Envy and Gratitude
One of the areas that can trip up a child in early development and affect the rest of their lives is how they are able to manage the toxic emotion of envy. Like with reactivity and stress, much of envy could be manifesting at the outset after birth. “I consider that envy is an oral-sadistic and anal-sadistic expression of destructive impulses, operative from the beginning of life, and that it has a constitutional basis…” A test of this constitution comes from the introduction to the environment and how it compares to the instant gratification of the womb. “An element of frustration by the breast is bound to enter into the infant’s earliest relation to it, because even a happy feeding situation cannot altogether replace the pre-natal unity with the mother. Also, the infant’s longing for an inexhaustible and ever-present breast stems by no means only from a craving for food and [craving for positive attention]. For the urge even in the earliest stages to get constant evidence of the mother’s love is fundamentally rooted in anxiety. The struggle between life and death instincts and the ensuing threat of annihilation of the self and of the object by destructive impulses are fundamental factors in the infant’s initial relation to his mother. For his desires imply that the breast, and soon the mother, should do away with these destructive impulses and the pain of persecutory anxiety.” Under these conditions, the child is not noticing the independence of the mother and the limits of her creativeness. Throughout life, there needs to be an acceptance that creativity is limited whereas consumption is virtually unlimited.
As the infant’s mind develops memories, introjects identities, and projects fears, its demands towards the independent entity that feeds him, or her, may not be possible to satisfy completely. “Envy contributes to the infant’s difficulties in building up his good object, for he feels that the gratification of which he was deprived has been kept for itself by the breast that frustrated him…I would not assume that the breast is to him merely a physical object. The whole of his instinctual desires and his unconscious phantasies imbue the breast with qualities going far beyond the actual nourishment it affords…Envy is the angry feeling that another person possesses and enjoys something desirable—the envious impulse being to take it away or to spoil it.”
Object Relations: Melanie Klein Pt. 6: https://rumble.com/v4yxvm2-object-relations-melanie-klein-pt.-6.html
Greed and envy, is partially constitutional, and partially based on reactions to a disappointing reality. “Greed is an impetuous and insatiable craving, exceeding what the subject needs and what the object is able and willing to give. At the unconscious level, greed aims primarily at completely scooping out, sucking dry, and devouring the breast: that is to say, its aim is destructive introjection; whereas envy not only seeks to rob in this way, but also to put badness, primarily bad excrements and bad parts of the self, into the mother, and first of all into her breast, in order to spoil and destroy her. In the deepest sense this means destroying her creativeness. This process, which derives from urethral- and anal-sadistic impulses, [is] a destructive aspect of projective identification starting from the beginning of life. One essential difference between greed and envy, although no rigid dividing line can be drawn since they are so closely associated, would accordingly be that greed is mainly bound up with introjection and envy with projection.”
Infants caught in envy and greed believe the ideal breast is mostly denied to them and any positive experience is to be treated as a scarce moment that keeps one from fragmentation and death. The breast includes the behavior and personality of the mother in the beginning so it is something the infant feels is jealously guarding what is most desirable and keeping it for itself, because the infant doesn’t understand the limits of productivity and how exhausted resources can be in quantity and in tiredness when outside of the womb. “The first object to be envied is the feeding breast, for the infant feels that it possesses everything he desires and that it has an unlimited flow of milk, and love which the breast keeps for its own gratification. This feeling adds to his sense of grievance and hate, and the result is a disturbed relation to the mother. If envy is excessive, this, in my view, indicates that paranoid and schizoid features are abnormally strong and that such an infant can be regarded as ill…If we consider that deprivation increases greed and persecutory anxiety, and that there is in the infant’s mind a phantasy of an inexhaustible breast which is his greatest desire, it becomes understandable how envy arises [when] the baby is inadequately fed. The infant’s feelings seem to be that when the breast deprives him, it becomes bad because it keeps the milk, love, and care associated with the good breast all to itself. He hates and envies what he feels to be the mean and grudging breast…”
Grievances at the beginning interfere with the ability to consume the milk to satisfaction. In a way, the child is longing for the impossible unlimited breast and wants to trade up for it, and there’s also a desire to have independence and make the breast portable to control its availability. The feeling and release of “aaaaahhhhhh” after tension and craving, is not allowed to happen, which is needed to build in the mind a positive inner world. “The infant may have a grievance that the milk comes too quickly or too slowly; or that he was not given the breast when he most craved for it, and therefore, when it is offered, he does not want it any more. He turns away from it and sucks his fingers instead. When he accepts the breast, he may not drink enough, or the feed is disturbed. Some infants obviously have great difficulty in overcoming such grievances. [Even] the way the infant was held, whether comfortable or not, the mother’s attitude towards feeding, her pleasure in it or anxiety about it—all these factors are in every case of great importance.”
