Jealousy

Developmental, Cultural, and Clinical Realms

Mary Kay O'Neil, Salman Akhtar, Mary Kay O’Neil, Salman Akhtar, Mary Kay O'Neil

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9781000153149
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Creative Ability in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Jealousy is a human feeling experienced by everyone in varying intensities, at different times and phases of growth. Frequently confused, jealousy and envy are often intertwined. Even within the psychoanalytic literature confusion persists and much less has been written about jealousy than envy. However, unlike envy, jealousy involves three entities and affects all people involved. It can be painful as other difficult-to-bear feelings (e.g. shame, guilt anger, hatred) underlie jealousy. Yet, total absence of jealousy renders a person less human, less relational. In analytic terms jealousy is a defense against emotional anguish.

This book begins with an extensive overview of the nature, developmental origins and poignant cultural (especially poetic) allusions to jealousy, emphasizing that it is through artistic expression that a true understanding of this frequently deeply disturbing feeling is achieved. It closes with a thoughtful summary, synthesis and critique of the chapters by 12 distinguished analysts.

PART I

DEVELOPMENTAL REALM

CHAPTER TWO

Jealousy among mothers

Maxine K. Anderson

Jealousy may be underrepresented in our psychoanalytic understanding, often being confused with envy, likely because jealousy and envy are entwined in our experience. Simply put, envy refers to “the desire to have what someone else has; jealousy is this (envy) as well as wanting the other person not to have it” (Spielman, 1971, p. 60). In envy, one covets what another person possesses and feels less in not possessing that object. The relationship involved in envy is the dyad. In jealousy, the configuration is the triad and the coveted object is usually another’s love or attention. One is jealous when a third person seems to have intruded and taken or possessed that affection. In jealousy, there is usually envy of the now-lost affection plus the bitterness toward the intruder who appears to be responsible for that loss, the one who seems to have stolen the coveted love. Many authors emphasize that jealousy harbors more intense feeling, bitterness, and hatred, as well as the longing and loss.

In the psychoanalytic literature, different authors give different emphases to envy and jealousy, depending largely upon their theoretical orientation. Thus, Kleinian authors (Klein, 1975; Riviere, 1932; Spillius, 1993), who focus on the earliest object relationships, stress the importance of envy that may emerge in the earliest stages of the differentiation of the ego functions. During this time, otherness only threatens to deprive or to persecute, and the loss of control of the supplies one needs feels catastrophic. These vulnerable states may trigger a pain such that spoiling the now un-possessed good is felt to be preferable to letting it exist beyond the grasp of the envier. Envy also isolates the envier who barely notices the existence of others; the focus of envy operates on primarily narcissistic considerations. That is, the focus is on one’s own need and satisfaction without concern for others (Spielman, 1971).

While jealousy involves more developed levels of relatedness to objects in its recognition of triangularity in relationships, it is important to consider that jealousy is rooted in the earlier experiences of envy. For this discussion of jealousy between mothers, an appreciation of the entwinement of envy and jealousy will be assumed. In both circumstances, narcissistic pain accompanies the sense of loss; it may be mild or if more intense, it may be experienced and expressed as mortifying humiliation. A varying degree of anger or aggression may also accompany envy or jealousy, and it is likely that the degree of aggression will parallel the depth of the narcissistic pain.

Developmental considerations

Earliest development begins with emergence or awakening within the dyad of the mothering presence. While the newborn has innate expectations for self and other (Mancia, 1981; Panksepp & Bevin, 2012; Trevarthen, 1996), it is generally thought that the newborn experiences a merged dyad for the first several weeks or even months of life. Indeed, Winnicott (1975) suggests that during this time, there is “no such thing as a baby” (p. 99), separate from his enveloping maternal environment. The gradual dissolution of this merger, which occurs as the infant gains a sense of a separate self is of course important developmentally. Envy is likely to be triggered when the infant feels deprived of that previous soothing merger and yet aware of its continued existence. This would be a kind of “warmth but not for me” state of mind. The previously soothed self feels bereft and in pain as it senses that the warmth has been lost and yet still exists. Loss of contact with, and also loss of control of that so-needed warmth are both basic to envy. In good enough developmental circumstances, the child gains a sense of continuity in his being less dependent on maternal supplies for his very existence, and thus less prone to envy. But in families with several children, the mingling of envy and jealousy may be prominent among the older children who have to navigate the experience of a new baby taking the supplies previously offered to them. This may be done smoothly if the mother appreciates the older children’s growing emerging selves, but traces of the previous pains may persist.

