing. No spiritual shortcuts. You have to feel it.
3. Choose to Forgive (or Don’t)
Choice is the antidote to trauma. Agency is everything.
This step includes seeing the humanity in the person who harmed you, not to excuse them, but to free yourself.
4. Release or Renew the Relationship
Forgiveness does not require reconciliation.
Renewal, if chosen, is not returning to the old relationship; it’s creating a new one with clear boundaries, responsibility, and reality.
Each step sits firmly on a foundation of healing – not pressure.
Why This Matters Now
If you zoom out from the psychology, the workshop felt like a mirror held up to our cultural moment.
We are living in a world split into binaries: good/bad, victim/perpetrator, right/wrong. Anderson argues that this rigidity blocks healing, individually and collectively.
“We’re stuck in polarity,” he said. “We’re not collectively able to hold the both-and of each side yet.”
But if forgiveness (done right, done late, done with agency) teaches us anything, it’s that complexity is survivable. Even liberating.
The Future of Trauma Work: Integration, Not Silos
Anderson shared that he’s moving into a new phase of his career: building an integrative model that weaves together parts work, somatics, neuroscience, memory reconsolidation, attachment work, and coaching.
Why coaching?
Because therapy heals the past, but coaching teaches you how to live the future.
And forgiveness belongs at the crossroads between those two worlds.
Final Thoughts: Forgiveness as Freedom, Not Pressure
Perhaps the most powerful line of the entire workshop was also the simplest:
“Forgiveness is about the person holding the pain, not the perpetrator.”
In other words:
Forgiveness is not a favour. It’s not a performance. It’s not compliance.
It’s an internal untethering.
A release.
A reclamation.
A return to yourself.
And when it’s done at the right time, after healing, not instead of it, it becomes what Anderson calls “the ultimate freedom.”
Not because it erases harm.
Not because it restores what was lost.
But because it lets the soul breathe again.
About the session
This workshop took place inside Common Threads, a professional learning community for therapists and practitioners, powered by Masters Events. Members take part in live sessions, reflection spaces, and shared learning with leading clinicians.
Learn more about Common Threads or join here