Among violent criminal offenders, contemptuous feelings toward others—often in response to real or imagined humiliations—often provide an internal justification for senseless acts of brutality. In my forensic work, I have understood contempt—and other so called “negative emotions”—as part of the constellation of dissociated affects and consequent defenses that fuel dire enactments.

However, inspired by my work with a private client, I have begun to recognize the potential value of negative affects as a way of freeing women from their enmeshment with brutal partners. In this article I examine the moral and interpersonal consequences of the range of contemptuous thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Through the lens of feminist philosophy and interpersonal psychoanalysis, I suggest ways that such feelings might be liberated from destructive intentions, and repurposed as a catalyst for empowerment and change.