Envy (Compare and contrast). Edit #2 (part 2)

Websters definition of envy:

“Painful or resentful awareness of an advantage enjoyed by another joined with a desire to possess the same advantage.”

Two people sit side by side listening and watching a friend play the piano in a very masterful and talented way.

The first person feels the beauty of the music and has admiration for the obvious talent of the pianist.

The second person is consumed with envy. She thinks it is not fair her friend is so talented, that she has a big nose and she is not so good at tennis.


Talent

The second person has done compare and contrast and the first person has not. They both are in the same situation, one person has compared and contrasted the pianist to self and one has not.

The first person does not have the desire to possess the same advantage and the second person does. The first person may not even be aware the pianist has an advantage whilst the second person is acutely aware of the advantage.

Why is this so?

and

Perhaps one can only feel envy if they use the psychological mechanism of compare and contrast first?


Home wrecker or talented actress



If this is so then the treatment of pathological envy could be dealt with by disrupting the need to compare and contrast and disrupting the persons ability to engage in the process of compare and contrast.

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Why compare and contrast

It seems there may be a number of possible scenarios that may lead some to use the psychological process of compare and contrast.

First it is probably safe to say that compare and contrast is a normal thing that humans do. As with so many of these things they start out as natural human behaviour but then get slightly transformed and become neurotic.



The two different types of compare and contrast could be seen as functions of separate aspects of the personality.

It is a Free Child function when people use compare and contrast (C & C) to get an understanding of self. When we meet our peers we can learn about ourselves by understanding how others think, feel and behave. When we meet those who are the same age, gender, occupation and so forth it gives us a reference point from which we can understand ourselves. By comparing and contrasting to our peers we gain a fuller understanding of who we are.

In addition to this when we meet others who are dissimilar we can also compare and contrast for the same purpose. In recent times I have travelled to countries like Serbia and Croatia and got to know people who are from a different culture. As I have gotten to know my new friends more I notice things about them that are different to how I and other Australians think, feel and behave. I have compared my self and my culture to them and their culture and thus I now have a fuller or more profound understanding about myself (and them).



Whilst this seems fairly normal the process of compare and contrast can become excessive therefore resulting in neurotic behaviour which would be seen as an Adapted Child ego state function. In this case people could be seen to use C & C excessively or use it in a way which creates painful feelings and self destructive behaviour.

Consider the example above where two people were listening to the pianist and had two quite different reactions. The one who was consumed with envy used C & C when there was no FC reason to. It resulted in painful feelings for her which would very likely effect her behaviour to the pianist which is likely to be destructive to the relationship. This could be seen as an instance of neurotic compare and contrast. Why would she do this whilst the person sitting beside her does not.

There are a number of parenting scenarios that may lead to this in adult life

1. Parents rate people’s worth on what they have and who they are. The children being in the home see this and model on it. A person from the rich side of town may be spoken of in glowing and respectful ways by the parents. Those of limited means are seen to be less than by the parents. Children growing up around this type of thinking could develop neurotic C & C behaviour in adulthood.



2. The parents compare children with their siblings or their peers. This may happen when parents place children in child beauty pageants. In such instances children are directly and openly being compared and contrasted to their peers. Indeed this happens in any competitive situation. If parents encourage this AND have the attitude that the winner is a better person or some how worth more then C & C may develop in the child’s mind.

If parents encourage children to use competitive pursuits to better them self and realise their potential then neurotic C & C would be less likely to develop. If winning and loosing get entangled with a sense of self worth in the child’s mind then neurotic C & C could develop it would seem.

In the example of the pianist the envious woman was not really concerned about the musical talent. The issue is that because her friend was a more talented that meant (at least in her mind) that she was a better person, more worthwhile, a more important or superior person than her.

3. Sometimes parents favour one child over another. For some reason they give one child more stuff, time, encouragement, love and so forth. This could develop are sense of comparison in the minds of both children, the favoured one and the non favoured one. They are raised in an environment where things are uneven and this signifies a different attitude and feelings in mother to each child. Thus the ‘things’ become important to the children because they represent affection or attention from mother and the value mother has of the child.



Indeed the same applies the other way. In some domestic situations one child will be singled out by mother or father for extra punitive treatment. For some reason in the psyche of mother one child will be treated more badly, punished more, discounted more and so forth. Again the child will notice the unevenness of this and that it is related to important factors in the psychology of mother.

4. Related to the above one could argue that younger siblings are more likely to develop neurotic C & C because they see the older one getting more stuff, freedoms and liberties. Generally speaking older siblings have more psychological impact on the younger siblings than the other way around. Older siblings are more important to the younger sibling than the other way around. Indeed not uncommonly an older sibling can have a significant impact on the development of transference templates of the younger sibling’s psyche. It is much less likely to occur the other way around.



