Countertransference envy toward the religious patient

COUNTERTRANSFERENCE ENVY
TOWARD THE RELIGIOUS PATIENT
Moshe Halevi Spero and Roberto Mester
The intensive emotional sharing which transpires during the psychotherapeutic process ranges from basic, complementary understanding and
empathy to complex, pathological phenomena such as symbiotic: merger,
projective identification, and psychotic transferences (Little, 1981; Shapiro,
1974). Increasing attention is being paid to the ways in which psychoanalytic psychotherapy recapitulates critical aspects of early development
in both therapist and patient, deepening our understanding of psychodynamic and object relational qualities of the empathic, interactional process. Perhaps the most important expressions of these interactionaldevelopmental processes are transference and cou ntertransference. Transference and countertransference require additional consideration when
treating novel categories of patients which challenge the clinical experience and self-knowledge of the psychotherapist.
The religious patient belongs to this category, if only because the determinants of normal and pathological religious experience, and their meaning in therapy, are less well understood. Equally less well explored are
those aspects of the therapist's personality that are most vulnerable to
potentially distortive interaction with the "religious" aspects of the patient's
personality. Review of the literature, including the resurgent scholarship
since 1980-see, for example, Bradford (1984), Lovinger (1984), McDargh
(1983), Meissner (1984), Spero (1985, 1986, 1987), and Stern (1985)reveals relatively few discussions of countertransference reactions toward
the religious or ethnic patient (Devereux, 1978; Halperin and Scharff,
1985; Gorkin, 1986; Kahn, 1985; Ostow, 1965; Peteet, 1981, 1985; Spero,
1981). This paper examines some theoretical and clinical aspects of the
emergence of envy in the therapist's attitude toward the religious patient.
MOSHEHALEVlSPERO,Ph.D.,is AssociateProfessor,Schoolof SocialWork, Bar-IlanUniversity; and SeniorClinical Psychologist,SarahHerzogPsychiatricHospitaI--EzratNashimMental
Health Center,Jerusalem,Israel.
ROBERTOMESTER,M.D., is Medical Director,NesTziyonaPsychiatricHospital,NesTziyona,
Israel.
Addresscorrespondenceto: Dr. MosheHalevi Spero,RechovShaulsohn66, Apt. 13, Har Nof,
Jerusalem95400 Israel.
The American Journal of Psychoanalysis

Vol. 48, No. 1, 1988

© 1988 Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis

43


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DEFINITION OF COUNTERTRANSFERENCE

It is commonplace that countertransference reactions represent distortions
of the therapist's unbiased, nonjudgmental, even-hovering, and essentially
nonpathological listening and perceiving activity, which further jeopardize
the therapist-patient alliance. The contemporary perspective places equal
emphasis on the potentially constructive aspectsof countertransference (Epstein
and Finer, 1979; Langs, 1976; Searles, 1979; Winnicott, 1949). This perspective maintains that although countertransference is the psychotherapist's reaction, it is in many ways the patient's creation, elaborated upon further by the
idiosyncratic needs and conflicts of the therapist's unconscious (Epstein and
Finer, 1979; Heimann, 1950). Moreover, as the patient experiences during
the therapeutic process certain longings, frustrations, tendencies toward closeness or distance, and the like, the therapist will experience these in reciprocal fashion unconsciously or will experience an unconscious response to the
patient's transference needs (Searles, 1979a, b, c). In fact, Grinberg (1962)
early differentiated two countertransference formations: "complementary
identification," which reflects an activation, in response to transference, of
past object relational constellations or conflicts in the analyst, and "projective counteridentification," when the analyst's internal experience of the
patient almost entirely reflects the patient's projected internal reality. Winnicott
(I 949), and in similar form, Weigert (I 954) and Sandler (I 976) underscored
the "objectiveness" or nonpathological nature of certain kinds of countertransference experiences and that countertransference can help the therapist
better understand dynamic or interactional states in the patient.
The burden remains with the psychotherapist, of course, to differentiate those
aspects of countertransference which are introjections of some element of the
patient's personality and those which originate within the therapist. Second,
he must differentiate defensive counterreactions to the patient which indicate the unconscious attempt to have or share something which belongs to

the patient, such as through identification with or envy of the patient, and
those which indicate attempts to keep away from or fend off some aspect of
the patient's personality, such as in boredom reactions or abject failures in
empathy.
In discussing psychotherapy with religious patients, Spero (1981, 1985) and
Gorkin (1986) note ways in which carefully calibrated countertransference
reactions which prominently feature religious themes may inform about reciprocal problems in the patient, both on the manifest level (e.g., conflicts in
religious identification) as well as on the level of unconscious psychosexual
or object relational determinants of the patient's religiosity or more fundamental aspects of personality which underlie religiosity. Mester and Klein
(1981), discussing dilemmas in psychiatric interviewing of newly religious
(hozer be-teshuvah) patients, mention two unique countertransferencereactions:


COUNTERTRANSFERENCEINVY

45

a feeling of being "manipulated into the position of persecutor/punisher" and,
with some patients, a feeling of envy. The feeling of envy they attribute to the
"unconscious and/or preconscious conviction that the patients had reached
the ultimate psychological solution to existential doubting and emotional pains"
(ibid., p. 300). It was subsequently argued that this explanation of countertransference envy is incomplete (Spero, 1983). We shall now assess the envy
reaction more thoroughly.
OBJECT RELATIONAL ASPECTS OF ENVY

Envy is important not only as a basic emotion, but also as an aspect of early
separation-individuation, object relational development, and transferencecountertransference reactions (AIIphin, 1982; Anderson, 1987; Klein, 1957).
The central element in envy is the personal sense of lacking something which
engenders feelings of inferiority or injured self-esteem, resulting from discrepancies between the actual self and the ideal state of self-representation (Joffe
and Sandier, 1965). While envy always involves some combination of admiration, resentment, and hate, the envious person's narcissism receives an increment from the fantasy of one day possessing that which he does not have, and

this inevitably involves some aggressive stance with regard to the object of envy
(Klein, 1957). Envy, in other words, is an object-related constellation of behavior, including certain kinds of cognitions and feelings, which leads, in the normal
range, "to an increased alertness which facilitates comparisons and thereby
promotes differentiation of object and self" (Frankel and Sherick, 1977;
Neubauer, 1982).
Envy can be defined as a reaction to the discovery of some thing or quality
lacking internally or externally, in fact or fantasy, combining an iidealizing
tendency (toward the desired object) and aggressive tendencies (toward the
possessor of the object). Envy can be distinguished from simple "want" in
that (1) envy features a sense of inferiority derived from comparison to the
possessor of the desired object, and (2) envy elicits the sense that the self will
be like the idealized other once the envied object or quality is acquired.
In envy reactions within psychotic personalities, and to lesser degree in the
normal personality during earliest stages of development, acquisition of the
envied object may elicit the sense that the self has become the idealized other,
combined with an experience of having materially reduced or eliminated the
other. The sense of guilt which arises from the fantasied realization of destructive wishes in envy can be recognized even in neurotic and everyday envy
reactions.
Once self-other differentiation has occurred, depending upon the quality
of such differentiation, envy may further elicit destructive or constructive
consequences. Envy may be dealt with by various mechanisms including
introjection of or identification with the envy-evoking object or even


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psychotic blurring of self-other boundaries. When for some reason it is too
painful to acknowledge envy, such as when envy awakens or results from

repressed homosexual impulses or major discrepancies between ideal and
actual self, envy may be defended against by avoidance, devaluation, or
idealization. These in turn may be expressed in manifest behavior in forms
of exaggerated admiration, indiscriminate praise, greed, derogatory gossip,
hate, or overt denial of envy. As Wurmser elaborates, idealization acts as a
defense against envy, hatred, and greed by endowing the object with that
omnipotence the subject wants to possess (1981, pp. 117, 199). These necessary qualities can then be vicariously experienced through mechanisms
such as mirroring and idealizing transferences, projective identification,
and so forth. Even when envy is dealt with through adaptive measures,
such as compensation, sublimation, or actually acquiring constructively
that which is felt lacking or insufficient, retrospective analysis can often
uncover the original destructive or hostile component or threatened
danger to some object relationship.
The emergence of envy toward the patient may represent a distortive
countertransference reaction, pointing to dissatisfactions on the therapist's
part, which as such ought to be precluded from influencing the therapist's
perceptions. For of great concern is the extent to which the therapist's envy
of the patient is designed to preserve the patient from the therapist's primitive destructive impulses (Greenson, 1967, p. 229). When such is the case,
we need fear not only the unpredictable reemergence of the repressed
destructive impulses, but also, as Bion (1970) suggested, that the therapist's
envy disguises unconscious efforts to prevent the patient from integrating
his own thoughts and feelings.
From the contemporary perspective on countertransference, however,
envy reactions in the therapist can be utilized, if properly modulated with
complementary introspective and empathic attitudes, to comprehend
some reciprocal element of the patient's experience. While this possibility
obtains for all countertransference experiences, it is especially likely in the
case of envy since envy and empathy are both object relational processes
which promote or distort self-other differentiation, building upon insights
about the self in relation to others and by inferring conditions believed to

