Black Milk—Unconscious Envy I

ENVY, AS A STATE OF MIND, IS OF NO particular bother when one feels able to acquire something just like or just as good as what is envied. The trouble arises when one feels that one cannot, because what rouses the envy is beyond one's hope of acquisition. At such a juncture, one must either give up the wish and one's hope for it, or create a scenario in which acquiring what one envies will be possible under a given set of circumstances. Thus of penis envy Freud wrote that the little girl may hope either later to acquire the penis (it may grow inside out from within) or symbolize it such that it can be represented by a baby or something else, The little boy may tell himself that the problem is but a matter of time and that some day he may acquire a penis the equal of his father's—and then his mother will succumb to his ardor and his charms. And in fact under favorable circumstances these scenarios may get the children through long enough for them to value that which they do possess. The woman the little girl grows up to be may be so delighted with her baby that its symbolic function is shed off; and so far as the penis is concerned, it is very nice when it is pointing in, thanks all the same. The little boy may, to his surprise, so fall in love with a woman other than his mother, that her pleasure in his penis gives him the pleasure he has been waiting for.

Such happy outcomes, however, depend on a number of factors. The first is probably the nature of the relationship in which the initial envy takes place. A second is the help the child is able to receive when attempting to give up enough of the wish and hope in the present tense to make the use of future possible. A third is the capacity for symbolization available to the child as he or she tries to establish the scenario. A fourth is the scenario itself—its