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Lust For Revenge

Lust for revenge is hardwired into our brain and stimulates the reward part, providing feelings of pleasure that can motivate a person to take revengeful action. The most common reaction to betrayal is shock, hostility, anger and revenge.

There are many different kinds of revenge that range from extreme violent revenge like Lorena Bobbitt who cut off her lover’s penis. Tit for Tat revenge by having an affair with one of your lover’s relatives or best friend. Vandalizing revenge like the man that chain sawed his house in two after the divorce and the woman who threw nail polish on her ex’s car. Trickery revenge by getting even with someone without them ever finding out that it was you who reported them to the IRS or got them deported. But the most common is the humiliating revenge like the furious fiancé who plastered billboards of her ex after catching him cheating and the husband who sold 200 sexy photos on eBay of his cheating ex-wife. One of the worse kinds of revenge is when hostile parents use their children as weapons and poison their young minds against each other. This has long term affects that can ruin an innocent child’s life.

In the heat of passion a rational person can instinctively lash out and do something they may later regret. But the good news is that even plotting revenge can release the powerful feel-good hormone, Dopamine, hence the expression ‘sweet revenge.’ So, think about the consequences before you exact revenge towards someone who behaved badly and ask yourself if it’s worth it? It is a natural human instinct to want to punish someone who has hurt you, but if you stop to think about the consequences, you may just realize that the best revenge is “happiness.”

Posted by Dr. Ava Cadell on November 20, 2011 11:37 am

Tags: lust for revenge, violence, lashing out, hostility