Revenge and Foregiveness in Imagery Rescripting: a brief review

Imagery Rescripting (IR) is a therapeutic technique that aims to modify the memory representation of past experiences, linked to symptoms. Its efficacy has been demonstrated in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder and social phobia. In these disorders the memory of an abuse or of a past bullying experience is changed by stopping the aggressor, removing power from them and protecting the victim. In this context, an interesting question is whether it is useful and safe or risky to encourage people to imagine taking revenge and expressing aggressive impulses against the perpetrator. This paper aims to briefly analyze the studies that compared the effects of revenge, avoidance and forgiveness IR.From the analysis of the literature emerges that revenge does not increase aggression but rather decreases it in a similar way to non-violent IR and to the imagery of the safe place. Furthermore, the increase in positive affect in revenge IR, seems to be mediated by an increased sense of justice served in the participants. However, studies that compared revenge and forgiveness have shown that the former decreases the sense of self-efficacy and does not lead to a reduction in negative affect with respect to forgiveness and avoidance. Finally, psychophysiological measures show that forgiveness is a process that implies a greater emotional impact in the short term. Thus, a combination of short-term cognitive avoidance (carried out in these studies via positive scenarios) and long-term forgiveness-oriented work, would appear to provide the most promising therapeutic balance.

Keywords: ; Imagery rescripting; revenge; forgiveness; avoidance; justice

Alessandra Mancini, Imagery Rescripting tra vendetta e perdono: una breve rassegna della letteratura in "QUADERNI DI PSICOTERAPIA COGNITIVA" 51/2022, pp 91-104, DOI: 10.3280/qpc51-2022oa15183