Int. J. Psychoanal.
(2001) 82, 381
PAN EL R EPOR TS
EN VY, JEALOU SY AN D SH AM E
M oderated by F ABIO H ER R M AN N , SO P AU LO
R eported by H EITOR D E PAOLA, R IO D E J AN EIRO
The M oderato r opened the Panel at this very full
meetin g by announcing that after the presen tation of
the speakers he would read his own comments on the
three papers as well as present his opinions about
these impo rta nt issu es.
The first panellist, Ruth R iesen berg-M alcolm,
presen ted her paper in which she explores two differ-
ent ways of experien cing sham e. In the first one, con-
nected to extreme narcissistic function ing, the
patient feels that if he is not perfectio n itselfthus
fulfilling the demands of an interna l idealised
objecthe is the worst of all; this type of shame is
characteristic of the phase when the infant begins to
be aware of the separateness from the object. In
order to avoid envious feelings the infan t tries to dis-
avow this awareness, and when he/she can no longer
deny it a painful, acute shame feelin g is experien ced,
piercing like a stab, resembling a toothache.
The second type, altho ugh also rooted in narcis-
sism, is more mixed with phenomena from the
depressive position , producing a more complex emo-
tio nal experien ce that inter min gles shame with guilt.
Alth ough as painful as the previou s one, the painful
feelin gs acquire different qualities: it is more diffuse,
pervasive and more endurin g, heavy and oppressive
rather than acute, and inclu de states of self-accusa -
tio n and humiliation.
In order to examin e both these kinds of sham e the
panellist presented a very interestin g case. At the
beginning of the analysis the patien t felt sham e
whenever the analyst said something about which he
himself had not thought of before. H is reaction was
the one of a person who is stabbed . The analytic ses-
Panel held at the 41st Congress of the International Psychoanalytical Association, Santiago, Chile, 26 July
1999.
Panellists: R uth Riesenberg-Malcolm (London), Andrew P. M orrison (Cambridge, M A), Carlos Valedn
(Caracas).
sions were like semin ars in which two colleagues dis-
cussed an interesting psychologica l issue not
connected with anyone presen t in the room. The
author relates these narcissistic featu res to the earli-
est mental functio ning of the newborn: the predomi-
nance of splitting, projective and intro jective
identificatio n, omnipo tence and the fear of annihila-
tion . These early mecha nisms are used to produce a
state of oneness with the object of the tran sferen ce:
the analyst. When the patien t feels threaten ed by the
awareness of differen tiatio n, projective identificatio n
is used to achieve a reversa l of positions, the patient
becoming the analyst and vice versa .
In the clinica l example, the painful experience of
shame was triggered by a feeling that this oneness
was cut, exposing the patient to perceive the analyst
as the source of the interp retation s, and leading him
to feel inferior. Shame was thus an archaic reactio n
to separatio n from the object and had nothing to do
with being actua lly belittled or ridiculed from the
outsid e.
N ew clin ical data from the same patient are used
to illu strate a more common type of shame con-
nected to guilt and jealo usy. From the beginning of
the analysis the patien t was very seductive, wantin g
to show off his special capacities in order to charm
the analyst through a sensual, velvety way of speak-
ing. This attitud e was related to his relation ship to
his mother. Being the youngest and only male of
many siblin gs he was very close to his mother, relat-
ing to her in a very sensual way. Actually, he was very
gifted as a musician as well as a math ematicia n and
considered himself charmin g.
382 PAN EL R EPOR TS
Several months later he went to conduct his work
in a festival abroad and came back very excited with
what seemed to have been a highly praised perfor m-
ance and also with having fallen in love, actua lly a
very complicated brief affair. In consequence of the
latter, he felt ashamed in relatio n to the analyst and
guilty towards his girlfrien d. H e developed maso-
chistic atta cks against his badness, and simultane-
ously his artistic plans became grandiose. Through a
dream brought to analysis in this phase and his
behaviour both in analysis and in his extern al life,
the analyst was able to interpret that he was having a
relatio nship that indicated an awareness of the ana-
lyst as separated from him. This made the patient
curiou s about his analyst, but his curiosity was pro-
jected into the her, leading him to rema in a benevo-
lent though distan t observer, as he considered an
analyst should behave. In fact the patient thought
that he could be affectio nate and considerate but
that he could not really love anyone. Real love led
him to feel the analyst as a longed-for and needed
object that triggered his hate, and these apparently
paradoxical feelin gs puzzled him. U ntil then, what
he thought of as love were abstra ct relation ships,
with an unreal quality, and nothing about it could
be addressed or discussed. When things were for real
between him and the analyst he became exposed to
the experien ce of direct feelings towards the latter
and the sessio ns lost their seminar-like nature.
