The Role of Envy in Psychic Growth

Melanie Klein's introduction of the concept of “primary envy” (1957)— which she considered an innate response of hostility toward the goodness of the object and, in this sense, the representative of the death instinct in the psyche—aroused considerable controversy in psychoanalysis. In this contribution, I expand Klein's view of envy as “primary” and suggest that primary envy is not only “innate” but, indeed, is an essential element in the process of psychic growth. I propose that, although primary envy has been traditionally viewed as inimical to psychic growth and interpreted as such in the clinical hour, primary envy is essential to psychic growth and is an achievement in the analytic hour.

I would like to address primary envy in this way by making a distinction between primary envy, which I define as envy in dynamic relation to gratitude (envy]gratitude), and a pathological envy which may result from a failure in the environment required for psychic growth. I believe that by applying Bion's contribution of the double arrow to envy and gratitude, envy-gratitude may be understood as a “process” through which the psyche comes into being (and becoming). When envy]gratitude is not traversed, the evolution of the psyche is thwarted and a “perverted” (or frozen) envy—the death instinct without a relation to the life instinct—prevails. Thus, placing the double arrow between envy and gratitude allows us to understand Klein's view that envy is an inherent aspect of psychic growth, that is, a “fourth element” [my addition] in psychoanalysis.1

Bion (1963) posited three essential elements in psychoanalysis: (a) Ps]D: the oscillating movement between fragmentation and integration; (b) a dynamic relationship between container and contained; and (c) three factors intrinsic to the link between objects—love, hate, and the desire to know (L-H-K) (p.3).

What is the relationship among these three elements necessary for psychic growth?

Ps]D refers to Bio