Molly Howes - A Good Apology: Four Steps to Make Things Right

I am perhaps obsessed with apologies. As a psychologist, I find them crucial in my work with people. I pore over books on the subject and study religious texts. For years, Ive collected apology stories. I clip them from newspapers, old-school style, and keep them in a box under my desk.

Recently, the stack has grown fast.

During the #MeToo movement, weve watched the march of shame across our newsfeeds by high-profile men accused of sexual misconduct. The examination of apologies has become a national pastime and given Im sorry the weight of a political act. Whether they are f rom heads of state who relay their official remorse for governmental mistreatment of citizens or from well-known figures in front of microphones who regret their deception, sexual misconduct, and other trust-breaking behaviorwe tweet and post, debate and dissect the sincerity and effectiveness of these public statements. Weve made such a sport of apologies that the New York Times has presented us with a Choose Your Own Public Apology column with fill-in-the-blank options. For all our public dialogue, however, the apologies themselves dont seem to be getting much better.

Right now, we are in an extended moment of public attention focused on saying Im sorry, but the value of apologies is timeless and universal. We need good ones in our personal lives every bit as much as we need them in public discourse. Each time we face another persons injury with courage and humility, we heal individual hurt. When we apologize, we restore damaged connections. We reduce our isolation and shame, and we make our relationships stronger. We build a kinder and more civil society.

So, if apologies are so useful and important, why are we so bad at them?

Of the hundreds of patients Ive worked with, many struggle with how to apologize wellas do many of the people I know outside my practice. I, too, have missed opportunities and made my share of poor attempts to repair mistakes. For a myriad of cultural and psychological reasons, apologizing well is really hard to do. Human perceptual and cognitive biases make seeing our own mistakes and their effects on other people challenging. Most of us labor under misconceptions and myths about apologies, including the idea that our intentions determine our effects on other people. That is, if I didnt mean to hurt you, you cant be hurt. Or we subscribe to the now-historic Hollywood notion that love means never having to say youre sorry. Further, we rarely see public figures modeling good apologies.

Many of us make no attempt to apologize when we should, and when we do, its often in ways that inflame the situation or, at best, only partially heal the damage. But the good news is that each of us has the capacity to make an effective apology. One of the biggest, most universal roadblocks is a simple lack of technique. Thats why I wrote this book.

My journey toward developing an apology technique began in childhood. In the face of chaos and neglect, including three years I spent in an orphanage, I did what children often do: I tried to control what I could control. When I couldnt fix the unpredictable world around me, I learned to mend physical things. I replaced errant buttons and glued shattered dishes back together. Even as a child, I had trouble tolerating waste. I held on to broken things long before I learned that relationships, too, can be salvaged rather than discarded.

Although I was unaware of it at the time, that early effort was good preparation for becoming a psychologist. My faith that hurt can be repaired undergirds my approach to psychotherapy as well as my personal philosophy. I serve as a hope merchant. I can see possible favorable outcomes, and I can help people journey through thorny terrain to reach them.

Earlier in my career, though, I was at a loss when grappling with the unresolved cracks between people. Just out of college, I worked with a woman who lived in extreme isolation because she couldnt face the family shed let down way too many times. I was puzzled and frustrated that she didnt respond to her familys attempts to connect with her, but I didnt know how to help her move through her shame. Months later, she killed herself. Ill never forget the stunning sense of wastefulness I felt. Her life was lost because she couldnt face and mend what shed damaged.

Soon after, in graduate school, I worked with a couple whod spent almost three decades unhappily stewing about the husbands flirtation with another woman during their first pregnancy. I could teach them to communicate better, but I didnt know yet how to help them face their stubborn resistance and resentment so that they could heal this foundational wound.