ABSTRACT
A number of psychoanalysts, beginning with Freud, are skeptical about forgiveness, arguing that in the dynamic unconscious we never forgive nor forget. Some psychoanalysts worry that forgiveness risks becoming a shortcut to the hard work of grief and mourning. D. W. Winnicott offers a different perspective on forgiveness. Forgiveness happens not as a matter of conscious choice, but when we have reached that transitional space where we no longer need to hold onto our anger and hurt. Forgiveness, from this perspective, is something that happens at a certain stage virtually as a byproduct of living in the world in a certain way. What that way is, and the role that community plays in facilitating that way, are considered. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.