ABSTRACT
Melanie Klein attached considerable importance to the analysis of envy in all its aspects. Envy normally plays a part in every infant's dependent relation to the breast. In favourable development, it is overcome by feelings of love and gratification in which the good experience gives rise to gratitude. When envy is counteracted by love and gratitude, it becomes manageable, and the need to split it off or project it is not so strong. Klein suggested how frustration may, paradoxically, lead to envy. Klein's hypothesis about envy is compatible with her other views about the primitive ego and its capacity for object relationships. There are links between her theory of primitive envy and S. Freud's of primary narcissism. Freud says that hatred towards one's objects is older than love. Narcissism can be reinforced as a defence against envy, and excessive narcissism is in fact defensive rather than primary.
