Forgiving the Unforgivable

Women and men who have been deeply hurt by someone they love often experience pain that spirals out to undermine their work, relationships, future, and basic assumptions in life. In this groundbreaking book, Beverly Flanigan argues that most psychologists and others in the healing professions fail to understand the true dimensions of such "unforgivable injuries" or correctly identify the road to recovery. "Forgiving the Unforgivable" is an outgrowth of a pioneering study Flanigan conducted on how people transcend terrible hurts inflicted by those they love. She surveyed and interviewed men and women who had been abandoned by partners, sexually or physically abused by parents, betrayed by best friends or business associates, shunned by children -- yet were able to move beyond anger and paralysis. The result is a work that is at once extraordinarily readable and helpful, and an important contribution to our understanding of the process of emotional recovery. -- From publisher's description.