Whenever he felt he didnt own his objects with
exclusivity, jealousy became to the fore, and then he
not only turned away from the object but triu mphed
over it as well and could not love it any more. Then
he felt ashamed and guilty.
The second paper of this interestin g panel was
presented by Andrew P. M orrison and was
co-authored by M elvin Lansky, who also joined us
at the meetin g. The panellists in their paper tried to
establish a dialogue with K leinian ideas about envy,
jealo usy and shame, presen ting their own ideas in
contra st with K lein herself or with contempo rary
K lein ians.
F irst, they paid a tribu te to M elanie K lein for her
powerful and origin al conceptualisatio n of envy as
well as her clarification s that penis envy was not the
bedrock and irredu cible origin of envy. At the same
tim e they disagreed with K leins privileging of
innate aggressio nthe death instinctin the phe-
nomenology of envy. They also disagreed with K lein
concerning the kind of paranoid anxiety that is
present in the paranoid-schizoid positio n with
regard to envy. This they believed to be an exquisite
persecuto ry shame anxiety in which the shame is
projected and believed to be the delib erate intent of
the other to humiliate and stigmatise. In their view
envy is instigated by shameand is, thus, a varia-
tio n of narcissistic rage and not the evidence of a
primary aggressive drive.
Envy reflects the destructive idealisation of
another considered in relation to oneself, represent-
ing compariso n of self to other, with the self assum-
ing the lesser positio n. This comparison can also
give rise to contempt and pride. While in envy the
other is exalted and hated, in contemp t it is the other
that is despised and lowered in compariso n with an
elevated sense of oneself. The authors suggest that
the core emotio n in negative self-eva luation is
shame, its opposite being pride: the proud indivi-
dual has no need to envy the other nor to resort to
contempt towards some less fortu nate soul.
Shame and anxiety serve as warnin gs of im mi-
nent threats to connection with the other and can
represent an attem pt to repair or resto re the bond,
or, in the case of envy and contempt, to rem ove one-
self from the other who threatens rejection or loss.
F rom this perspective, envy and contempt are reflec-
tio ns of a shame-derived vision of Thanatos, as pro-
tective withdrawal from connectio n with needed
objects. This contrasts with K leinian view of envy as
a prima ry aggressive drive emanating from Thana-
tos.
Thus, envy and contemp t exemplify narcissistic
rage against experien ces of threats of inju ry.
Alth ough trying to reach the opposite outcom e, the
connectio n, usually an obsessed connection , with
the object is maintain ed, and when it is played out in
the transferen ce it exemplifies what M orriso n calls
the one-and-a-ha lf-p erson psychology: the patien t,
the analyst-as-ot her and the analyst-a s-created to
meet the patients needs.
As the authors themselves stated, the botto m lin e
of their presen tation in this panel is that envy and
contempt each are comparative and self-conscious
emotions, with shame lyin g downstream from each.
The ready transfo rmation of one into the other is
mediated by sham e, which is usually unconscious
and unbearable. The analytic treatment of envy and
contempt is well served by attun ement and sensiti-
vity to grasp hidden sham e and by tactfu l efforts to
bring it to ligh t. These efforts may yield greater
understan ding of the defensive needs for envy and
contempt, and a broader capacity to face, accept
and modify shame that has previou sly been kept
undergrou nd.