exist in others. In both cases, cues possessed by the object are processed
by the self in relation to preexisting structural components of the self, serving as a basis for emotional closeness or distance (Buie, 1981). Empathy
typically brings closeness, but in certain circumstances empathy enables
one to preserve distance (Nathanson, 1986). Envy typically extends difference and distance, but in certain circumstances promotes a sense of sharing.
When the therapist experiences envy toward the patient, careful analysis
of the therapist-patient interaction may reveal a number of insights into


COUNTERTRANSFERENCE ENVY

47

some aspect of the patient's experience. These include: (1) introjection of
the patient's envy of the therapist; (2) idealization of shared qualities based
on either an acceptance of or attempted denial of the patient's wish to
identify with the therapist; (3) denial of the patient's hostility toward the
therapist; (4) envy of the patient's seemingly unambivalent, defensively
concrete ideological and emotional attitudes; (5) identification with the
patient's transference-based idealization of some omnipotent object; (6) the
patient's regression to primitive or infantile states which stimulate in the
therapist's memories of early pleasures and object relationships (Will,
1979). In each instance, analysis of cou ntertransference envy begins from
the possibility that such envy is based entirely in the therapist's personality.
Additionally, one examines the ways in which the therapist's reactions
inform about objective states within the patient, and the implications of the
therapist's personal solutions to his own emotional needs for the reciprocal
aspects of the patient's experience.
With the religious patient, the therapist's envy of what seem to be the
religious aspects of the patient's life may further elucidate conflicts or dissatisfactions relevant to religious expression in both therapist and patient.
This is particularly important in psychotherapy of nouveaux religious

patients for whom religious change represents a crisis in its own right,
recapitulating crises and conflicts of earlier psychosexual and object relational development. Religious therapists working with patients who have
reverted or converted to the therapist's own faith may experience envy of
the patient's intense enthusiasm and punctillious observance of laws and
customs which for the therapist have become rote. The therapist may
experience this envy in the form of admiration for the nouveau religious
patient's perspicacity, his boldness in daring to point out weakness or
error, and his ability to put aside or limit work and recreational activities in
order to pursue extensive religious study. Religious therapists' ambivalence
about their own personal solution to the "priest-scientist" dilemma may
experience renewed anxiety in the face of the nouveau religionist's singleminded dedication. This anxiety may be suppressed through idealization
of the patient's lifestyle. Alternatively, such envy may mask a more destructive desire to take away the patient's intrusive perspicacity as well as to
squelch his religious passion.
Envy reactions can be even further used to comprehend reciprocal feelings in the patient. To this end, envy reactions may signify a therapist's
unconscious identification of an aggressive component in the patient, or
more directly highlight the patient's need to stifle doubt with arbitrary and
extreme programs, habits, and decisions, or to deny personal shortcomings and the pain of the arriviste status by iconoclastic challenging of the
seated religious community. What is important, therefore, is not so much


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the manifest object of the therapist's envy, but rather what such envy
reveals about underlying dynamics of the patient's religiosity. Below are a
variety of illustrations of envy reactions toward the religious patient.
ILLUSTRATION 1

