You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
The picture that adorns the cover of this book shows a woman unaware of what she is holding: a split face grimacing with a horrified expression. This picture becomes a graphic representation of what is to follow: a treatise on splitting and subsequent self-envy. This is a difficult book to read as well as to review. There is a distinct tendency for dispersion, a complexity that arises due to the diversity of topics that the author covers. Paradoxically, there is also a tendency for simplification and reductionism; for self-envy to become a panchreston for much of human behavior. However, for those readers grounded in Kleinian theory, Lopez-Corvo offers some stimulating emendations and revisions that cover a wide spectrum of the literature on splitting and narcissism.
Dr. Lopez-Corvo raises the fundamental question that frames the thesis of the book “Why is it so difficult to talk about self-envy?” (p. ix) and poses a tentative answer, namely that “it may be related to the difficulty of envisioning an internal world structured by infinite part objects and part self-representations, interacting within the boundaries of the self (p. ix). Furthermore, “Only when we conceive the internal world as the product of these long-introjected complex interactions of different and polyvalent self-parts, can we understand that a despondent aspect of ourselves envies another idealized or creative internal element” (p. ix). Through clinical, and historical examples, Dr. Lopez-Corvo develops this thesis. What becomes problematic is that these “self-parts” tend to become reified and do not remain simply fantasies or self-experiences. For example, he applies this concept to dreams stating: “Why is it so difficult to imagine that different part self-objects could also behave in a similar fashion? (p. x).” This leads to the conclusion that dreams may appear capable of independent action. There is an important theoretical and clinical distinction to be made between dreams having an independ