Writer Mary Rose Somarriba turned to UO psychologist Jennifer Freyd when she tackled the topic of how people deal with being wronged, noting in her online story in Verily magazine that “we remember the hurts we’ve experienced, and we revise our behavior to avoid them.”

Forgiving a wrong, she writes, takes time. She bolstered that point by talking with Freyd, who is editor of the Journal of Trauma & Dissociation.

“A sincere apology is extremely healing,” Freyd said. “In our society people are afraid to apologize even if they want to because they think it could somehow be used against them (legally or socially), but what I have observed is sincere apologies are extremely healing to both the person who apologizes and the person apologized to.”

The full story is at Why ‘Forgive and Forget’ Is Actually Really Bad Advice.