Comparative Perspectives on Envy

Abstract

Comparing various psychoanalytic perspectives on envy and malignant envy, the author argues for a developmental reconsideration of envy that locates its emergence in the breakdown of intersubjectivity. This breakdown is connected with the inability of the mother/analyst to hold and contain the child's/patient's affective states such that the child/patient is deprived of being recognized as a subject. Moreover, the dyad is unable to experience fully the pleasure and enjoyment of a reciprocal, mutual, and intimate relationship. This developmental failure interferes with the patient's capacity to experience and act on her desire. Unable to to sustain a link with the other's mind, the child cannot take in and then hold on to good, pleasurable experiences. The author illustrates his argument with two clinical examples, those of a child patient and of an adult patient. The child case highlights the breakdown of intersubjectivity as a developmental precursor to envy, whereas the adult vignette emphasizes the relationship between destructive envy and the perversion of desire.

• psychoanalysis
• psychotherapy
• envy
• malignant
• intersubjectivity
• development

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Christopher Bonovitz

Christopher Bonovitz, Psy.D. is Faculty and Supervisor of Psychotherapy, William Alanson White Institute; Faculty, New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis; and Associate Editor, Contemporary Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalytic Dialogues.