Envy and Gratitude [antikvár]

IHAVE for many years been interested in the earliest sources of two attitudes that have always been familiar -envy and gratitude. I arrived at the conclusion that envy is a most potent factor in undermining feelings of lőve and gratitude at their root, since it affects the earliest relation of all, that to the mother. The fundamental importance of this relation for the individuars whole emotional life has been substantiated in a number of psycho-analytic writings, and I think that by exploring further a particular factor that can be very disturbing at this early stage, I have added something of significance to my findings concerning infantile development and personality formation. I consider that envy is an oral-sadistic and anal-sadistic expression of destructive impulses, operative from the beginning of life, and that it has a constitutional basis. These conclusions have certain important elements in common with Kari Abraham's work, and yet imply somé differences from it. Abraham found that envy is an oral trait, but -and this is where my views differ from his-he assumed that envy and hostility operate at a later period, which, according to his hypothesis, constituted a second, the oralsadistic, stage. Abraham did not speak of gratitude, but he described generosity as an oral feature. He considered the anal elements as an important component in envy, and