By Timur Liwinski
Logotherapy, founded by Viktor Frankl, teaches that we always retain the freedom to choose our attitude, even in the face of immense suffering. One of the most challenging attitudes to cultivate is forgiveness. Interestingly, the word forgive comes from Old English forgiefan: for- (completely) and giefan (to give). Contrary to the notion that we add further injury to insult by surrendering something to the offender, forgiveness is not about giving them a gift. Rather, it is a gift we give ourselves, a deliberate release from the bitterness that chains us to the past. We do not condone or erase the wrongdoing; we simply refuse to let resentment deepen the wound.
Acceptance precedes this process. It is the clear recognition that what happened cannot be undone. Acceptance does not mean approval. It is an honest acknowledgment: this injury occurred, this pain exists. Only from this ground of reality can forgiveness grow. As Frankl himself demonstrated, forgiveness is not an easy feat. Having survived the Holocaust, he nonetheless strove to free himself from consuming hatred. His attitude showed that even in the worst circumstances, human beings can choose their response. This was not naïveté but a profound commitment to what he called “attitudinal values”, the stance we take toward unchangeable fate.
Forgiveness, then, is an expression of our freedom to find meaning in suffering. It is a conscious decision to release ourselves from the secondary insult of resentment. In doing so, we honor our capacity to transcend victimhood. Forgiveness clears the inner landscape so that more meaningful pursuits, love, creative work, compassion, can flourish where hatred once grew.
This is why forgiveness can feel deeply meaningful: it is an act of self-liberation. As logotherapy teaches, we cannot always change our circumstances, but we can transform our attitude toward them. This transformation may be the greatest freedom of all.