Introduction

Envy and Gratitude was immediately surrounded by controversy, focused on what was seen to be Melanie Klein's insistence on the constitutionality of envy and its relation to the death instinct. In fact, Klein is clear that "the capacity for both love and for destructive impulses is, to some extent, constitutional, though varying individually in strength and interacting from the beginning with external conditions". In Envy and Gratitude, Klein emphasized that envious and hateful impulses are frequently split off from the patient's awareness, and that re-introducing them to the patient requires great sensitivity and care and "only becomes possible after long and painstaking work". Polmear's work with her patient is a demonstration of this kind of effort. Experiences of envy and experience of gratitude depend on an awareness of separateness- an awareness of the otherness of the other.