Self-envy is a psychoanalytic concept developed by Rafael López-Corvo who argues that it is crucial for the understanding of disorders of the self that are manifested in addictions, acting out, and inhibition of creativity. This concept is based on the use of object relations theory, that many psychoanalysts view as a fundamental instrument for examining the architecture of the internal world that describes behavior as influenced by the multiple interactions of early representations of self and other that operate in our inner selves.
Rafael E. Lopez-Corvo is a psychoanalyst. He served on the editorial board of the International Journal of Psycho-Analysis and was an associate professor at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He has a private practice in Toronto. He is a member of the International Psychoanalytical Association.
Object relations theory in psychoanalytic psychology is the process of developing a psyche in relation to others in the environment during childhood. Based on psychodynamic theory, the object relations theory suggests that the way people relate to others and situations in their adult lives is shaped by family experiences during infancy. For example, an adult who experienced neglect or abuse in infancy would expect similar behavior from others who remind them of the neglectful or abusive parent from their past. These images of people and events turn into objects in the unconscious that the "self" carries into adulthood, and they are used by the unconscious to predict people's behavior in their social relationships and interactions.
Self-envy is produced by 'child part self-objects', self representations from early development that remain split off from the self and harbor destructive and envious feelings toward the creative aspects of the self and results from direct aggressive attacks by these childhood self-objects against the part of the self identified with a harmonious mother-father or parent-sibling relationship.
The internal dynamics of self-envy cause intense unconscious conflict, dissociation, and disturbances of the self, all of which underlie severe psychopathologies, such as repetitive destructive behavior, and even the living of seemingly normal but constricted lives. López-Corvo suggests that the psychoanalytic interpretation of such patients, for whom one part of the self is ruthlessly pitted against another, should address directly the phenomenon of a war within the internal self.
The unconscious mind consists of the processes in the mind which occur automatically and are not available to introspection, and include thought processes, memories, interests, and motivations.
Psychopathology is the scientific study of mental disorders, including efforts to understand their genetic, biological, psychological, and social causes; develop classification schemes (nosology) which can improve treatment planning and treatment outcomes; understand the course of psychiatric illnesses across all stages of development; more fully understand the manifestations of mental disorders; and investigate potentially effective treatments.
W.C.M. Scott first used this term in 1975 in his article "Remembering sleep and dreaming: self-envy and envy of dreams and dreaming" in the International Review of Psychoanalysis, Vol. 2/3 (1975): 333-354. López-Corvo credits Scott in his paper "About Interpretation of Self-Envy" in the same journal (1992): 73, 719, and also in his book Self-Envy: Therapy and the Divided Inner World, which also draws from Melanie Klein, Wilfred Bion, and other object-relations theorists in order to develop its more extended argument.
López-Corvo RE (1999). "Self-Envy and Intrapsychic Interpretation". Psychoanal Q. 68 (2).
Jason Aronson is an American publisher of books in the field of psychotherapy. Topics dealt with in these books include child therapy, family therapy, couple therapy, object relations therapy, play therapy, depression, eating disorders, personality disorders, substance abuse, sexual abuse, stress, trauma, bereavement, and other subjects.
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