ABSTRACT
Active forgetting requires making promises in accord with our own values, and having sufficient will to make and keep the promise. Making and failing to keep a promise would mean feeling guilty and a sense of further indebtedness. The relationship between client and psychotherapist is that of creditor/debtor, and for that reason morals, owing and indebtedness are implicit. A contract is entered into and a fee is promised by the client in exchange for services promised by the psychotherapist. Nietzsche’s style in Zarathustra is particularly poetic, ‘biblical’ in tone and can be off-putting to some, and yet he never presents the child in a romantic way. He saw the human animal as cruel; we know children can be cruel, and the innocence Nietzsche has in mind does not preclude cruelty.
