Revenge is driven by the primitive brain’s self-protective instincts. (If we don’t disable, harm or kill the one who wounds us they may do us in.) Unfortunately, that irrational brain level acts impulsively and spontaneously. It may not distinguish between a physical and emotional wound. Moreover, we can learn healthy coping skills to “condition our brain” to deal with our own pain rather than punish others for what we are feeling. If we “cool off” rather than act on those initial primal impulses we shift our response by using the thinking/reasoning neocortex to avoid physical and emotional retaliation. The more we learn about how our brain instinctively responds to emotional pain, we can control those primal instincts. This is why coping skills education now focuses on healing our own pain vs. trying to punish others because I don’t have the ability to get over it.