Your brain on revenge looks like your brain on drugs.
It's time for a cure.
Reviews
A Next Big Idea Club Must-Read Book for May 2025
​
"This riveting, science-based exploration of why we feel pleasure from other people's pain is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand why we hurt each other and what we can do to end the need for revenge."
--Anna Lembke, MD, Professor of Addiction Medicine, Stanford University, and author of the New York Times bestseller Dopamine Nation
"In a narrative that is both poignant and accessible, James Kimmel Jr. makes a compelling argument about the risks of revenge cravings and how we can address them. The result is a potential public health advance of far-reaching scope that is sorely needed in our world today."
--Michael A. Norko, MD, Professor of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine
​​​​​​​
“This work, which serves as both a warning and a spiritual journey, challenges readers to examine their own capacity for vengeance as well as their potential to forgive themselves and those who have wronged them.”
—Jessica Stern, PhD, Research Professor, Boston University, and author of five books on perpetrators of violence
​
"The Science of Revenge should be mandatory reading for every American. Dr. James Kimmel, Jr. reveals for the first time how human rage and violence are the result of an unrecognized--but preventable and treatable--addiction to revenge. Dr. Kimmel's landmark discovery can actually save your life and the lives of those you love. No one is immune from the toxic cycle of retribution and retaliation in this divisive time."
--Phillip C. "Dr. Phil" McGraw, PhD, TV host and author of eleven New York Times bestselling books
​​
"From Captain Ahab to present day mass murderers – revenge begins with feeling persecuted and then resentful. It ends in a spiraling pit of nihilism and destructive envy. Professor Kimmel has endeavored to produce what Lifton would call a profound act of 'species consciousness.' He has laid a practical foundation for using our minds to overcome one of our many self-destructive tendencies."
--James L. Knoll, IV, MD, Past President of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law
​​"James Kimmel, Jr. has made an invaluable discovery that addiction to revenge functions as a preventable and treatable cause of human violence."
--Bandy X. Lee, MD, MDiv, author of Violence and editor of the New York Times bestseller The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump ​
​​​​
"As someone who has worked on some 300 murder cases over the last 30 years, I found Kimmel's book extraordinary in its scope and depth."
--James Garbarino, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Psychology at Cornell University and Loyola University Chicago​​​​​
​
Coming May 27, 2025
​​
PRE-ORDER NOW:​
​
Amazon | B&N | Books-A-Million | Bookshop.org | Apple Books | Target |
What's Your Revenge Score?
Take this free online quiz to find out how often you think about and seek revenge!
REVENGE ADDICTION
Dr. James Kimmel, Jr. and Dr. Phil McGraw discuss how rage and violence are caused by addictive brain-biological processes and how public health and self-help addiction recovery approaches can be used to make our lives, homes, schools, workplaces, and communities safer and more peaceful.
What Is Revenge Addiction?
Behavioral studies from around the world confirm that people who hurt (or kill) other people are almost always acting in response to a personal grievance—a real or imagined perception of having been wronged, betrayed, shamed, humiliated, or victimized. Recent behavioral and neuroscience studies of what’s happening inside the brains of people with grievances have led to a chilling discovery: activation of revenge desires and the pleasure and craving neurocircuitry of addiction.​
​
It turns out that your brain on revenge looks like your brain on drugs. Grievances cue the brain to crave revenge in much the same way that stress and anxiety, or seeing drug paraphernalia or places of drug use, cue the brains of addicts to crave narcotics. ​
Being harmed or treated unfairly, or experiencing anger, disgust, guilt, or shame, is painful and activates the brain’s neural “pain network.” Getting revenge, or even just fantasizing about it, is rewarding, releasing dopamine and activating the brain’s pleasure and reward circuitry. This produces feelings of pleasure that temporarily cover up the pain, making us feel better. For a while. Like drugs and alcohol, the effects wear off quickly and almost always lead to greater pain and suffering.
With addiction, the brain's judgment and executive control function is hijacked, and reward circuity runs amok. When revenge cravings become compulsive and can’t be controlled despite the negative consequences, they can transform perfectly normal, peaceful people into perpetrators of unexpected and unimaginable acts of psychological and physical violence and abuse.​​
InThe Science of Revenge, lawyer, violence researcher, and lecturer in psychiatry James Kimmel, Jr., JD, for the first time reveals these landmark discoveries and offers effective strategies for helping people overcome dangerous revenge cravings and revenge addiction. This groundbreaking book holds the scientific key to preventing and treating violence and restoring peace in your life and the world around you.
​​
Download a Miracle
Get the free Miracle Court app
Based on The Science of Revenge and James Kimmel, Jr.'s Nonjustice System, the Miracle Court app is a virtual courthouse that allows you to put anyone on trial for anything they've ever done to you or someone you love. Get the justice you want, resolve your pain and grievances, and release your revenge cravings without harming others or yourself. It truly is a miracle.
