Melanie Klein, a pioneering psychoanalyst, has done laudable work in discovering the rich world of the child's `unconscious phantasy' and `object-relations' through the play technique. And this paved the way to a deeper understanding of the ways in which - in the child and later in the adult - mental life is influenced by earliest emotions.For a child's favourable development, the good experience in relation to its first and earliest `object' - the `mother', ie the `breast'- should predominate over bad ones. The child's actual experience depends on both external and internal factors. External deprivation, physical or mental, prevents gratification. But even when the environment is conducive to gratifying experiences, they may still be modified or even prevented by internal factors. Early envy is one such powerful emotion that operates right from birth and continues to influence us in our adult life. But envy is not the same as jealousy.Envy and Jealousy:Envy is one of the most primitive and fundamental emotions. It aims at being as good as the object (a person or thing used to relieve tension) but when this becomes impossible, it aims at spoiling the goodness of the object so as to remove the source of envious feelings. An envious person has intense feelings of pain at seeing another person possess, what he or she would like for himself. An envious man is highly uncomfortable seeing others enjoy and at ease in the pain of others.Living or working with an envious person makes life a drudgery. In an attempt to destroy, he may resort to family politics, power tactics, groupism or boardroom politics. Such people are in need of professional help. In an organisation, for instance, it is not so difficult to spot the envious man or woman. He may praise others but subtly turn all goodness upside-down to his shrewd intent. If other people speak well of someone, then the envious man will accept that the person is good but immediately point to someone else who is better, and thus disparage whom other people praise.Jealously, on the other hand, is based on love and aims at the possession of the loved object and the removal of the rival. But the loved object is not destroyed as in envy. It pertains to a triangular relationship and therefore, a time of life when objects are clearly recognized and differentiated from one another.Cradle envy:The first object to be envied is the feeding mother. For the child feels that the mother possesses all that he desires and has an unlimited flow of milk and love which is kept for his own gratification. This feeling adds to the sense of grievance, hate, greed and persecutory anxiety and the result is a disturbed relation with the mother. If we understand this deprivation, it becomes understandable how envy arises. At the same time, even the `Good Mother' who satisfies a child's needs becomes an object of envy because of the very ease with which the needs are gratified - for this gift seems so unattainable to the child on its own.The blissful experience which mothers can give, increases the child's love and desire to possess, preserve and protect it. But the same experience also stirs the wish to be the source of such perfection itself. Experiencing painful feelings of envy, the child then has an `unconscious phantasy' to spoil and destroy the very object - `mother', and in adult life the `substitute mothers' - which gives it such painful feelings. Strong feelings of envy lead to despair, depression and impaired ego development.Integration of the personality:When we realise that in omnipotently destroying the very object that we love (`mother' and its `substitutes'), we would be destroying life itself, a sense of guilt and despair sets in. This guilt and despair awakens in us the wish to restore and recreate in order to gain the loved object externally and internally. The same reparative wishes arise in relation to other loved objects - external and internal. And this bring about a further step in ego integration. It is the wish and capacity for restoration of the good object, internal and external, that is the ego's capacity to maintain love and relationships through conflicts and difficulties.When envy has been successfully `worked through' and is not overwhelming, the personality can develop relatively well. The gratification experienced with the mother figure stimulates admiration, love and gratitude at the same time as envy. Gratitude helps to overcome and modify envy and brings in the wish to preserve and protect the good object as also to share its gifts with others - what we call generosity.Dr Eric D Mistry is a practising psychotherapist.
