How Forgiveness Changes You and Your Brain


  • Venue: Online via YouTube Live
  • Date: Wednesday, July 30, 2025
  • Time: 1:00-2:00 PM ET / 10:00-11:00 AM PT
  • Price: Free
  • REGISTER HERE

Forgiveness can be a powerful tool for emotional healing—but it’s also one of the most complex processes to support in clinical work. What does the science tell us about how forgiveness works in the brain? And how can mental health professionals help people move toward it in ways that are safe, empowering, and grounded in their lived experiences?

Join us for an illuminating one-hour conversation with Dr. Allison Briscoe-Smith, a child clinical psychologist specializing in trauma and racial identity development and a Senior Fellow at the Greater Good Science Center, and Dr. Melike M. Fourie, a neuroscientist and expert on the brain science of empathy and forgiveness. Together, they’ll explore what happens in the brain when we forgive, why it matters for mental health, and how to translate these insights into therapeutic practice.

Moderated by Emiliana Simon-Thomas, Science Director at the Greater Good Science Center, the event will offer an overview of the brain systems and processes involved in forgiveness, along with practical tools to help people let go of inner resentment and build emotional resilience.

Don’t miss this opportunity to deepen your understanding of the science of forgiveness—and how to apply it to support healing and growth in the people you serve.

  • Allison Briscoe-Smith, Ph.D., earned her undergraduate degree from Harvard University.  She then received her clinical psychology Ph.D. from University of California Berkeley. She then went on to continue her specialization in trauma and ethnic minority mental health through internship and postdoctoral work at University of California San Francisco/San Francisco General Hospital.  She has combined her love of teaching and advocacy by serving as a professor and by directing mental health programs for children experiencing trauma, homelessness or foster care.  Much of her work has been with schools, as a clinician, consultant and trainer.  Currently she is the Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at the Wright Institute where she is a professor. She provides consultation and training to bay area non profits and schools on how to support trauma informed practices and cultural accountability.

  • Emiliana Simon-Thomas, Ph.D., is the science director of the Greater Good Science Center, where she oversees its fellowship program, Expanding Gratitude project, and is a co-instructor of the GGSC’s “Science of Happiness” online course.

    Emiliana earned her doctorate in Cognition Brain and Behavior at UC Berkeley. Her dissertation used behavioral and neuroscience methods to examine how negative states like fear and aversion influence thinking and decision-making. During her postdoc, Emiliana transitioned to studying pro-social states like love of humanity, compassion, and awe. From there, she served as Associate Director/Senior Scientist at CCARE (the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education) at Stanford University, focusing on how compassion benefits health, well-being, and psychosocial functioning.

    Today, Emiliana’s work spotlights the science that connects health and happiness to social affiliation, caregiving, and collaborative relationships, as she continues to examine the potential for—as well as the benefits of—living a more meaningful life.

  • Melike M Fourie, Ph.D. works as a senior lecturer in the Neuroscience Institute at the University of Cape Town (UCT). Her social neuroscience research integrates psychological and neural perspectives to advance our understanding of the factors that facilitate and undermine the capacity of people separated by imposed group boundaries to care about each other’s experiences and perspectives. To date her work has had a strong focus on affective processes, such as guilt and empathy, and has more recently included processes of forgiveness and dehumanization in intergroup and institutional contexts. She is engaged in various corporate and community transformation initiatives to promote social change.