In the good enough developmental situation, as the child gains the sense of her continuity-of-being, the capacity to share and to appreciate the existence of others generally grows. Jealousy may then be thought of as coming on line as it occurs when the ego is more developed, especially in terms of the awareness of separateness: the ego has developed beyond the need to possess and to maintain the exclusive relation with the prized other, but it still strives to maintain the illusion of having a special if not central place with that so-valued other. The envy of the new baby may have been significantly metabolized by the mother’s intuitive recognition of her need to appreciate her growing child’s capacities. Maintaining him in a place of warmth and love is often vital in fostering the emergence from the entrapping envy. But navigating envy of the lost supplies still leaves the triadic feelings of loss of privilege to others, as signified by the intensity of oedipal strivings. How and whether the child manages this phase-appropriate jealousy is likely shaped by her innate resilience to painful affect, but also to the empathic offerings from the parental figures.

While the goal of envy is to eradicate the sense of having been diminished by losing control of existing supplies, the goal in jealousy is to regain the wished-for relationship. This may bring hope in terms of restitution as a goal in jealousy. An important consideration in both envy and jealousy is shame. Lansky (2005) and Schore (1991) suggest that shame, the sense of diminishment or being compared negatively in one’s own as well as others’ eyes, is a primary cause of the psychic pain which underlies both envy and jealousy.

Contributions of affective neuroscience

Psychoanalysts may be enriched by the contributions of contemporary affective neuroscience, which informs us that there are innate affects—the legacy of evolution—which color our emerging experience (Panksepp & Bevin, 2012). Research reveals that all vertebrates investigated have deeply embedded ancient mid-brain structures that give rise to various affects. The arousals which mammals including man experience when quiescent well-being is disturbed are tinged with rather specific responses, such as fear or rage, sexual urgency, or separation distress. These specific affects trigger in stereotypic ways the action needed to quell the disturbance: Fear propels the animal to flee, rage to attack, threats to attachment expressed as distress calls speak clearly and urgently to the mother who is impelled to respond. These innate affects propel one toward tension-relieving action. The threats to attachment trigger impulses in adult females toward nurturing and tender care, aspects of what we consider to be part of maternal instincts. And a specific pro-social neural circuitry that Panksepp calls CARE seems to have developed by way of evolution in response to the length of vulnerability of the infant and his frequent need for attentive, comforting care. The hormone, oxytocin, facilitates this caring, nurturing bonding behavior in all mammals tested. Oxytocin also modifies the more aggressive affects in both males and females. We might consider it a civilizing biochemical, important in the development of attentive care and transformation of pain and distress. Indeed, neuroscientists suggest that oxytocin and the caring circuit are the bases of the development of empathy and compassion.

All of this is brought forward to underscore the degree of complexity and the significant impact of many underlying emotions having to do with care in this discussion involving jealousy between mothers. It is important to realize that the emotions which comprise envy and jealousy, which include loss, separation, fear, and rage, are not superficial, but innate and urgent, often triggering deep pain.

Mothering pairs

Two of the most obvious pairings of mothers are those between mother and daughter, and between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. The relationship between a mother and her daughter, of course, impacts the quality of the mothering involving the two women when the daughter has a baby of her own. The way she was mothered will be implicit in the daughter’s ministrations to her own baby. While she may not be able to consciously remember how she was mothered, we know via the functions of implicit memory that she will naturally tend to her baby as she felt tended to when she was a baby, although contemporary learning from friends and others will also lend impact.