Despite these finicky demands, children have to accept that reality will never be as gratifying as the unconscious memory-ideal of the womb. That ideal continues in adults and appears as a desire that religious leaders, professionals, bureaucrats, psychologists, and other authority figures, are obligated to provide the special insights for clients into how one can enter a world where there is no effort or strain of any kind and bounty is unlimited. In today’s world the promise is coming from artificial intelligence, for example. Resigning oneself as an adult to pursue such unattainable ideals, or to indulge in idealization, which is a manic escape for Melanie, can save energy and therefore provide important relief from exhausting disappointment and devaluation. That relief is important because it avoids all the possible mental illnesses connected with this demand and harsh striving for heaven on earth. Energy can then be judiciously applied to realistic and accessible satisfactions, and there’s an ability to accept imperfection in oneself and others. “I have often referred to the infant’s desire for the inexhaustible, ever-present breast. But as has been suggested, it is not only food he desires; he also wants to be freed from destructive impulses and persecutory anxiety. This feeling that the mother is omnipotent and that it is up to her to prevent all pain and evils from internal and external sources is also found in the analysis of adults.”
5 Signs You’re Self-Regulating Through Future Fantasies (23:11) – Heidi Priebe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvHoF0tOsmM
Despite psychoanalysis having been criticized for creating spoiled children, this is only a reflection of popular attitudes towards the modality, which in reality strives for balance, and wants to avoid “both excessive frustration and too great indulgence…Though it is true that a too disciplinarian upbringing reinforces the child’s tendency to repression, we have to remember that too great indulgence may be almost as harmful for the child as too much restraint. The so-called ‘full self-expression’ can have great disadvantages both for the parents and for the child. Whereas in former times the child was often the victim of the parents’ disciplinarian attitude, the parents may now become the victims of their offspring…When dealing with our children, it is essential to keep a balance between too much and too little discipline. To turn a blind eye to some of the smaller misdeeds is a very healthy attitude. But if these grow into persistent lack of consideration, it is necessary to show disapproval and to make demands on the child.”
Infants will never be completely satisfied and parents shouldn’t attempt to stifle their need to vent when the time is appropriate. Crying and venting can provide release from internal pressure. A certain amount of imperfection in existence is needed to keep one from being static in development because all those nasty imperfections actually provide goals and repeated satisfactions to fill a life with meaning. The exact opposite of this would be to avoid all goals and efforts and look for entertainment or substances to recreate the instant gratification of the womb. This would atrophy all skills leading to a weakened ego, as can be seen in modern society with dependence on smartphones and other devices. The child needs the mother to do as much for it as possible, due to its helplessness, but infancy towards adolescence requires repeated weaning that eventually leads to an independent adult that can satisfy themselves as well as commit to making contributions for society. “Frustration, if not excessive, is also a stimulus for adaptation to the external world and for the development of the sense of reality…The infant’s unfulfilled desires—which are to some extent incapable of fulfilment—are an important contributory factor to his sublimations and creative activities. The absence of conflict in the infant, if such a hypothetical state could be imagined, would deprive him of enrichment of his personality and of an important factor in the strengthening of his ego. For [obstacles], and the need to overcome [them], is a fundamental element in creativeness.”
How to gain Flow in 7 steps: https://rumble.com/v1gvked-how-to-gain-flow-in-7-steps.html
So as the mother attempts to control the environment to repeatedly provide satisfaction for the child, envy in the child can stand in the way. Oral attacks to control and punish with gumming and biting, urethral projections to remove bad internal states through urination, and anal attacks, by trying to put feces and bad emotions into the miserly withdrawing stingy breast, gives satisfaction the appearance of impossibility. Nothing is good enough. “Envy spoils the primal good object, and gives added impetus to sadistic attacks on the breast. The breast attacked in this way has lost its value, it has become bad by being bitten up and poisoned by urine and faeces. Excessive envy increases the intensity of such attacks and their duration, and thus makes it more difficult for the infant to regain the lost good object; whereas sadistic attacks on the breast that are less determined by envy pass more quickly, and therefore do not, in the infant’s mind, so strongly and lastingly destroy the goodness of the object: the breast that returns and can be enjoyed is felt as an evidence that it is not injured and that it is still good.” If the object’s independence and creativity is spoiled then there’s nothing to compete for and no reason to envy.
If these greedy and envious feelings are allowed to develop into a character, the adult has “doubts in the possession of the good object and [a] corresponding uncertainty about [their] own good feelings [which] also contribute to greedy and indiscriminate identifications; such people are easily influenced because they cannot trust their own judgement…It is clear the deprivation, unsatisfactory feeding, and unfavorable circumstances intensify envy because they disturb full gratification, and a vicious circle is created…The fact that envy spoils the capacity for enjoyment explains to some extent why envy is so persistent. For it is enjoyment and the gratitude to which it gives rise that mitigate destructive impulses, envy, and greed. To look at it from another angle: [persecutory anxiety, greed, and envy], which are bound up with each other, inevitably increase each other.”
On the positive track, a child that is able to establish a good object in the mind has enough trust in the environment to delay gratification because it believes there is enough abundance in the world. This also reduces demands of perfection from others and improves relationships that are able to be flexible and operate when challenges arise. “Gratitude is essential in building up the relation to the good object and underlies also the appreciation of goodness in others and in oneself…[and is] the basis for all later relations with one loved person…The infant can only experience complete enjoyment if the capacity for love is sufficiently developed; and it is enjoyment that forms the basis for gratitude. Freud described the infant’s bliss in being suckled as the prototype of sexual gratification. In my view these experiences constitute not only the basis of sexual gratification but of all later happiness, and make possible the feeling of unity with another person; such unity means being fully understood, which is essential for every happy love relation or friendship. At best, such an understanding needs no words to express it, which demonstrates its derivation from the earliest closeness with the mother in the preverbal stage. The capacity to enjoy fully the first relation to the breast forms the foundation for experiencing pleasure from various sources.”
