Regret vs Remorse

I used to facilitate a workshop for men and a specific process for accountability where the individual attendees who were out of integrity with the commitment that they made owned up to it. The attending would have an opportunity to look at the impact of his behavior upon someone else or others and grow to understand that in the society at large, we may get an overpass but covert damage to our relationship with someone else from our actions.

Eventually, I added a small touch to my facilitation.

“You feel remorse for what you did or didn’t do for that matter,” I would ask.

Recently, I realized that I may have been confusing regret and remorse and started to investigate the differences since they seem so similar to me.

I found this definition in Psychology Today in an article by Margalis Fjelstad Ph.D., LMFT. Her experience is dealing with people with certain personality disorders. But that doesn’t negate the definitions that apply to our thinking.

“Regret has to do with wishing you hadn’t taken a particular action. You may regret an action because it hurt someone else, but you may also regret it because it hurt you, it cost you something emotionally or…