One of the most persistent messages trauma survivors encounter, from well-meaning friends, from religious communities, from popular psychology, and sometimes from therapists who should know better, is that healing requires forgiveness. That you cannot truly recover until you have forgiven the person who harmed you. That holding onto anger or resentment is only hurting yourself. That forgiveness is “for you, not for them.”
This message is not always wrong. For some survivors, forgiveness is a meaningful and liberating part of their healing process. But for others, it is not. And insisting on forgiveness as a prerequisite for recovery can cause real harm.
At Self Care Impact Counseling, we do not require forgiveness as part of trauma treatment. We do not encourage it, discourage it, or place it on a timeline. If it emerges naturally during the therapeutic process, we welcome it. If it does not, that is equally valid. Healing is the goal. Forgiveness is one possible outcome, not a requirement for getting there.
Why Forgiveness Is Not Required for Trauma Recovery
The purpose of trauma therapy is to reduce the psychological impact of what happened to you. That means addressing the anxiety, the depression, the hypervigilance, the intrusive memories, the emotional numbness, the difficulty trusting, and the ways your nervous system remains stuck in survival mode long after the danger has passed. Evidence-based treatments like EMDR, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Internal Family Systems, and somatic approaches can accomplish all of this without forgiveness ever entering the conversation.
These therapies work by helping your brain process the traumatic experience so it no longer controls your present-day responses. EMDR, for example, helps your nervous system reprocess stuck memories so they lose their emotional charge and their power to trigger you. That processing does not require you to feel warmly toward the person who caused the harm. It requires you to engage with the memory in a safe therapeutic context so your brain can file it as something that happened rather than something that is still happening. The relief that follows is about your relationship with the memory, not your relationship with the perpetrator.
Healing from trauma is deeply individual. Every survivor’s path is shaped by their specific experiences, their psychological makeup, their support system, and what they need to feel whole again. Imposing a single framework, whether that framework is forgiveness, anger, or any other prescribed emotional state, fails to honor that individuality. The most effective trauma therapy meets the survivor where they are, not where someone else thinks they should be.
When Pushing Forgiveness Causes Harm
It can trivialize what happened
When a survivor is told to forgive, regardless of the severity of what was done to them, the implicit message is that their pain and anger are less important than achieving a particular emotional resolution. That message can feel deeply invalidating, especially for survivors who are still in the early stages of acknowledging that what happened to them was real, was wrong, and was not their fault. Validation of a survivor’s experience is foundational to healing. Anything that undermines that validation, however well-intentioned, works against the therapeutic process.
It shifts the focus to the wrong person
Trauma therapy should be about the survivor. Their healing, their safety, their autonomy, their reclamation of a life that trauma disrupted. When forgiveness becomes a therapeutic goal, the focus subtly shifts from the survivor’s internal work to their relationship with the person who harmed them. That person is not the client. Their redemption, their comfort, and whether they receive forgiveness are not the therapist’s concern. The survivor’s wellbeing is.
It can reinforce self-blame
Many trauma survivors already carry a burden of misplaced guilt and shame. They blame themselves for what happened, for how they responded, for not leaving sooner, for not being “stronger.” When forgiveness is presented as necessary for healing and the survivor finds that they cannot forgive, or does not want to, that inability can become another source of shame. “I cannot even forgive properly. Something must be wrong with me.” This dynamic is particularly damaging because it layers a new wound on top of the original one, and it was entirely avoidable.
It can silence survivors
Talking about what happened is a critical part of trauma recovery for many people. It is how the experience moves from something that is carried in isolation to something that is witnessed, validated, and integrated. Pressure to forgive can shut this process down. If the expectation is that you should be moving toward forgiveness, then expressing ongoing anger, grief, or outrage can feel like regression rather than a healthy part of the process. The survivor learns to edit their feelings to match what they believe is expected, which is the opposite of the safety and honesty that effective therapy requires.
It can replicate the original power dynamic
One of the central tasks of trauma recovery is restoring a sense of agency and control to someone who had both taken from them. Being told how to feel about the person who harmed you, even by a well-meaning therapist, can replicate the powerlessness of the original trauma. It positions someone else as the authority on your emotional life, which is precisely the dynamic that needs to be undone. The survivor’s right to decide what they feel, and whether forgiveness is part of their story, must be protected as a non-negotiable element of the therapeutic process.
What Healing Without Forgiveness Looks Like
Healing without forgiveness does not mean staying stuck in anger. It does not mean defining yourself by what happened. And it does not mean the perpetrator continues to have power over you. It means processing the experience thoroughly enough that it no longer dominates your emotional life, your relationships, or your sense of self.
Many survivors who complete trauma therapy describe reaching a place that is neither forgiveness nor resentment. The event is part of their history. They have integrated it. They understand how it shaped them. They have processed the grief, the anger, and the fear. And they have moved forward into a life that is not organized around what happened to them. Some call this acceptance. Some call this peace. Very few of them would call it forgiveness, and they do not need to.
Others do arrive at forgiveness, but on their own timeline and through their own process, not because it was assigned as homework. When forgiveness emerges naturally from the therapeutic work, it tends to feel genuine and freeing. When it is manufactured to meet an external expectation, it tends to feel hollow and forced. The difference is whether the survivor chose it or whether it was imposed on them.
Trauma Therapy in Lakewood and Longmont, Colorado
At Self Care Impact Counseling, our approach to trauma therapy is guided by the survivor’s needs, not by a predetermined script. We use EMDR, Internal Family Systems, somatic therapy, and other evidence-based approaches to help you process what happened, reduce its hold on your present, and rebuild a sense of safety, agency, and self-worth. Whether forgiveness is part of your process or not is entirely up to you.
We invite you to call us at 720-551-4553 for a free 20-minute phone consultation, or try our Find-Your-Therapist tool to get matched with a trauma therapist who fits your needs. You can also reach us through the contact page on our website. We offer both in-person and online sessions for anyone in Colorado.
Self Care Impact Counseling envisions a new age of counseling for adolescents, adults, couples and groups that makes a REAL difference with core values of GROWTH | BALANCE | COMPASSION | INNER HARMONY.
About the Author
Alayna Baillod, LCSW, is a Clinical Supervisor and the Owner of Self Care Impact Counseling. She is an EMDRIA Approved EMDR Consultant and EMDR Therapist, extensively trained in Gottman Couples Therapy, Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT), DBT, Somatic Therapy, Internal Family Systems (IFS), and Attachment Theory. Alayna specializes in couples counseling, EMDR trauma therapy, and codependency recovery. Find your therapist here.
