Abstract: Forgiveness is defined as the transformation toward prosocial motivation for a victim. It helps to reduce anger and increase the positive emotion. The focus of forgiveness intervention is on helping the victim of an unjust act to put aside negative behaviors such as revenge and evasion, and to pick up positive ones to deal with the trauma. However, there are some misunderstandings persisting in clinical application of forgiveness intervention, three major ones are: (1) forgiveness of the perpetrator equals to reconciliation; (2) forgiveness intervention leads to moralization and religionlization; (3) forgiveness is the tool rather than the goal of counseling and psychotherapy. In addition to clarification of the misunderstandings in forgiveness intervention, in light of the implication, prospective applications in theory and practice will be discussed.

Key words: forgiveness, forgiveness intervention, misunderstandings