Object Relations: Melanie Klein Pt. 3: https://rumble.com/v4l5hvn-object-relations-melanie-klein-pt.-3.html
Object Relations: Melanie Klein Pt. 5: https://rumble.com/v4ur5j9-object-relations-melanie-klein-pt.-5.html
For people with busy demanding inner worlds, meditation is a way to relax rumination and feel that quenching satiation, like drinking a cold drink on a hot day. It makes sense that this quietude allows for creative thinking to arise and brings zest and meaning to further thinking and opens the door to positive emotions. Those with negative inner worlds find that door closed most of the time because the mind is constantly overwhelmed with criticism, emptiness, and a sense of lack. There’s not enough space and quietude to access that feeling of well-being where one can just be as they are in satisfaction and gratitude. “A full gratification at the breast means that the infant feels he has received from his loved object a unique gift which he wants to keep. This is the basis of gratitude. Gratitude is closely linked with the trust in good figures. This includes first of all the ability to accept and assimilate the loved primal object (not only as a source of food) without greed and envy interfering too much; for greedy internalization disturbs the relation to the object…The more often gratification at the breast is experienced and fully accepted, the more often enjoyment and gratitude, and accordingly the wish to return pleasure, are felt. This recurrent experience makes possible gratitude on the deepest level and plays an important role in the capacity to make reparation, and in all sublimations. Through processes of projection and introjection, through inner wealth given out and re-introjected, an enrichment and deepening of the ego comes about. In this way the possession of the helpful inner object is again and again re-established and gratitude can fully come into play…Gratitude is closely bound up with generosity. Inner wealth derives from having assimilated the good object so that the individual becomes able to share its gifts with others. This makes it possible to introject a more friendly outer world, and a feeling of enrichment ensues. Even the fact that generosity is often insufficiently appreciated does not necessarily undermine the ability to give. By contrast, with people in whom this feeling of inner wealth and strength is not sufficiently established, bouts of generosity are often followed by an exaggerated need for appreciation and gratitude, and consequently by persecutory anxieties of having been impoverished and robbed.”
Object Relations: Fear Of Success Pt. 2: https://rumble.com/v1gvuql-object-relations-fear-of-success-pt.-2.html
Why Narcissist Can’t Love (with Daria Żukowska, Clinical Psychologist) – Sam Vaknin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DS5bY5Maj8
These inner worlds affect character, because of their walled off qualities, often from idealization of panaceas, the denial of negative experiences, and feelings of scarcity, as well as a need for haste to greedily get what will soon be gone and exhausted. Through projection, the internal greed makes one project greed into the intentions of others, accurately or inaccurately. Even when someone opens the door to sharing love and pleasure, it can trigger envy in those predisposed because they don’t want something good that will just be taken away or spoiled. Might as well close the door. When characters of the positive type meet others who have access to a positive inner world, they have the keys of trust and self-acceptance to unlock the door to the beautiful garden where they can share and make exchanges. Even if things are impermanent, they feel gratitude for what was and are looking forward to what can be. Again, the balance here would be to have boundaries to avoid exploitation, but to not be so walled off that there’s no adventure of any kind. “Where persecutory anxiety is less strong, and projection, mainly attributing to others good feelings, thereby becomes the basis of empathy, the response from the outer world is very different. We all know people who have the capacity to be liked; for we have the impression that they have some trust in us, which evokes on our part a feeling of friendliness. I am not speaking of people who are trying to make themselves popular in an insincere way. On the contrary, I believe it is the people who are genuine and have the courage of their convictions who are in the long run respected and even liked…The introjection of a good object stimulates the projection of good feelings outwards and this in turn by reintrojection strengthens the feeling of possessing a good internal object. Re-introjection of the good object and of the good self reduces persecutory anxiety. Thus the relation to both the internal and external world improves simultaneously and the ego gains in strength and in integration.”
Oral Phase (Birth—1 year)
As childhood development continues, there are certain stages that arise partially in order, but they also overlap. Julia Segal, not to be confused with psychoanalyst Hanna Segal, noted that “[Melanie] agreed that oral, anal and genital interests followed each other, but she thought that they overlapped and built upon each other more than Freud did.” These are stages that stay in the mind as sediment in adulthood and can be influences to regress to when there are stresses and challenges too difficult to handle. “According to Abraham, anxiety makes its appearance on the cannibalistic level, while the sense of guilt arises in the succeeding early anal-sadistic phase.” The Oedipus Complex for Melanie is already starting at this time because the mother is preoccupied with the father and other siblings. This can cause feelings of greed and envy as well as persecutory fears of retaliation. “The very onset of the Oedipus wishes, however, already becomes associated with incipient dread of castration and feelings of guilt…And this seems to account satisfactorily for the genesis of such feelings, for we know the sense of guilt to be in fact a result of the introjection (already accomplished or, as I would add, in process of being accomplished) of the Oedipus love-objects…A child of about one year old [feels] the anxiety caused by the beginning of the Oedipus conflict [and it] takes the form of a dread of being devoured and destroyed. The child himself desires to destroy the [craved] object by biting, devouring and cutting it, which leads to anxiety, since awakening of the Oedipus tendencies is followed by introjection of the object, which then becomes one from which punishment is to be expected. The child then dreads a punishment corresponding to the offence: the super-ego becomes something which bites, devours and cuts.”
