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Your Brain on Revenge with Oprah and James Kimmel, Jr.

1/20/20261 hr 6 min

Is revenge the root of all forms of violence? Oprah sits down with James Kimmel, Jr., a revenge and violence researcher and lecturer in the psychiatry department at the Yale University School of Medicine and the bestselling author of the eye-opening book, The Science of Revenge: Understanding the World’s Deadliest Addiction - and How to Overcome It. From bullying to school and mass shootings to terrorism and even war, James Kimmel Jr’s 20-year research argues that the root cause of all human aggression and violence in the world is the one universal human emotion: revenge. After being bullied as a teenager, James Kimmel, Jr shares the horrific moment he almost became a mass shooter himself, and why that became the catalyst for his life’s work. James Kimmel Jr shares a research study that could reveal just how prone you might be to seeking revenge. He has also created The Non-Justice System & The Miracle Court App, a 5-step scripted virtual courtroom where a person who has been wronged can play all the roles in a simulated trial - victim, defendant, judge, jury, and warden. Oprah and James Kimmel Jr also hear searing stories from the audience including a woman whose neighbor shot and killed her dog, a woman who got revenge on a boyfriend who cheated on her, a wife and mother whose intense revenge addiction landed her in the hospital. And how a mother, who lost her precious 6-year-old son to gun violence at Sandy Hook Elementary, came to forgive her son’s killer. BUY THE BOOK! The Science of Revenge https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/739999/the-science-of-revenge-by-james-kimmel-jr-jd/ https://books.apple.com/us/book/the-science-of-revenge/id6670186929 00:00:00 - Welcome James Kimmel, Jr. author of “The Science of Revenge” 00:04:00 - James Kimmel share his story of revenge 00:10:15 - Lawyers sell revenge to the masses 00:13:15 - How revenge is an addiction 00:16:00 - Understanding how revenge leads to crimes 00:17:30 - When revenge becomes addiction 00:27:00 - Woman shares her desire for revenge 00:28:20 - Types of forgiveness 00:37:55 - How can we speed up forgiveness 00:39:30 - How this man resisted getting revenge 00:43:30 - Mother of son killed at Sandy Hook 00:50:50 - Recovering revenge addict 00:57:00 - The motive is revenge 00:59:00 - The power of forgiveness Additional Resources: https://www.revengeanonymous.org The Non-justice System: miraclecourt.com What's Your Revenge Score? https://www.jameskimmeljr.com/quiz Connecticut Violence Intervention and Prevention - https://www.ctintervention.org/ Choose Love - https://chooselovemovement.org/ Follow Oprah Winfrey on Social: https://www.instagram.com/oprahpodcast/ https://www.facebook.com/oprahwinfrey/ Listen to the full podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/0tEVrfNp92a7lbjDe6GMLI https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-oprah-podcast/id1782960381 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Clips

Transcript preview

First 90 seconds
  1. Oprah Winfrey· Host0:00

    Did you have a waiting to exhale moment? You put all his clothes in a pile and burn them.

  2. Courtney· Guest0:03

    I did.

  3. Oprah Winfrey· Host0:04

    Oh, you did?

  4. Courtney· Guest0:05

    I did, yes. I took all the clothes I bought him.

  5. Oprah Winfrey· Host0:08

    [clapping] [clapping] Listen to you grown-up people in here. [laughing] [laughing] This young woman, you're applauding her burning up his clothes.

  6. Speaker 20:17

    Right.

  7. James Kimmel Jr.· Guest0:17

    Perfect illustration of, you know, revenge seeking and, and revenge addiction. You couldn't control it. Uh, now let's hear what were the negative consequences for you?

  8. Courtney· Guest0:27

    None.

  9. James Kimmel Jr.· Guest0:28

    None? [laughing] Okay. So you had zero- Being on the, being on the Oprah Podcast, like [laughing] Welcome to the Oprah Podcast.

  10. Oprah Winfrey· Host0:39

    We're in New York City!

  11. James Kimmel Jr.· Guest0:41

    [cheering] Mm-hmm.

  12. Oprah Winfrey· Host0:43

    With, uh, with an audience of our listeners, and I so appreciate all of you, and all of you who tell me that you're getting information, enlightenment from our podcast, that it's, uh, comforting to you. You get a lot of ahas. I'm so happy. You're gonna have a lot of ahas today because the truth is, we are living in a complicated and complex time, and it is my hope to continue using my life in such a way that we can create conversations that can help you kind of take the lens and zoom out to see the bigger picture of a lot of subjects, and zoom in to understand what's really underneath so many of the challenges that we all are facing as humans together here on the planet. And one of the things about

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