The younger sibling observes the older one get more ‘stuff’ and becomes envious. For instance the younger sibling has to go to bed at 8pm and the older sibling is allowed to stay up until 10pm. In its mind the age difference is insignificant and the older sibling is simply being favoured by mother and father. Hence C & C is more likely to develop in the mind of a younger sibling.

5. As presented elsewhere
when children develop in their early years they make decisions about what is called their life position. They decide on the value of self and others such as I’m OK, You’re OK (I+U+). There are seven different life positions they can choose from. One is the life position of I’m not OK, But you’re worse (I-U--). In this instance the person feels bad about self but sees others as worse thus making self feel better.

In this case the child has decided to use the process of C & C to protect its sense of self. In essence C & C process becomes a defence mechanism. They compare and contrast self to others perceived as ‘worse’, so as to defend self against its own anxiety generated by realising its own low self worth.

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Feeling envy
These 5 examples show how some children are primed or programmed to enter adulthood and engage in the process of comparing and contrasting. Others who have not had such experiences will not be programmed in such a way. In adulthood they will not naturally compare themselves to others they meet.

The woman who was listening to the pianist and did not feel envy may simply have not compared herself to the pianist and thus she is not aware there is a difference. As our original definition stated, if one is not aware of a difference then one cannot feel envy.

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The process of projection in transference

I will answer your question with this post Roses.

The script imago diagram is one way of showing how transference occurs in relationships.

This diagram comes from here.

As the child grows it forms relationship prototypes or relationship templates. These are shows as the slots in the script imago diagram which are categorised into three types. As the child grows it establishes its relationship with mother and father. This will include all the good stuff and all the not so good stuff including the unmet needs of the child. These are usually formed in the first decade of life and become the templates for later relationships.

As the child grows into adulthood it will begin to establish relationships similar to those templates established in childhood. The person will unconsciously select people like mother and also project onto the person mother like qualities. Thus the same types of relationships will occur over and over in the persons life. The psychological process of projection is an integral part of this process.

There are three types of transference described here. Those people whom we see as more psychologically potent than we are the parental figures or transference figures in our life. We will tend to project these templates onto people in our current life who are also seen as more psychologically potent than we are. Therapy is a perfect setting for a client to see the therapist as a more psychologically potent figure (parent figure) and hence the parent figure slots are projected onto the therapist.

If the son went into therapy over time he would begin to see the therapist in the same light as his father’s haranguing. This is done by him using the psychological process of projection.

People can also develop counter transference or dependent figure templates for relationships. Often this is done by older siblings on younger siblings. This happens particularly if the parents use the older sibling as a live in baby sitter and structure the relationship so the older one takes on a parental role with the younger one. Thus the older sibling develops a strong prototype for such relationships. These people in adulthood can become therapists who spend their working life looking after others who are in the child like position in the relationship.

Thus we have counter transference and the therapist can project their archaic image onto the client and this is where problems may develop in the therapy. The younger child can also use the older sibling as another parent figure slot. Some times youngest children have very few (and even sometimes nil) dependent figure slots.

In adulthood they are unlikely to seek an occupation where they are the looking after parental one like a therapist or nurse. It just wont feel right and they will not be comfortable in that role. They will tend to be more child like and self centered and end up in relationships that have that quality.

A child like profession in adulthood

Finally we have sibling transference. If the siblings or peers are allowed to interact as equals they can develop equal figure or sibling transference slots in their script imago. These are the templates they use in adulthood for equal power relationships. If a child was isolated for some reason then it may develop few and sometimes no slots for this type of transference. Children who are home schooled can have this difficulty or when parents for some reason do not allow the child to interact a lot with its peers. Only children can also do this.

In each case the process of projection is used by the person who projects the template onto the other. It can do this with the good qualities of the relationship and the not so good qualities. If the person had good quality and co-operative relationships with its siblings then these will be projected onto equal figures in adulthood. If it was encouraged to be very competitive with its peers by the parents then in adulthood this will tend to show out in the equal relationships. The person will project this onto the other.

How the soldiers relate to each other will depend on the projection of the early relationships they had with their siblings

As we can see this is different from the defence mechanism of projection. In that instance the process of projection is used to hide from some part of our personality that we do not like. In transference the process of projection is used such that earlier templates for relationships can be employed in our current day life.

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Transference and projection

Roses asks, “Is projection a lot different to transference then?”

Many do say that transference involves a good deal of projection but that is not actually accurate in the technical theoretical sense.

Projection was originally hypothesised as a defence mechanism. Its goal is to allow the person to maintain a positive self image. It allows the person to view self in a positive light which we all want to do.