When the depressive position is first encountered, the child is sufficiently healthy to accept enough reality to make out key individuals in his or her life. Awareness of both good and bad aspects of people reduces some of the splitting, and suppression can be now used to control the negative impulses, and repression by parents, of these now conscious negativities, begins to take hold. “Only by strong repression can the still very feeble ego defend itself against a super-ego so menacing.” These early stages of oral introjection and anal projection involve experiences of punishment from external parents and anticipations of punishments from internal parents, which can then be unconscious triggers in later life when threats are perceived. A lot of reason why people have such trouble dealing with reactivity is because it has such a primal source and has been on line for such a long time. This is another reason for analysands to start a meditation practice or go to therapy to make conscious these reactions so they can be controlled more easily. “Another reason why the direct connection between the pregenital phase of development and the sense of guilt is so important is that the oral and anal frustrations, which are the prototypes of all later frustrations in life, at the same time signify punishment and give rise to anxiety. This circumstance makes the frustration more acutely felt, and this bitterness contributes largely to the hardship of all subsequent frustrations.”
Anal Phase (1-3 years)
Epistemophilia continues in the anal phase where the child thinks about their own insides and the insides of the mother. Rudimentary sexual theories include fecal babies, and through projection, the mother is assumed to be filled with them as well. “The child is still dominated by the anal-sadistic craving-position which impels him to wish to appropriate the contents of the body. He thus begins to be curious about what it contains, what it is like, etc. So the epistemophilic instinct and the desire to take possession come quite early to be most intimately connected with one another—and at the same time with the sense of guilt aroused by the incipient Oedipus conflict. This significant connection ushers in a phase of development in both sexes which is of vital importance, hitherto not sufficiently recognized. It consists of a very early identification with the mother.”
Of course any dirtiness associated with the raising of a baby has to be cleaned up by the parents, and it may include some forms of punishment and or negative vocalization. “In the early anal-sadistic stage the child sustains his second severe trauma, which strengthens his tendency to turn away from the mother. She has frustrated his oral desires, and now she also interferes with his anal pleasures [in toilet training]. It seems as though at this point the anal deprivations cause the anal tendencies to amalgamate with the sadistic tendencies. The child desires to get possession of the mother’s faeces, by penetrating into her body, cutting it to pieces, devouring and destroying it. Under the influence of his genital impulses, the boy is beginning to turn to his mother as a love-object. But his sadistic impulses are fully at work, and the hate originating in earlier frustrations is powerfully opposed to his object-love on the genital level. A still greater obstacle to his love is his dread of castration by the father, which arises with the Oedipus impulses. The degree to which he attains the genital position will partly depend on his capacity for tolerating this anxiety. Here the intensity of the oral-sadistic and anal-sadistic fixations is an important factor. It affects the degree of hatred which the boy feels towards the mother; and this, in its turn, hinders him to a greater or lesser extent in attaining a positive relation to her. The sadistic fixations exercise also a decisive influence upon the formation of the super-ego, which is coming into being whilst these phases are in the ascendant. The more cruel the super-ego the more terrifying will be the father as castrator, and the more tenaciously, in the child’s flight from his genital impulses, will he cling to the sadistic levels, from which levels his Oedipus tendencies, too, in the first instance, take their colour. In these early stages all the positions in the Oedipus development are [emotionally invested] in rapid succession.”
Femininity Phase (2-4 years)
Melanie added a femininity phase to cover the time when children, both boys and girls, equate babies with feces and want to takeover the mother role. “We have now reached that phase of development of the ‘femininity-phase’. It has its basis on the anal-sadistic level and imparts to that level a new content, for faeces are now equated with the child that is longed for, and the desire to rob the mother now applies to the child as well as to faeces. Here we can discern two aims which merge with one another. The one is directed by the desire for children, the intention being to appropriate them, while the other aim is motivated by jealousy of the future brothers and sisters whose appearance is expected, and by the wish to destroy them in the mother. (A third object of the boy’s oral-sadistic tendencies inside the mother is the father’s penis.) As in the castration complex of girls, so in the femininity complex of the male, there is at bottom the frustrated desire for a special organ. The tendencies to steal and destroy are concerned with the organs of conception, pregnancy and [child birth], which the boy assumes to exist in the mother, and further with the vagina and the breasts, the fountain of milk, which are coveted as organs of receptivity and bounty from the time when the [craving] position is purely oral.” So both boys and girls are searching for what they don’t have.
Case Studies: ‘Little Hans’ – Sigmund Freud: https://rumble.com/v1gu93b-case-studies-little-hans-sigmund-freud.html
In the midst of rivalry with parents the child suffers persecutory feelings for hogging attention of the mother and wanting to control her. Earlier on, the child views the mother and father as a parent unit, before later developments sketch out reality. “The boy fears punishment for his destruction of his mother’s body, but, besides this, his fear is of a more general nature, and here we have an analogy to the anxiety associated with the castration wishes of the girl. He fears that his body will be mutilated and dismembered, and this dread also means castration. Here we have a direct contribution to the castration complex. In this early period of development the mother who takes away the child’s faeces signifies also a mother who dismembers and castrates him. Not only by means of the anal frustrations which she inflicts does she pave the way for the castration complex in terms of psychic reality she is also already the castrator.” Here it’s important to remember that castration is a feeling of intimidation.
