Morbid jealousy and destructive envy— considerations from a case history

Abstract

In this article I want to illustrate some of the problems emanating from envy and jealousy through a clinical case where my patient was initially described by the referrer as suffering from morbid jealousy. Differences in envy and jealousy are referred to. The question is raised of whether this young man had not sufficiently worked through his envy, as described by Sohn, in order to have the capacity to experience jealousy at the time of the killing. Also, why might he have remained so jealous after the killing? Changes were apparent following his four years of twiceweekly psychoanalytic psychotherapy treatment and I hope readers will send any comments, criticisms, or disagreements to the journal editors in order to open a discussion.