A nonreligious psychotherapist completed her third session with a young

religious woman whom she was treating for an acute anxiety disorder.
When the therapist was alone in her consulting room writing notes about
the session; she had the following thought: "When the patient says the
word 'rose' it has no perfume for me." The sentence was seemingly unrelated
to the current treatment as the therapist could not remember the patient
saying the word "rose" or speaking about flowers at all. Intrigued, the therapist, at first alone and later in supervision, analyzed its meanings.
An early association was that the therapist could not enjoy the fantasied
rose's fragrance whereas the patient could. A subsequent thought was that
the patient's religiosity was essentially a rose whose scent the therapist was
unable to appreciate. Actually, the therapist soon became aware of the fact
that she experienced intense envy of many aspects of the patient's religious
life. Initially it seemed as if the patient's religiosity was intrinsically envyprovoking to the therapist, and there was no evidence in this case of an
attempt to defensively reverse antireligious sentiments. It soon seemed as if
the therapist's concern that she might be depleting the patient with her
envy reflected an introjection of the patient's envy of the therapist's freedom, relative lack of conflict, and other qualities which the patient attributed to nonreligious lifestyles.
Further associations suggested that the therapist's envy of the patient's
religiosity served as a defensive barrier against the acknowledgment of disturbing sexual feelings. That is, the thought that she did not share the
patient's sensual interests, and then the idea that she indeed desired to
share in the patient's religiosity, led to a series of sensual, erotic associations regarding the patient. As the therapist considered her multidetermined interest in the patient's religiosity, she recalled that the patient in
fact had mentioned on several occasions feeling distressed by daydreams
with homosexual content. This material had been only slightly explored in
therapy. In this case, the therapist's envy of her patient's religiosity not only
brought to light an area of conflict in the therapist's personality but also
pointed to similar conflicts in the patient's own life. The psychotherapist's
neediness (as it was eventually more fully understood) for the kind of
maternal warmth expressed, in exaggerated form, in the patient's religious
lifestyle helped her to more fully comprehend the patient's neediness.


COUNTERTRANSFERENCEENVY

49

ILLUSTRATION 2

A 17-year-old young man studying in a yeshivah was afflicted by frequent
anxiety episodes, confusion, and despair. His scholarly achievements were poor
and his social life marked by withdrawal and isolation. He was referred for
treatment to a nonreligious therapist who after initial sessions found himself
doubting whether the patient needed any treatment at all. During supervision
the therapist realized that his atypical doubts about the patient's condition were
related to feelings of envy. The therapist perceived the young man as really
quite self-confident, drawing inner stability from his apparently solid religious
beliefs, characteristics the therapist very much wished for himself. Closer examination of the clinical interviews helped the therapist acknowledge the difficulties
the patient was having at the yeshivah, rooted among other things in his overdependence on his parents and his sense of insufficient autonomy. The young
man's occasional efforts at self-assuredness occurred primarily in contexts when
he had an opportunity to criticize those who held opinions different than his.
Such a facade of self-security should surely have been transparent to the
therapist.
The therapist subsequently grasped that his own craving for self-confidence and his own need to repair early disappointments with an elusive,
withdrawn father were the bases for idealization of the patient"s religious
belief and his distorted evaluation of the clinical condition. The therapist's
envy was the superficial manifestation of the defensive idealization. Further analysis of the envy reaction helped clarify certain additional aspects
of the patient's dilemma. For example, the therapist's fantasy of wanting to
possess the patient's religious beliefs highlighted an element of early oral
greediness in the therapist which itself seemed to be a reciprocal response
to the patient's attempted projection of an air of omnipotence within his
religious bastion. The therapist understood after further empathic attention
that the patient suffered from a not small amount of ambivalence about
religion itself secondary to his oedipal disappointments in which arena

much of his religious attitude developed. These and other,reassessments
helped the therapist regain a more appropriate level of involvement with
his patient.
ILLUSTRATION 3

The following us a segment of long-term psychotherapy conducted by a
nonreligious Jewish therapist with a 33-year-old orthodox Jewish male. The
patient (A.) had been suffering from hebephrenic schizophrenia for 12
years and had been hospitalized uninterruptedly for the past 4 years.


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During the first two years of his current hospitalization, A.'s appearance
was disheveled, his mood volatile, and he was prone to violent verbal outbursts. Drugs seemed to bring only moderate relaxation. A. isolated himself
from the rest of the patients, ate alone in his room, and refused to participate in sociotherapy or other group activities. Instead, he spent innumerable hours walking the corridors mumbling biblical proverbs or talmudic
aphorisms. Occasionally, he nagged the staff with monotonous questions
about unrealistic plans for his future (e.g., to become a fighter pilot in the Israel
Air Force).
For the past 2 years A. had been in twice-weekly dynamic psychotherapy. During the initial period of psychotherapy, A. spoke almost ceaselessly, in a highly disorganized way, and in a dull unemotional manner about
his medications and daily preoccupations. After several months the therapist
found that during his silent reverie he was focussing increasingly upon
aspects of the patient's external appearance, which included long earlocks, large
velvet skullcap, and the various biblical and rabbinic quotations, even though
these characteristics had remained unchanged since A.'s admission to the hospital. Sometimes the therapist felt especially impressed with A.'s
wisdom when A., usually apropos of nothing in particular, would cite some
rabbinic aphorism. The therapist had clearly begun to idealize his
patient, lending to him a certain degree of deference more rightly due