Object Relations: Fear Of Success Pt. 1: https://rumble.com/v1gvsvj-object-relations-fear-of-success-pt.-1.html
Both boys and girls react to toilet training and try to trade up for another parent to soothe themselves. “The anxiety associated with the femininity-phase drives the boy back to identification with the father; but this stimulus in itself does not provide a firm foundation for the genital position, since it leads mainly to repression and over-compensation of the anal-sadistic instincts, and not to overcoming them. The dread of castration by the father strengthens the fixation to the anal-sadistic levels. The degree of constitutional genitality also plays an important part as regards a favourable issue, i.e. the attainment of the genital level. Often the outcome of the struggle remains undecided, and this gives rise to neurotic troubles and disturbances of potency. Thus the attainment of complete potency and reaching the genital position will in part depend upon the favourable issue of the femininity-phase…As a result of the process of weaning, the girl-child has turned from the mother, being impelled more strongly to do so by the anal deprivations she has undergone. Genital trends now begin to influence her mental development.” Like Freud’s “to be or to have,” the girl now takes interest in having the father and being the mother, to gain the power to make babies. When the boy turns away from the mother’s discipline, he wants to have the mother and be the father, to also be a part of making babies.
The depressive position is important for Melanie in this phase for both children. The boy has to give up his earlier sadistic rivalry with taking the mother’s position. “…A necessary condition for sexual potency should be that the boy believes in the ‘goodness’ of his penis—that is, in his capacity to make restitution by means of the sexual act. This belief is bound up with…the belief that the inside of his body is in a good state…In women there is universally the wish to be a man, expressed perhaps most clearly in terms of penis envy; similarly one finds in men the feminine position, the longing to possess breasts and to give birth to children. Such wishes are bound up with an identification with both parents and are accompanied by feelings of competitiveness and envy, as well as admiration of the coveted possessions. These identifications vary in strength and also in quality, depending on whether admiration or envy is the more prevalent.” Envy is desiring to be, and admiration is desiring to have.
[Boy: -> Let go of sibling rivalry (womb) -> Let go mother-identification -> Realize Father’s role in making children (mysterious) -> Self-admiration for value and purpose of the penis -> Admiration for the mother -> Constitutionality -> Which role is more fun?]
Phallic Phase (3–4 years)
The haphazard development eventually leads to sex roles that become more fixed. “The boy, when he finds himself impelled to abandon the oral and anal positions for the genital, passes on to the aim of penetration associated with possession of the penis. Thus he changes not only his [craving]-position, but its aim, and this enables him to retain his original love-object. In the girl, on the other hand, the receptive aim is carried over from the oral to the genital position: she changes her [craving]-position, but retains its aim, which has already led to disappointment in relation to her mother. In this way receptivity for the penis is produced in the girl, who then turns to the father as her love-object.”
Like Freud, Melanie believed in penis-envy as a sub-stage for girls, but the breast factors in strongly as well. “This early grievance about the lack of a penis is greatly magnified later on, when the phallic phase and the castration complex are fully active. Freud has stated that the discovery of the lack of a penis causes the turning from the mother to the father. My findings show, however, that this discovery operates only as a reinforcement in this direction: it is made at a very early stage in the Oedipus conflict, and penis-envy succeeds the wish for a child, which again replaces penis-envy in later development. I regard the deprivation of the breast as the most fundamental cause of the turning to the father.”
Unless the girl gets to the phallic phase and finds the father desirable in the receptive manner, the lack of an actual breast leads to another oral disappointment at the lower levels of development. “The girl’s relation to her mother causes her relation to her father to take both a positive and a negative direction. The frustration undergone at his hands has as its very deepest basis the disappointment already suffered in relation to the mother; a powerful motive in the desire to possess him springs from the hatred and envy against the mother. If the sadistic fixations remain predominant, this hatred and its over-compensation will also materially affect the woman’s relation to men. On the other hand, if there is a more positive relation to the mother, built up on the genital position, not only will the woman be freer from a sense of guilt in her relation to her children, but her love for her husband will be strongly reinforced, since for the woman he always stands at one and the same time for the mother who gives what is desired and for the beloved child. On this very significant foundation is built up that part of the relation which is connected exclusively with the father. At first it is focused on the act of the penis in coitus. This act, which also promises gratification of the desires that are now displaced on to the genital, seems to the little girl a most consummate performance…Later, when full satisfaction of the love-impulses is obtained, there is joined with this admiration the great gratitude ensuing from the long-pent-up deprivation. This gratitude finds expression in the greater feminine capacity for complete and lasting surrender to one love-object, especially to the ‘first love.'”
Part of the reason for so much desperation the girl feels is because motherhood looks so uncertain to her at this time. Any punishment can be construed as a threat against her ability to have children. “Because of the destructive tendencies once directed by her against the mother’s body (or certain organs in it) and against the children in the womb, the girl anticipates retribution in the form of destruction of her own capacity for motherhood or of the organs connected with this function and of her own children. Here we have also one root of the constant concern of women (often so excessive) for their personal beauty, for they dread that this too will be destroyed by the mother. At the bottom of the impulse to deck and beautify themselves there is always the motive of restoring damaged comeliness, and this has its origin in anxiety and sense of guilt…It is probable that this deep dread of the destruction of internal organs may be the psychic cause of the greater susceptibility of women, as compared with men, to conversion-hysteria and organic diseases.”