 PAN EL R EPOR TS
On these grounds the authors criticise K lein ian
theories as lacking an essential piece of the envious
feelin g: envy is built on comparison and therefore
must reflect self-co nsciousness. If envy reflects com-
parison with someone superior, this comparison
must be against a self felt to be inferior or in some
way defective, and this is due to a self-d erogatory
affect emanating from the ego ideal: this affect is
shame. G uilt, which often appears, screen s under-
lyin g shame, and this may conceal the basic shame
dynamic involved in the process of envy.
The authors described three main phenomena
that presen t a sequence, like a complemen tary series,
leading to envy and guilt-related dynamics: predis-
positio n towards shame, associated fantasies of not
being loved and a triggering experien ce of sham e.
The latter can obviously be the psychoanalytic set-
tin g with its inherent power differen tial and fanta-
sies about the marvello us life of the analyst.
The third panellist, Carlos Valedn, chose as his
main sub-them e shame as a motivation to analysis.
H e first emphasised the differen ce between Latin
America n and Anglo-American psychoanalytic lit-
eratu re in relatio n to the shame issu e: scarcely
addressed in the former it is abundant in the latter.
The author wondered about the underlying reason s
for this (cultural, lin guistics, differences in psycho-
analytic theory, etc.). Some main points came to the
fore: (1) the relative lesser imp ortance of the studies
about narcissism in Latin America as stressed by the
ego and self psychologies; (2) differentiation of
shame from related affects; (3) the inclu sion of phil-
osophic issues in psychoanalytic thought; (4) a
greater influen ce of other authors on narcissism; (5)
the authors idea that under ego and self psycholo-
gies, particular ly Kohutian views on narcissism, the
little anima l became an elephant, meaning that too
much im portan ce was attribut ed to shame and
related subjects in those quarters.
In the panellists clinica l experience, the appear-
ance of sham e in the tra nsference poses a difficulty
to the analysis as far as it induces the patient to con-
ceal parts of the material that could be regarded as
personal or relatin g to defects or inferio rities
vis--vis the analyst (ego ideal). Thus, a patien t con-
cealed her fathers dishonesty in business from
which she also had profits; another, a married man
in his forties, had to struggle against terrible shame
to talk about his compulsive masturbation ; a third
one was terribly ashamed of her homosexual fanta-
sies. N ot only the content but also the shame feeling
itself is freq uently concealed.
383
To illustrate an opposite function of shame feel-
ings, the author presen ted a case in which sham e
was the motive for seeking and maintain ing analy-
sis. A very gifted 32-year-o ld man from a rich family
abandoned his law studies just before graduation
and went into commercial business, stimu lated by
his fath er who purchased a dress shop for him,
which he also abandoned after a few days following
a problem with a customer. H e was living from his
fathers money and having a good life and feeling
well, except when he met his family, particular ly an
uncle who always asked him what was he doing for a
living. Initia lly he gave any answer he felt like, but as
time went by he started to feel ashamed and ridi-
culed for doing nothing at all, neither working nor
studying. The patient attribut ed to this sham e his
experience of a break in his well-bein g, after which
he decided to seek professio nal help. U ntil then he
considered his life as normal: he didnt even feel any
differen ce between himself and his friend s, who
worked or studied. Then he became aware that it
was not only a matter of finding a pragmatic solu-
tion , doing somethin g; most of all, he needed to try
to discover what were his difficulties in reaching
such a solution .
For the panellist the patien t was living in a kind
of accommod ated alienation, a state in which he
felt comfortable in his detach ment from him self and
others. This state was stimulated by his parents atti-
tude of accepting everyth ing he did as part of an
expected and normal life, as well as providing as
much money or resources as he wanted to maintain
it. The surge of shame represen ted the recovery of
the capacity to be in conflict with this marvello us
situatio n and in the first four years of analysis the
patien t started a new and successful business, won a
prize in a poetry competitio n and resumed his law
studies, alth ough he was still not sure that he wanted
to be a lawyer.
