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Dear Editors,
A few weeks ago I had the privilege of listening to the presentation of Henry Smith's paper, Leaps of faith: Is forgiveness a useful concept?, which has now appeared in the International Journal of Psychoanalysis. As I was listening a thought occurred to me that I would like to share.
Following Freud's dual instinct theory, every attitude we have is a mixture of aggression and libido, including the relationship of the superego to the ego. If, for whatever reason, prayer or psychoanalytic work, a shift has taken place in favor of libido, the subjective feeling of this shift will be experienced as forgiveness. Psychoanalysis is therefore in a position to explain forgiveness not available to other thinkers.