Kylie Jenner’s Guide to Lips, Brows, Confidence | Beauty Secrets | Vogue: https://youtu.be/vCJ6U7mQmYw?si=oZHzsPSAMC4pdzOB
Just like a boy can develop a super critical father figure in the super-ego, the girl can do so with a harsh super-ego mother. “I think that in order to explain how women can run so wide a gamut from the most petty jealousy to the most self-forgetful loving-kindness, we have to take into consideration the peculiar conditions of the formation of the feminine super-ego. From the early identification with the mother in which the anal-sadistic level so largely preponderates, the little girl derives jealousy and hatred and forms a cruel super-ego after the maternal imago. The super-ego which develops at this stage from a father-identification can also be menacing and cause anxiety, but it seems never to reach the same proportions as that derived from the mother-identification. But the more the identification with the mother becomes stabilized on the genital basis, the more will it be characterized by the devoted kindness of a bountiful mother-ideal.” So having a good-object mother or father in the mind that predominates over a tyrannical one can make a difference for imitation. Then when you add a weaker envy to be, and a stronger admiration to have, the roleplaying adjusts accordingly.
Because of the traditional roles bestowed on children, especially in the early 20th century, there’s still a masculine side to many girls that looks at men as targets for emulation and career success, as opposed to men being the ones who only assist with creating babies and provide a home to live in. “This positive affective attitude depends on the extent to which the maternal mother-ideal bears the characteristics of the pregenital or of the genital stage. But when it comes to the active conversion of the emotional attitude into social or other activities, it would seem that it is the paternal ego-ideal which is at work. The deep admiration felt by the little girl for the father’s genital activity leads to the formation of a paternal super-ego which sets before her active aims to which she can never fully attain. If owing to certain factors in her development the incentive to accomplish these aims is strong enough, their very impossibility of attainment may lend an impetus to her efforts which, combined with the capacity for self-sacrifice which she derives from the maternal super-ego, gives a woman, in individual instances, the capacity for very exceptional achievements on the intuitive plane and in specific fields.”
The pressure boys feel to be a provider increases at this stage as they play with toys and desire to entertain different vocations they would like to try. “The boy, too, derives from the feminine phase a maternal super-ego which causes him, like the girl, to make both cruelly primitive and kindly identifications. But he passes through this phase to resume (it is true, in varying degrees) identification with the father. However much the maternal side makes itself felt in the formation of the super-ego, it is yet the paternal super-ego which from the beginning is the decisive influence for the man. He too sets before himself a figure of an exalted character upon which to model himself, but, because the boy is ‘made in the image of’ his ideal, it is not unattainable. This circumstance contributes to the more sustained and objective creative work of the male.”
[Girl: -> Let go of sibling rivalry (womb) -> Let go of father-identification -> Realize Mother’s role in making children (mysterious) -> Self-admiration for value and purpose of the vagina -> Admiration for the father -> Constitutionality -> Which role is more fun?]
Latency Period (4–puberty)
In the latency period, the most intense studies and examinations are starting to ramp up and sexual impulses are repressed the most, yet development for children is continuing nonetheless leading to a focus that is much more on genitals. There is a displacement of pleasure-seeking from earlier levels onto the penis for males, and girls displace oral libido to the vagina. “I entirely agree with Helene Deutsch, who holds that the genital development of the woman finds its completion in the successful displacement of oral [craving] on to the genital. Only, my results lead me to believe that this displacement begins with the first stirrings of the genital impulses and that the oral, receptive aim of the genitals exercises a determining influence in the girl’s turning to the father. Also I am led to conclude that not only an unconscious awareness of the vagina, but also sensations in that organ and the rest of the genital apparatus, are aroused as soon as the Oedipus impulses make their appearance. In girls, however, [masturbation] does not afford anything like so adequate an outlet for these quantities of excitation as it does in boys. Hence the accumulated lack of gratification provides yet another reason for more complications and disturbances of female sexual development. The difficulty of obtaining full gratification by masturbation may be another cause for the girl’s repudiation of [it], and this may partly explain why, during her struggle to give it up, manual masturbation is generally replaced by pressing the legs together.” During this stage, the super-ego ideally is less harsh, more developed, and has some basic ethical standards.
Object Relations: Helene Deutsch Pt. 1: https://rumble.com/v2wrvg5-object-relations-helene-deutsch-pt.-1.html
Object Relations: Helene Deutsch Pt. 2: https://rumble.com/v2yepky-object-relations-helene-deutsch-pt.-2.html
Sexual Orientation
From the beginning, Melanie was looking at past theories and went back as early as possible to see if she could find proto-stages in the behavior of infants. “As I see it, the boy’s and girl’s sexual and emotional development from earliest infancy onwards includes genital sensations and trends, which constitute the first stages of the inverted and positive Oedipus complex; they are experienced under the primacy of oral [craving] and mingle with urethral and anal desires and phantasies. The [craving] stages overlap from the earliest months of life onwards, as described above. The positive [heterosexual] and inverted [homosexual] Oedipus tendencies are from their inception in close interaction.”
