ABSTRACT
Gratitude has been tightly linked to envy ever since Melanie Klein published her groundbreaking Envy and Gratitude. Envy is the potentially pathological response to goodness and the good object; as such, it is a prime disruptive influence on personal development and, in its large sense, adaptation. Seemingly unimpeded goodness is usually experienced as one of life’s great pleasures. Most people are warmed and thrilled in response to a flow of goodness. It can be a flow of feeling that saturates one’s own role as effective benefactor or a flow that runs through the reactions of those to whom goodness is being bestowed. Analysts expect their patients to be unconsciously ambivalent about obtaining relief from their continuous or recurrent psychic pain. They also expect their patients to emphasize a dearth of good feelings. Feelings and expressions of gratitude are known to play great parts in establishing and sustaining human relationships.
