ABSTRACT
The psychological structure of envy is misperceived if it is viewed in isolation. Melanie Klein associates it with greed and jealousy, noting both the connection and the difference. Envy is inseparable from idealization. The treasure in the envied one exists in the bosom of someone who is idealized. Idealization is the first stage of envy, but also its foundation. When the individual has accomplished the first stage of envy he is deprived of self-worth and is full of self-devaluation and self-castigation. Melanie Klein does speak very clearly about the way envy strangles the creative and generous impulses in the subject. Greed determines the intensity of the ingestion in both the first and second stage of envy. It is responsible for turning something of worth into a deficit. Melanie Klein did a great service to psychoanalysis by founding it upon the reality of individual emotional construction starting from earliest infancy.
