Wall Street Journal Writer Suggests that Revenge Can Be Addictive and There Is One Best Cure for It
Photo by Brett Jordan, Pexels.com
On June 5, in the Wall Street Journal, James Kimmel Jr. reports on how he was bullied as a child, which led to him becoming an “aggressive attorney” as an adult. He realized that whenever he sought revenge or even imagined getting revenge, he felt better. As he researched the neuroscience of revenge, he discovered that the brain releases dopamine, a neurotransmitter associated with feelings of pleasure and reward. This feel-good sensation kept him seeking or fantasizing about revenge until he decided to stop the cycle of revenge, dopamine, feel-good, and more revenge to release the dopamine. In his quest to break the cycle, he discovered that forgiveness is a means to halt the cycle of revenge, which in turn eliminates the need for more dopamine, thereby reinforcing the need for revenge. Forgiveness was the cure for him.
More on this story can be found here: https://www.newser.com/story/369842/revenge-is-like-an-addiction.html.
