Revenge: On the Dynamics of a Frightening Urge and its Taming, is a comprehensive study of the revenge motif as well as of what can be done to tame consequences of revengeful actions and find alternatives to taking these actions in the first place.

Tomas Bohm was a training psychoanalyst in private practice in Sweden, and author or co-author of a number of books dealing with xenophobia, racism and fundamentalism. He was a member of the International Psychoanalytical Association Prejudice Committee. Suzanne Kaplanis a practicing child and training psychoanalyst. Researcher at The Hugo Valentin Centre, Uppsala University, Sweden. Publications include 'Children in Genocide - Extreme traumatization and affect regulation' (2008). Recipient of the Hayman Prize for published work pertaining to traumatized children and adults in both 2001 and 2007.

The revenge motif appears in a number of arenas and in different cultures. We need to be mindful of its existence in order to discover how common it is. We can then learn to recognize when destructive revenge spirals are developing. By extension, we thus gain a basis for stopping these spirals successfully before they have gone too far. We can also learn what function revenge plays and has played in various contexts. A short overview of revenge as a motif in literature, film, culture, religion, and at work is therefore given as an introduction to our study of revenge.

Foreword -- AUTHORS' FOREWORD -- Introduction -- Revenge -- The revenge motif -- The psychology of the revenge spiral-revenge or restoration -- The grey zone between revenge and restoration -- The destructive group -- Revenge on the societal level: large groups, ideologies, and political systems -- Why does the revenge spiral continue? Among victims and perpetrators -- Revenge in everyday life-relationships in couples -- Revenge from a gender perspective: abuse of women -- Extreme collective violence: the example of Rwanda -- Restoration -- Refraining from revenge -- Surviving psychic trauma -- Stopping the revenge spiral -- Restoration and reconciliation