فراتر از عذاب: کار از طریق توهمات انتقام به جوانان دچار آسیب های روانی

This article examines one segment of trauma-specific treatment: the process of working through revenge fantasies with traumatized children and adolescents. The authors, both drama therapists, summarize theories about the etiology of the wish for revenge, examine the sociopolitical context of its occurrence, and expand upon the theory of identification with the aggressor to include the dynamic of role reversal with the perpetrator. They explore theories of affect regulation, mentalization, and creative enactment as a framework for offering suggestions for facilitating both the expression and containment of revenge fantasies in therapy. The authors offer three case examples of working through revenge fantasies within individual and group therapy modalities.

These statements, and countless variations of them, have all been uttered by our child and adolescent clients over the years, often as a justification for violent actions in response to peers, teachers, parents, and others involved in their lives. For many of these young people, being “dissed,” or disrespected, becomes the ultimate call for vindication. Evolutionary studies point to the capacity for revenge as a universal human trait that has been passed on through generations of natural selection (McCullough, 2008). It is at the heart of large-group combat, intercultural violence, and more individual forms of acting-out and acting-in. In the current cultural climate in which the media in general, and reality television programming in specific, glorifies conflict and relational aggression as a suitable response to minor injury, there is a prescient need to examine effective therapeutic approaches to minimizing the use of revenge as a response strategy.

The ultimate goal of working through revenge fantasies is to help traumatized clients return to the stream of life, moving beyond the need for splitting, traumatized attachment to the perpetrator and dangerous impulsivity, better able to integrate their trauma experience(s). While some writers have promoted forgiveness as being the end-goal, we concur with Herman (1992), who asserted: It is not possible to exorcise the trauma, through either hatred or love. Like revenge, the fantasy of forgiveness often becomes a cruel torture, because it remains out of reach for most ordinary human beings. Folk wisdom recognizes that to forgive is divine. And even divine forgiveness, in most religious systems, is not unconditional. True forgiveness cannot be granted until the perpetrator has sought and earned it through confession, repentance, and restitution. (pp. 189–190) Traumatized children may end the treatment process with their anger or indignation intact, and may not be developmentally or emotionally capable of forgiveness. However, the hope is that they are able to contain, regulate, and/or channel their anger in the future, rather than being controlled by it. In Horowitz's (2007, p. 25) words, “Self-righteous indignation feels like energy or fuel for the self. The burning of this fuel helps people feel solid and coherent rather than frail or empty.” He continued: “A goal in treatment is stabilizing an intact sense of self, which can contain intense feelings of anger, grief, and remorse.”