Sexuality Pt 2: Infantile Sexuality – Sigmund Freud: https://rumble.com/v1gtort-sexuality-pt-2-infantile-sexuality-sigmund-freud.html
Sexuality Pt 3: Homosexuality – Sigmund Freud & Beyond: https://rumble.com/v1gtqk5-sexuality-pt-3-homosexuality-sigmund-freud-and-beyond.html
Object Relations: Harry Stack Sullivan: https://psychreviews.org/object-relations-harry-stack-sullivan/
Smoke Sauna Sisterhood | Official Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u57aVf1-SBk
To keep it as simple as possible when it comes to homosexuality, which is not simple, you would look at the type of love the child is looking for via admiration, whether it’s masculine or feminine attention, and then extrapolate to which types of roles a child can play to secure that kind of love in exchange: by giving them what they want. Which type of love, masculine or feminine, can the individual provide best? What are they good at? Are they good at both? Children oscillate between a favorite mom or dad depending on which parent provides the most desired result, masculine or feminine attention, and which parent is the least punishing. They are also affected by the example set by their parents. Is my Dad a good provider? Is my Mom a good nurturer? Are they horrible examples?
Melanie Klein has many examples that add on to Freud’s but nothing systematic. With toilet training, the child could reject the disciplinarian attitudes of the parent or guardian involved and run to the other parent. The child can take on masculine or feminine roles which attract the opposite from others in their peer group. Sometimes the roles that are imitated replace most of sexuality because it’s the job or vocation that the child wants in sublimation, not the sexual relationship. In modern societies, there are also reverse heterosexual relationships where the wife is the main provider. Despite that, men are still more often rated on how good a provider they are, and women who appear more nurturing and empathetic are highly desired by those who can provide the masculine attention they are looking for. Sexuality can be whole objects or part-objects, and Klein is similar to Freud on this. Certain sexual organs, homo or heterosexual are more desirable to the individual than others. Which organs are they proficient at in achieving maximum pleasure? Is there sexual dysfunction like frigidity or premature ejaculation? Some are interested in romance, but not the sexuality, and vice versa. The elephant in the room is sexual abuse attention from adults and how that impacts the incorporation, or sampling experiences of the child. How many sexual experiences has the child or adolescent had? How much variety? Are preferences different if there’s more sampling? What volume and intensity of craving is there for masculine or feminine attention? Is it a percentage that is more one way or another, or equal?
Blur – Girls And Boys: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDswiT87oo8
Alan Turing: Gay codebreaker’s defiance keeps memory alive – BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-18350956
You can also look at constitutionality. What kind of genetic makeup and hormonal structure makes a man look like an attractive woman? What about women who look more authentically masculine? Because they may not provide the sex specific characteristics that a heterosexual wants, the attention they are likely to get is homosexual, unless it’s a reverse heterosexual dynamic. Whether someone grooms themselves in a more masculine or feminine way it is more or less successful depending on how masculine or feminine a person looks overall. Because we are talking about couples, some lesbian women are more feminine or masculine. The same is true for homosexual men. Some men want a man who is shorter and has more feminine characteristics. Others want a man who is larger and more masculine. If the man dresses as a woman, is he convincing enough to turn the heads of heterosexual men? Does he look like a linebacker in a dress? Maybe someone wants a linebacker in a dress? As Freud saw, some people like the mixture and want a woman with a penis or a man with a vagina.
The typical result of psychoanalysis for unwanted sexual desires are analysands who struggle with what it means to be a good provider or nurturer. How do they look physically? Can they find the authentic craving for a sex type and be the role model that sends the signal to the opposite sex? Maybe it’s authentic that they will only send a signal that attracts homosexual attention? Inauthentic craving would be to desire narcissistic attention from authority figures critical of the orientation. There’s a strong pull to be heterosexual so as to enjoy a reduction of abuse and more opportunities in the economy, but it’s empty because the authentic cravings are repressed. There would also have to be a discussion on the modern workplace and how power differentials have changed, and how that affects feelings of masculinity or femininity. What does money do to sexual feelings? What happens to people’s libido, or craving, when they idealize someone in power? What happens in a society if masculine or feminine roles become more difficult to achieve in a particular economy? The complexity between genetics and the environment keeps expanding as psychoanalysis continues on in the 20th century.
Adulthood
Once adolescents grow up and enter higher education and the adult world, all the prior influences have left their mark. Many people may not like what they see in their minds. Their inner worlds may not be optimum, but most people trudge along with their newfound freedom and make the best of it. There are many others who feel like they need to look inside because their ability to adapt is failing. As Pierre Janet observed, “the best indication or symptom of normality is the ability every physically fit person possesses of turning his attention, immediately and easily, to a topic or object presented for his consideration by his surrounding. If he is ill, obviously his capacity to do this will be immediately affected.” These inner worlds are full of distracting phantasies, with a -ph instead of an -f, that are distinct from daydreams. “Isaacs put it in her paper (1952) on this subject ‘Phantasy is (in the first instance) the mental [result], the psychic representative of instinct. There is no impulse, no instinctual urge or response which is not experienced as unconscious phantasy…A phantasy represents the particular content of the urges or feelings (for example, wishes, fears, anxieties, triumphs, love or sorrow) dominating the mind at the moment.'”
