Ironic envy

Abstract

Since ancient times envy has been the subject of a unanimous and violent social condemnation. This condemnation was repeated in the vast psychological, sociological and psychoanalytic literature on the subject. Klein proposes envy as an emotion characterizing a phase of the object relationship, present in each of us. In this work, which starts from the kleinian definition of envy, a different vision is proposed - also on the basis of some clinical examples - where envy, through ironic thought, can take on a defensive function: one gets rid of emotions or unacceptable behaviors, “enviously” attributing them to the other, to make one’s own refusal socially legitimized.