The importance of the concept of forgiveness as a key factor in “creating a new way of thinking about things”

This chapter discusses how the introduction of the concept of forgiveness may assist the patient developing a new way of thinking. Without this concept, Meltzer believes, “life may be brought to this: to be bad, to be punished, to be bad … No possibility of development … [Things will be reduced to] behavior … She cannot think of another way which has to do with psychic reality, with the meaning of things, and to come to understand this meaning.” The question of how to best bring the concept of forgiveness into the clinical hour remained unsettled, however. The idea of offering the patient the concrete experience of tolerance as an alternative to the concept of forgiveness was touched upon though inconclusively.