Mary was the older of two daughters, a long-welcomed baby to a happily married couple. Her mother did not work outside the home during Mary’s early years, and Mary grew up within an atmosphere of attentive care and maternal time devoted in an unpressured way toward her and her four-year-old younger sister’s care. As she came to consider motherhood herself, Mary intuitively seemed to replicate the spaciousness and attentiveness for her babies that she had experienced from her own mother. This included her thoughtful choices about career that allowed the flexibility needed for full-time patient attention to her children in their early years. Also, it seemed that she was able to avoid the pressures that her peers often experienced amid competing choices about career and family. Mary’s sense of security about her mothering was based in part upon her having felt well-held in mind by her caretaking persons during her early years. While Mary’s mother, feeling internally well-grounded, was subject to the normative jealousies which arise when daughters marry and begin their own families, her internal security allowed her to appreciate the new freedoms and perspectives available to grandparenthood. She offered counsel to her daughters only upon their request. The normative effects of loss and jealousy can be mitigated when spacious thought, attentiveness, and self-respect offer underlying sturdiness to the personality.

Mary’s friend, Nancy, grew up under different circumstances: She was the product of an unplanned pregnancy for a couple in their late teens. Each came from family situations governed more by impulsive behavior and abrupt rules than by thought-based values. As an unplanned child, Nancy felt herself to be an irritant or even a burden to her often overwhelmed mother. In contrast to Mary’s inner sense of ease and safety amid attentive care, Nancy’s inner experience was more shaped by impatience, doubt, and abrupt “happenings.” Not guided as much by thought and restraint and often functioning on a concrete level, she felt more at risk in a hostile world. When she began to date in adolescence, Nancy encountered her own unthought-about pregnancies with surprise and, at times, a sense of entrapment. Her children, unplanned themselves, and thus lacking the atmosphere of attentive regard, often felt the world to be unpredictable, and even a bit dangerous. The normative jealousies, attendant with loss and change, for Nancy and her own mother might well have been exacerbated due to the underlying insecurities, which shaped their insecure sense of self. As the examples suggest, if the grandmother can graciously step aside and allow her own daughter (Mary) to explore and discover this new mothering role, offering lessons as needed, she may not feel painfully jealous about not being the primary caretaker. But very often the need for control (Nancy and her mother), and/or the pain of relinquishment of the primary caretaking role makes this difficult for a new grandmother. Similarly if the new mother has trouble trusting her own experience, automatically privileging the mothering role of her mother, she may develop resentment and even jealousy. She may feel shunted aside by the apparently greater influence and power of the older mothering person. A young mother’s mistrust of her own experience might be played out when she tries to overcompensate for what she felt were deprivations from her own mother. In many ways, the echoes of the mothering pair live on.

A potentially more complex relationship is that between the young mother and her mother-in-law, because this pairing almost invariably includes each woman’s relationship with the same man (the young woman’s husband as the mother-in-law’s son). This mothering pair is actually comprised of a triad. Whether a good enough relationship of mutual regard among all members of the triad is possible depends on the nature of the relationship between each two members of the triad.

A mother’s loss of her son to another woman seems to inflict pain and loss, no matter how secure and sturdy she may feel. Naomi came from an economically privileged family, which conveyed the message that Naomi and her siblings could expect little hardship in their lives, due to the insulation offered by their economic privilege. This assumption of emotional ease then led to jolting surprise and pain when the jealousies attendant to loss and exclusion could not be bypassed. This circumstance occurred especially as Naomi’s son, Norman, met and married Alexa, a woman who did not seem to meet the expectations of his mother. Whether any woman could have met Naomi’s “standards” may be a reasonable question. Her sense of entitlement likely augmented the normative pains of loss and jealousy. Norman had trouble declaring much independence from Naomi’s powerful questioning of the marital match. Naomi implicitly anticipated priority to mother Norman’s and Alexa’s children according to her own “standards.” Her unquestioned sense of offering her grandchildren all manner of economic gifts in spite of the wishes of Alexa especially made for ongoing tension between the mother and mother-in-law. Norman often found it easier to disappear into his work in order to avoid this tempest, which seemed at times impossible to quell.