We all have Child ego state urges that our Parent ego state does not think is right, good or proper. If we consciously acknowledge these in our Adult ego state then we feel bad about ourselves. They usually involve things like sexual thoughts, greed, envy, revenge and even feelings which some see as bad such as anger.

A good example of this is the passive aggressive personality. A woman has angry and aggressive feelings in herself which her Parent ego state thinks is bad. To maintain a positive view of self she must push these feelings into her unconscious so she is not aware of them. She can use projection to do this and will start to see those around her as being angry and aggressive as the passive aggressive personality tends to do. They tend to feel poorly and unfairly treated by the angry others around her and tends to view self as righteous and decent.

Of course her unconscious anger does not go away so she will also express it in a passive way such as with sarcasm, bitchiness, slight ridicule and so forth. With the proficient passive aggressive person, after talking with them for a time you start to feel bad (and maybe even angry) and you kind of don’t know why. They are so good at hiding the expression of their anger you don’t even know it is happening. That is one of the tell tale signs of the passive aggressive personality you come away from then feeling bad about something and you can’t really figure out why.

However getting back to the point. The passive aggressive personality often uses the projection of their anger out onto others so as to defend their own self perception.

Transference involves “placing mother or father’s face onto the therapist or another person”. That does sound very projection like and often the person is quite unaware they are doing it which is also a feature of the defence mechanism of projection.

However in transference the wife’s projection of father’s face onto her husband is not to defend ones self perception. She is not doing it to keep some unwanted urge or feeling in her unconscious. Hence it is not a defence mechanism in the technical sense of the word. Thus one could argue that it is not projection which is a defence mechanism which is designed to keep something out of the conscious.

So what does one conclude? It seems to me that humans are capable of projecting out internal feelings, thoughts, urges and relationship prototypes and so forth onto others in the world. We are all capable of the psychological process of projection. However there are a variety of reasons why a person would employ the process of projection of which all humans are capable. Thus we have two aspects of projection.

1. The psychological projection process.

2. The psychological motive behind the projection.

If the motive is to keep some undesirable feeling in the unconscious then we have the defence mechanism of projection.

If the motive is to place a relationship template onto another person then we have transference projection.

In answer to your question Roses. In transference people will use the psychological projection process but for different motives than it is used in the defence mechanism of projection.

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The serial nature of human attachment**

I have had prior opportunity to talk about the attachment process in humans. No matter what the relationship is when two humans meet they they initially go through a process of attachment development. I have used the relationship diagram to show this process.

Whilst all relationship go through this process they can do it in differing ways depending on what type of relationship it is

There can be the four stages of a romantic relationship that a man and woman go through.

1. Acquaintances

2. Honeymoon stage

3. Smothering - abandonment stage

4. Complete relationship

The honeymoon stage which usually lasts between 6 to 18 months is where the attachment builds up. Attachment building occurs when at least one of the parties views the other in an attractive and appealing light.

Then for some reason that is followed by a period where they couple set about separating and individuating from each other. They set about breaking down the attachment which they just spent all that time and energy creating. This occurs in the Smothering - abandonment stage of the model above.

Once done they set about doing the same again with someone else. This just seems to be the natural human condition. With attachment development of course comes the very strong inbred desire to maintain proximity to the other which is at the very core of human relationships and makes sure most stay together for that period. After the detachment period is ended they are more easily able to separate geographically if society allows such a thing. The love between them changes from an attachment based love to a FC to FC liking type of love. The psychological need to maintain proximity is reduced and they more choose to stay together (or not) rather than being biologically programmed to.

Hence we end up with the serial monogamy model of marriage. In a westernised family type of situation the attachment - detachment process takes about 7 to 10 years. After that they are more psychologically capable to geographically separate and this can explain why the divorce rate in such societies tends to hover around the 40 to 50 percent mark.

Of course the same can happen in the therapeutic relationship between the client and therapist. Compared to the marital relationship it is much more unequal in that it is more on the client’s side but the same process occurs as is shown in this diagram.

In the positive transference the client can develop a strong attachment and thus the desire to maintain proximity can be quite strong indeed. After that comes the negative transference where the client sets about breaking down the attachment they have just spent all that time developing. Once complete then the therapist becomes much less psychologically important to the client and the desire to maintain proximity reduces and eventually the client sort of outgrows the therapist and moves onto the next relationship. Again we have this serial quality in attachments in relationships.

Finally we have the child and mother relationship where the same takes place. The child spends the first two years developing a very strong attachment and thus a very strong desire to maintain proximity to mother. It then spends the next 16 years breaking down that attachment and separating and individuating. Whilst the overall process is the same it differs quite considerably in a number of ways than the two other relationships just described.

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