Revenge

The theme of revenge, despite its lurid and exciting connotations and its prominence in literature, history, and politics, has been relatively slow to engage the attention of psychoanalysts. Warren Poland, introducing the panel, speculated that this might in part be due to some resistance to exploring the darkest of human urges, even though these may spring from the same soil as the noblest ideals. The task of this panel, he emphasized, was not to examine the broader cultural forms and connotations of revenge, but to focus on its clinical manifestations as seen in individuals and their families. Revenge and vengeful fantasies may occur in many forms and on many levels, both conscious and unconscious, and may be expressed as readily through masochistic reaction formation as through overtly sadistic behavior. They have deep roots in early conflicts, traumas, and humiliations at the hands of parents, siblings, and others. They need not, however, imply a primitive mode of object relatedness, for the vengeful person may demonstrate both a capacity for delay and self-control and an empathic attunement to the victim's feelings and motivations.

Poland also noted that revenge may have its adaptive and sublimatory aspects, in the turning of passivity to activity (via identification with the aggressor) and the mastery of immediate rage in the service of larger aims (such as the pursuit of social justice). It may also play a role in the analyst's own work. Just as Flaubert said that he wrote “to take revenge on reality,” Poland acknowledged that he analyzes in part to prove that insight can gain some, though never complete, dominance over terror. It is vital, therefore, to investigate how vengeful scenarios can be played out in the clinical engagement, in both transference and countertransference.

The first short presentation was by Irwin Rosen, who said he had been stimulated to think about the psychoanalytic implications of