Some Aspects of Jealousy and of Feeling Hurt

Two types of jealousy are described in psychoanalytic literature. They are regarded as being essentially different in their origin and meaning: the pathological jealousy of adults, and the normal (or maybe, exaggerated) jealousy in children. The former is due, according to Freud, to repressed homosexual impulses, the latter is regarded either an expression of the Oedipus complex, or as rivalry with siblings. These two types of reactions, I propose to show, are nearly related to each other, and the adults' pathological jealousy, often reproduces directly the child's reactions:

A woman got into a state of pathological depression and was obsessed with jealousy when she discovered her husband's unfaithfulness. Though she fully realized that he was deeply attached to her and that it had been only a passing affair, all her efforts to be sensible failed, and she just could not get over her excessive feelings of jealousy, resentment and depression. She thus repeated her infantile reactions to the birth of a younger sister.

The main symptom of a schizoid patient, R.L., was pathological jealousy. He followed his girl everywhere, trying to find out whether men took an interest in her. In particular he always looked for her car, and whenever he saw it standing in front of a house, however indifferent, he got deeply upset. Her car was of particular emotional significance to him. He had no car himself. His associations led to his baby brother's pram and how he had envied him for being wheeled around, while he himself had to walk, and for all the attention his