Analytical Psychology: The French School: https://rumble.com/v4pemmz-analytical-psychology-the-french-school.html
In the typical heterosexual result after the children finish their school and try out their vocations, these new relationships ideally are solving all the past problems with family via complementariness. “The penis is then felt to be a good and curative organ, which shall afford the woman pleasure, cure her injured genital and create babies in her. A happy and sexually gratifying relationship with the woman affords him proofs of the goodness of his penis, and also unconsciously gives him the feeling that his wishes to restore her have succeeded. This not only increases his sexual pleasure and his love and tenderness for the woman, but here again it leads to feelings of gratitude and security. In addition, these feelings are apt to increase his creative powers in other ways and to influence his capacity for work and for other activities. If his wife can share in his interests (as well as in love and in sexual satisfaction), she affords him proofs of the value of his work.” If there’s excessive disharmony in the new marriage the desire to trade up returns with patterns of attraction to others to either replicate the family of origin, or to fill in gaps missing in the last relationship. This can be a good change, but if it’s based on idealization, the partner trading up will find themselves always wanting to trade up because there is no realistic partner to satisfy idealistic phantasies, because all choices in the world outside of the womb involve trade-offs and drawbacks.
If stress is going all the way back to the persecutory paranoid-schizoid position, it can trigger familiar defense mechanisms that are often a source for addictive tendencies. A quiet peaceful mind, especially one that has undergone successful therapy, has less need to chase these things. “One of the factors which bring about the repetition compulsion is the pressure exerted by the earliest anxiety situations. When persecutory and depressive anxiety and guilt diminish, there is less of an urge to repeat fundamental experiences over and over again, and therefore early patterns and modes of feelings are maintained with less tenacity. These fundamental changes come about through the consistent analysis of the transference; they are bound up with a deep-reaching revision of the earliest object-relations and are reflected in the patient’s current life as well as in the altered attitudes towards the analyst.”
Those who instead develop to become anti-social may be in and out of institutions their entire lives. Because repression has a purpose and meaning, the goal isn’t to remove all repressions, otherwise society would fall apart very quickly. “As we know, the mechanism of repression is mostly directed by the judging, criticizing faculties of the super-ego. It is evident that the deepest repressions are those which are directed against the most unsocial tendencies…As the individual repeats biologically the development of mankind, so also does he do it psychically. We find, repressed and unconscious, the stages which we still observe in primitive people: cannibalism and murderous tendencies of the greatest variety. This primitive part of a personality entirely contradicts, the cultured part of the personality, which is the one that actually engenders the repression.”
Psychoanalysis – Sigmund Freud and Beyond: https://rumble.com/v1gvgq7-psychoanalysis-sigmund-freud-and-beyond.html
When therapy is closer to its end, there is often a need for repetition to make clear the insights so the mind doesn’t forget and revert back to old defense mechanisms. There are no perfect results, but there are some markers for improvement. “A well-integrated personality is the foundation for mental health. I shall begin by enumerating a few elements of an integrated personality: emotional maturity, strength of character, capacity to deal with conflicting emotions, a balance between internal life and adaptation to reality, and a successful welding into a whole of the different parts of the personality.”
When it comes to vocations, goals, and ambitions, Melanie felt that peace of mind must be allowed in the equation. “Some striving for external success is quite compatible with a strong character if it does not become the focus on which satisfaction in life rests. In my observation, if that is the main aim, mental balance is insecure. External satisfactions do not make up for the lack of peace of mind. This can only come about if inner conflicts are reduced and therefore trust in oneself and in others has been established. If such peace of mind is lacking, the individual is liable to respond to any external [reversals] with strong feelings of being persecuted and deprived…When judgement is not blurred by persecutory anxiety and idealization, a mature outlook is possible.”
Because we are all human, there will be no therapy that recreates the instant gratification of the womb. A realistic outlook needs to allow some surrender where searching for panaceas ends. Therefore there will always be some form of loneliness or emptiness to cope with. “This state of internal loneliness, I will suggest, is the result of a ubiquitous yearning for an unattainable perfect internal state.” For Melanie, a diminished use of defenses, and an increase in adaptation to reality, provides the best chance to keep loneliness to a minimum, including loneliness found in the midst of others. Adaptation mitigates hate with love. Because anxiety in a mortal life cannot be perfectly controlled, the experience of stress will always create some split off defenses, so “the lost parts too, are felt to be lonely.” When people are not able to secure enough positive memories, a desperation can enter. “[Melanie] suggests that older people, to avoid and deny loneliness and current frustrations, may get lost in, and idealize, the past, just as young people may idealize the future for similar reasons.”
Love, Guilt and Reparation: And Works 1921-1945 (The Writings of Melanie Klein, Volume 1) by Melanie Klein: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780743237659/
The Language of Psychoanalysis – Jean Laplanche: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780367328139/
Waska, R. (2002). Fragmentation, persecution and primitive guilt. Psychodynamic Practice, 8(2), 147–162.
Carstea D. The versatility of the Kleinian model. Melanie Klein’s theory and formulations of morality and forgiveness. J Psychol Clin Psychiatry. 2023;14(3):82‒86.
Essential Readings from the Melanie Klein Archives – Jane Milton: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780367337902/
Freud and Beyond – Stephen A. Mitchell: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780465098811/
Psychology: https://psychreviews.org/category/psychology01/