Is Revenge the Only Way?

Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth? Revenge leads to revenge and this is an endless spiral. You have to become the master of your reactions.

Getting revenge for a small insult will make you suffer even more. Those who spend their time looking for revenge do not do anything for themselves. But what happens next? Stick to protecting yourself and to making sure that no one can do you any harm. Any vengeance on your part will strengthen your attacker and make them more successful and will damage your prestige among the others. Any revenge diverts you from your goals, you will always be angry, you will lose your coolness and you will make irreparable mistakes. In urging you to get revenge, people take you wherever they want. By seeking vengeance, you are no better than your attacker.

Revenge is the last resort of the weak. Those who know nothing, do not see it coming because they cannot. They may be attacked and the attack may fail, leading the attacker to find a better way to hurt the person in question. The failure of revenge is inevitable because it is impossible to go back in time. Those who avenge themselves suffer because they do not accept the reality.

Revenge is hell, rage, anger, and fury. Yet, who would avenge the collapse of the roof, the leaking pipe, the rock they stunble upon? What we do is learn to strengthen the roof, to clean the pipes, and watch out we walk. We need to know the world in order to protect ourselves against its dangers. This is an act of wisdom.

It is the same with the people we meet. We must know their nature in order to protect ourselves from their revenge, which is far from giving a lesson to another. In fact, vengeance only adds more damage to the harm done. It will generate even more resentment and thus, the person will be more willing to harm you. As for our eventual position of strength that would justify our action, remember that what goes around turns around and powerful allies can turn against you and crush you. Revenge may not always be successful and this frustration can sometimes result in violence.

If you learn that someone wants to harm you, take the front, hide your projects, and schedule backup solutions. In short, counter their bad action. Reverse their attempt. When one has pulled it off, it is too late to ask for revenge. There is more to stand up  for.  Let them continue their journey.

The Psychology of Justice

In the tango "Let's Begin" (1953), the man returns from prison, reunites with his wife and children and says: "the justice made of marble never realized that sometimes life forces you to kill."

A judge refers to a cold person and is unable to understand the ups and downs that lead to a fact. The judge is blind when it comes to human bonds and is a relentless applicator of the law.

Family Law feels as if it had gone to the other extreme: the psychology of justice occurs in such a degree that it appears that sentencing is a mortal sin and people think that the solution must be found in the combined therapy.

Many years ago, someone noticed that the law alone was not enough to understand and help the clients and they took a psychology course for lawyers, they got a degree in Social Psychology, a degree in psychodrama, they trained and practiced. They had training in psychology from different schools and their collection of psychology books is unusually nourished. They love psychology.

They are in favor of personal therapy, couples or family therapy, they think it is appropriate, they ask their clients if they had taken up some before making decisions in their lives (e.g. a divorce). Also, they suggest that the customers should have a parallel therapeutic space before starting to make certain judgments with great emotional charge.

We clarify all this so that you know that they are not "typical attorneys", who only read the Civil Code and fail in court.

They are all in favor of the court negotiation, mediation when possible,  psychotherapy, interdisciplinary work and everything that can help them solve their problems.

But ... here comes the “but”. NOT ALL TRIALS IN WHICH THERE IS A CONFLICT IS NECESSARILY RESOLVED THROUGH THE CONDUCT OF THERAPY, but sometimes it is necessary to deliver a judgment to decide what people could not do, did not want to do or could do to solve their problems:

- Keep endless interviews, e.g. two brothers who hate each other to death, who have a very bad relationship
  cannot have justice "fix" the link for them through the intervention of a social worker and a psychologist, if
  the same brothers who say they DO NOT WANT to resume the relationship keep wasting every meeting
  with their obligations. They go to the courts to find their justice, which means "giving each brother what he
  deserves" AND THEY DO NOT CARE ABOUT THE BOND and legacy.

- Start a bond between two people who have been separated for 15 years. Each of them now has their
  individual life, their new partners, their grown children and only wants a judge to recognize that the
  agreement on food has expired and needs to be changed according to the factual situation. Therefore, the
  man should no longer continue to pay the amount agreed upon in other circumstances.

If this went through mediation and there was no deal, if you filed a complaint and there was no raid, it would be necessary to insist on "sending" the former partners to therapy in order to improve their communication and put an end to the litigation.

One of them says no, they've already done enough therapy, mediation, etc. Full stop. So, they continue the trial and MEET THE JUDGE.  If the court orders compulsive therapy in such cases, you lose time although the recommendation may have the best intentions  - no doubt.

You can find cases in which the trial is delayed for more than a year, the court "hoping that the parties agree" and it becomes clear that litigation ends, but without the two giving up on their positions and there being no desire to meet again or even to finish the trial.

In such cases, the lawyer usually turns into a "psycho-social counsel," even if part of the modernization and humanization of justice argues that judges should not forget that one of their main functions is to pass the sentence. They first try to settle things.

Perfect. But that's not necessarily done through therapy sessions for people who do not want to do it. Adult people litigate on economic issues even if they have or have had family ties.

Moreover, practitioners know much of the result which can be obtained with patients depends on their motivation.

Family lawyers share the fact that when relational therapies are taken "by order of the court" and not because the parties agree on them, they always fail and only constitute a further expansion of the sentence. Do not be afraid. This does not mean that psychotherapy is prehistoric. Family lawyers are aware of the fact that the current judges are much more open and have more tools to resolve conflicts without litigation.

What angers them is that they do not want to replace the sentence consisting of therapy with something else that would be more effective.