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.
This paper was written in an attempt to look at and subsequently understand envy as a response to a particular disruption in the transference. The impetus to write this article originated a few years ago when I was struck by the intensity with which some of my clients were responding to differences or changes (e.g., when I appeared dressed differently from them in some way, or when I acquired new office furniture). These differences or changes triggered unbearable experiences in the clients and lowered self esteem.
Acutely aware of how important it was for these particular clients to experience us as alike, I found myself feeling responsible for not protecting the sameness, and disrupting their need (and demand) to experience us as alike. Feeling conflicted, I was both challenged and intrigued by the intensity that accompanied these disruptions. Was I doing something wrong here besides not adequately understanding the nature of the disruption? Without having a handle on what specific selfobject need was disrupted, it was difficult at times to remain nondefensive and empathically attuned in the face of acute attacks of envy and narcissistic rage in the client that the experience of difference evoked in these transferences.
As a clinician practicing from a self-psychological perspective, I found Melanie Klein's (1957) seminal work on envy wonderfully descriptive of the intensity and depth of the affect these disrupted transferences evoked, but I experienced her method of understanding and interpreting envy primarily as drive derivative defensive projections