U sually people tend to conceal shame feelin gs,
but in this case the patient continued to develop and
grow. The author lin ks this feature with the persist-
ence of the dual, mirrored narcissistic relationsh ip
with the mother that creates in both partn ers the
illusio n of oneness and completeness. If the little boy
becomes a narcissistic prolongation of his moth er
this situation can be established for life, creating the
illusio n that he has everythin g he wants or needs,
and thus avoiding the envy of the father. When this
narcissistic dyadic relation ship is broken by the
inevitable frustratio ns of life, and the appearan ce of
the father forces the acceptance of a triad ic situa -
384 PAN EL R EPOR TS
tio n, the little boy tries to recover his past narcis-
sistic relation ship with the mother through identifi-
cation with the fath er: by projecting on to him his
lost narcissism. Thus, to be like father is to regain
the mother. Shame comes to the fore in consequence
of the compariso n with the father and stimulates
action in the pursuit of obtain ing the fathers quali-
ties. This could be called the sane functio n of
shame that is used to avoid situ ation s in which the
subject could be ridiculed and at the same time pro-
moting action in order to fulfil his own desires and
promises.
After the three panellists had presented their
papers, the M oderator, with his usual good humour,
presented us with a brief though erudite comment
about the issu es under discussion . F irst he estab-
lished the differen ce between affectsbelonging to
the realm of quantityand feelingsconnected
with quality. Each feelin g creates a particu lar world
where reality will be organised. Second, the M oder-
ator referred to the opposition between human
nature and the idealisation of abstract ideals, as is
the case in the pursuit of a purely ratio nal man. H e
then quoted the four interrelated disju nctio ns that
define the psychology of feelin gs: nature versus
humanity, reason versus feelin gs, good feelin gs ver-
sus bad feelings and feelin gs versus reality. Psycho-
analysis is supposed to criticise and surpass all of
these, but despite this critical vocation, a psycho-
analyst is also the fruit of a histo rical background
that involves cultural biases.
The evolution of the concept of envy from moral
condemnatio n to a more natural, geometric one, is
R EF ER EN CES
H ER R M AN N , F . (1999). Shamed envy. Chairman s
commentary to the Panel on Envy, Jealo usy and
Shame, 41st IPAC, Santiago de Chile, July
1999.
M ORR ISON , A. P. & L ANSK Y , M . (1999). Shame
and envy. R eport presen ted at the Panel on En-
vy, Jealo usy and Shame, 41st IPAC, Santiago de
Chile, July 1999.
H eitor D e Paola Copyright Institut e of Psychoanalysis, London, 2001
Av. N . S. de Copacabana 1059/306
22060-000 - R io de Janeiro
depaola@montreal.com .br
studied through the work of two great philo sophers:
St Augustine and Spinoza. The evil of envy, once a
vice, became natural but also detestable notwith-
stan ding, now because of the inju ry to the subject
itself. Psychoanalysts usually oscillate between both
positio ns even though they try to avoid any mani-
festly moral judgement.
From the M oderato rs point of view, the three
panellists addressed the issues as belonging to an
intermed iate sphere between psychology and psy-
chopathology. The feelin gs are certain ly not seen as
vices of nature, but neith er are they perceived as
intrinsic forms of building reality. On the contra ry,
the feelings seem to be subjective deviation s of
world of apprehension. They belong to the catego ry
of refu sed feelings, those to which psychoanalysts
usually turn their atten tion predomin antly. It is very
rare to see analysts discussin g joy or kindness. D iag-
nostic judgement substitu tes the traditio nal moral
judgement. H owever, to recognise the sources of our
diagnostic values with regard to feelin gs is vita l to
psychoanalytic practice.
F inally, the M oderator stressed the different
evaluation of envy among the ancient G reeks, as
expressed in their canticles, and nowadays: jealousy,
hatred and envy were seen as spurs to motivate men
to action s that are contests, not only annihilatio n. In
his view, ours is a shamed envy, and it is necessary to
think about the role of this shamed envy within psy-
choanalytic institu tion s as well as in psychoanalytic
practice. For him, this was the impo rta nt point of
this Panel.
R IESENBER G -M ALCOLM , R . (1999). Two ways of
experien cing shame. R eport presen ted at the
Panel on Envy, Jealousy and Shame, 41st IPAC,
Santia go de Chile, July, 1999.
VALEDN , C. (1999). La vergenza como uma mo-
tiva cin para el anlisis. R eport presen ted at the
Panel on Envy, Jealousy and Shame, 41st IPAC,
Santia go de Chile, July, 1999.