Desire for revenge: what is it really and how to fight it?

Revenge is often seen as a path that leads us to a mental state of serenity once we have settled some outstanding accounts that we had with something or someone. From this perspective, the desire for revenge is nothing more than the natural result of having been humiliated or have been harmed in a very significant way, sometimes without the person who has done that harm to us, there would be something to change.

However, the desire for revenge is not a feeling that in itself is healthy. In fact, it can make us enter into a destructive logic that is not good for us or for the society in which we live.

• Related article: "Emotional psychology: main theories of emotion"

What is revenge?

Revenge is a set of behaviors aimed at harming a person or group who is perceived as guilty or responsible for damage caused to others or, frequently, to the person with vengeful desires.

In short, revenge is a way to manage behaviors linked to aggression. Sometimes, instead of adopting a behavior that involves directly confronting the person who has harmed us at the moment in which they have just done so, they opt for a medium or medium strategy. long term, which would allow a greater probability of inflicting the desired damage by being able to take advantage of the time and preparation of resources to plan the physical attack or psychological.

On the other hand, it has been seen that the people most likely to embrace revenge behaviors are those who score high on the personality trait linked to sadism. Sadistic people are those who are relatively prone to enjoying the suffering of others.

• You may be interested in: "The 11 types of violence (and the different kinds of aggression)"

The difference with justice

From childhood we are educated with the idea that negative acts have negative consequences, and positive acts produce beneficial changes. This idea is often valid in the context of the education that fathers and mothers give young children, but in adult life things do not work that way. Many times, by default, the damages stay there, and the universe will not conspire so that there is compensation.

Faced with this reality, the desire for justice appears as a human quality aimed at creating a better society in which prevails the principle that all people have the same rights and in which there must be mechanisms of compensation. However, the desire for revenge is not born from the will to make a better world, but from a much more visceral feeling. It is not something that has to do with a way of seeing the world or with desires for how society should be, but rather it has to do with hate and resentment.

Thus, the desire for revenge can become a way of entering a dynamic of conflicts that make the problem bigger than it already is, due to its passionate nature and little systematic. If a vengeful attitude has to do with the desire to channel negative feelings through harm to those who we consider "should pay" for something, the justice is rather a human construction that is applied on the social scale, and in which various agents participate: researchers, members of the court, etc.

In addition, in justice the existence of the law is very important, a series of codes that exist outside of each specific case and whose function is to seek, as far as possible, that penalties are always applied under the same criteria and based on ideas that everyone can know in advance (although with nuances, since there is always room for interpretation).

If the purpose of justice is to discourage the act of committing illegalities and participate in the reintegration of those who receive punishment, revenge only seeks an effect on whoever takes revenge, acting as a kind of self-therapy (although without scientific evidence of effectiveness).

Why are the desires for revenge something negative?

Beyond the feeling that once revenge is achieved, some compensatory relief will be experienced for the suffering previously caused, getting carried away by this motivating force often leads to harmful results. These are some of the reasons.

1. There are no limits to hurt

In revenge there are only the limits that one sets for oneself, as it is a unilateral act and is not subject to other criteria than those one applies oneself. That's why, It's easy to go too far in the will to hurt someone.. Justifications pop up for any indication that too many thresholds are being crossed, and this can lead to a situation where you lose control and cause a lot of pain.

2. wasted potential

There are people who spend a lot of time and effort getting revenge. It is very easy that, once this stage is over, you look back and see this period as a waste of time, a empty on the calendar, because nothing that is enjoyed in the future in a sustained way is due to those Actions.

3. The escalation of violence

It's easy to forget why it all started, and that an action has its reaction indefinitely. In this way, an initiative that seemed to be liberating at the beginning (since in theory it served to be able to feel at peace) comes to enslave, by demanding more and more time and effort.

4. It does not seek to transform society or the behavior of the other individual

Although in colloquial language revenge is sometimes spoken of as "teaching someone a lesson", the truth is that the pedagogical interest does not exist in these cases. The perception that the person who suffers this act of revenge has is secondary in comparison to the experience accrued by the person who attacks. For this reason, as we have seen, this person can even be encouraged to continue harming others (or the person who has taken revenge), as we have seen. Revenge is individualistic in nature, but the fact is that ethics and morality exist on the social plane..

To do?

Given the desire for revenge, it is best to opt for one of two options.

On the one hand, it is good to look for distractions that help make the intrusive thoughts about it appear again and again. With the change of habits, the tendency to always think about the same thing or to fantasize about taking revenge is broken.

On the other hand, you can also choose to reach get revenge in a very indirect and relatively constructive and benign way. It is the option of the lesser evil. For example, using that desire for compensation by making personal progress serve as a lesson for those who wanted to harm us, showing that their attempts to harm us were in vain.

In any case, it is clear that each case is unique depending on the philosophy of life of each one. Of course, that does not mean that there is no battle to fight (and win) against the desire for revenge.