But where Developmental Trauma is concerned, there was no crime. So there can be no forgiveness.
“Forgiveness” consists in gradually teaching the amygdala to calm down, and to react appropriately.
And I think the triad might be usefully framed “Fight, Flight, or Social Submission.”
Shame is a quintessentially social emotion. It is the means by which we reconcile our differences peacefully. If you do something that makes someone angry–triggers their fight response–then can “counter” it, or respond appropriately to it, by apologizing, by the verbal expression of social submission, by which you publicly admit your error.
And I think somewhere in here is the root of scapegoating. If you are neglected as a child, or beaten as a child, or emotionally abused as a child–or all three, which is common enough–then you feel a chronic sense of unbelonging, that you are not good enough, that your people are not your people.
This might well be, and probably has been historically, latent. You don’t admit this, and neither does anyone else. But it is frustrating, feeling the need to apologize for a crime you haven’t committed.
The essence of scapegoating is the psychological projection of blame and shame, followed by violence, emotional or physical. You accuse someone or some group of committing a crime, then you punish them for it. The Germans with the Jews, for example.
I’m not inclined at this moment to do the emotional work to pursue this further at the moment, but there is something here, I feel.