Citation

Mester R. Br. J. Psychother. 1986; 3(1): 20-26.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1986, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.1752-0118.1986.tb00951.x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Envy and empathy are both object-related manifestations. The therapist's experience of envy in the course of the therapeutic process is potentially a springboard to the empathic understanding of the patient's immediate psychological state. Fragments of psychotherapies illustrate: (1) the gradual transmutation of the therapist's internalised image of the patient through the progressive understanding of the therapist's own envy; (2) how the resolution of the therapist's envy opens the way to therapeutic empathy. Countertransferential envy may block the road to therapeutic empathy. The blockage in the cases discussed in this paper function mainly through the use of projection, projective identification and extensive denial. The activation of such mechanisms was rooted in: (1) fear of loneliness and abandonment; (2) anxiety about losing control of aggressive impulses; (3) narcissistic pain. The detection and elaboration by the therapist of his/her own envy removed the blockage to understanding and permitted the empathic analysis of the envied qualities of the patients.