Norman’s workmate, Nathan, came from an apparently less privileged family background where hard work was necessary to overcome economic adversity. But good physical health, sturdy temperaments, and that measure of luck which we all need at times offered his family the template of optimism that sincere work amid respect for self and others could lay the basis for emotional well-being needed for a successful life. Nathan and his sister grew up within this atmosphere, working as necessary to pay for schooling and preparation for their adult lives. In his twenties, Nathan met and married Susan, a classmate. Nathan’s mother, Laura, was pleased to welcome Susan into the family, while also aware that the family relationships would never be the same. Her son’s happiness, respect for Susan in her own right, and her wish for grandchildren made this a happy change. Laura’s basic sense of well-being allowed her to accept the inevitable losses but also made way for new possibilities as she grew into an available but not overweening grandparent. Each adult in the triad, Nathan, Susan, and Laura was able to respect the changes without rancor or jarring pain, and in so doing to welcome the new opportunities which opened up for each in the evolving family.

Complexity abounds in this generational consideration because the relationship between both grandmothers is important to consider. All of these relationships and the senses of inclusion/exclusion, security/insecurity, and the multiple transference manifestations between the generations influence the relative strength and variety of jealousies experienced. Because these relationships are deeply involved with entwined emotions and fantasies, as are all familial configurations, the focus here is on less complex mothering pairings to illustrate some aspects of jealousy.

A closer look at mothers’ jealousy

As noted earlier, women exposed to children generally develop care-taking urges. Women involved in caretaking the same children—be they stepmothers, housekeepers, nannies, teachers, therapists—may develop jealousies which may not be overtly recognized but which will certainly be felt and likely acted upon in overt and covert ways.

1) The first vignette involves the mother who employs a nanny or housekeeper for her own children. Especially if there are young children involved the caretaking emotions aroused are bound to include jealousy, perhaps on both sides: Anna is a married professional woman who for professional reasons needs a nanny to care for her growing children, a girl of three years and a baby about eight months of age. Beatrice, an unmarried competent girl in her twenties has been employed by Anna because of a personal fit between the two women. If the underlying inborn affects of caregiving are stimulated by the mere presence of infants it is possible that Beatrice could have these caregiving affects stimulated in her, especially if she plays an important role in the care-taking of young children. The degree of jealousy in each woman will of course depend on the evolving relationship between them, how much of the nurturing role Anna plays, and how much she leaves to Beatrice. Anna’s own need for nurture may tip the jealousy balance even to a proprietary degree in Beatrice. Likewise, Beatrice’s goals for herself, whether this role as caregiver is primary in her life, will also be vital. While both women remain healthy and balanced in their relationship the jealousy each may have for the other will likely be manageable.

In the second vignette Albert and Carole, both professionals, got married in their early thirties. By their tenth anniversary, they have three children, ages nine, seven, and five years. In order to support their active working lifestyle and manage the growing household they have employed Donna, a single mother with a young child of her own, as a live-in housekeeper and nanny. Donna’s duties include—besides the daytime care of the children and the routine care of the house—cooking evening meals for the children and often for the parents as well. Her live-in duties comprise a full-time job; she feels devoted to the family and the household. Her employers appreciate her work and contribution to the family and pay her well.

Carole, who has been deeply involved with her profession, has left much of the everyday care of the children to Donna. In the twelfth year of marriage, Carole is diagnosed with cancer and dies within several months of the diagnosis, despite the best medical care available. Albert and the three children are devastated, as is Donna, who responds by doubling her efforts for the children’s and indeed Albert’s care. The children, now eleven, nine, and seven years of age, look to her care and solace, which is of some comf...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• About the Editors and Contributors
• Introduction
• Prologue
• Part I: Developmental Realm
• Part II: Cultural Realm
• Part III: Clinical Realm
• Epilogue
• Notes
• References
• Index