to scholars.
Further introspection revealed that the therapist had begun to envy the
patient. A. indeed had spent many years studying in yeshivah and was
fluent in the mode of speech and idiomatic expressions of scholarly religious
Jews. The therapist did not possess either the religious background or the
knowledge, which often evoked in him distressful feelings of social alienation and historical dislocation. At the same time, the therapist felt that his
sudden, envious recognition of the patient's religious characteristics signaled a maturation in the links between his own self and his inner representation of the patient. Compared to earlier representations, comprised of
the devalued psychotic aspects of A.'s personality, the new representations
were richer in attributes, better differentiated, and even possessed of desirable characteristics. The therapist empathically felt that the patient,
entangled in bizarre and nagging, stereotypical behavior, was also struggling against alienation and loneliness, attempting to assert the most
healthy aspect of his personality (his religious knowledge).
It occurred to the therapist that relating to the precariously preserved
characteristics of the patient's premorbid personality could ameliorate
communication and increase a sense of closeness, The therapist asked A.
to choose material from religious books and to read and discuss these with
him during the first moments of each session. A. said he was willing to do


COUNTERTRANSFERENCE ENVY

51

so, revealing that he had stopped studying many years ago. He described
religious study as something that could bring him back to life. It took several months before A. could productively and consistently redirect his
attention to religious books.
The continuous exploration of A.'s feelings of alienation illuminated a
series of events which took place when he was 20 and still studying at the
yeshivah. He fell in love with the young daughter of the yeshivah dean. His
love for her was so intense that at a certain point he felt what he termed a
"clash" in his heart. By this he meant that the love for the girl displaced his

love of God. A. felt that both loves could not coexist and, aided b,y the budding deterioration of his thinking processes, believed that he had committed
a hideous sin which had further become known to the entire religious
community. He psychotically believed the community, led by the dean,
had excommunicated him and declared him dead. And dead he had been,
said A., until the therapist brought him back to life.
Parallel to this evolution in therapy, A. began to participate in social
groups, joined a small Bible study group led by one of the nurses, and
helped in various ward duties. A. still had periods of severe thought disorganization, paranoid outbursts of anger, and unrealistic plans for the
future, but he now allowed himself to belong to his immediate community
and claimed to be psychologically alive.
ILLUSTRATION 4

The following is extracted from the intensive psychotherapy (by the
senior author) of S., a 39-year-old patient from an ultrareligious hasidic
background. S. began the present hospitalization, his 20th, in a manic
state, claiming to be Messiah come to bring the Redemption to all who
were of a ritually clean and holy state of mind. S. cast a remarkably imposing image: ruddy haired with a sparse beard trimming his wide-eyed and
boyish face, filling his traditional hasidic garb with a massive 6'2" body,
and walking with a hulking yet rhythmic gait. During the early period of his
hospitalization he patroled the corridors wrapped regally in his large
prayer shawl. Though fluent in contemporary Hebrew, S. spoke with a
conspicuous accent typical among hasidic sects of European-Ashkenasi
background. S. explained that while it was permissible perforce to use contemporary Hebrew for mundane dealings, Messiah speaks of holy matters
which can only be conveyed in original "lashoin ha-koidesh," the holy
tongue. It was occasionally difficult for the Israel-born staff to comprehend
the patient, although the therapist, himself an immigrant from America and
the tradition of Ashkenasi yeshivah seminaries, did not share this difficulty.
Sessions with S. were rich in biblical and rabbinic material-often

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SPEROAND h4ESTER

meaningfully utilized-and engaging numerological discussions designed
to demonstrate his Messianic acumen, the propitiousness of his arrival, and
the folly of psychiatry's materialistic approach to the soul. Occasionally S.
would break into dance and song; never wild, his facial expression undergoing an almost serene transformation. Any attempt at therapeutic exploration or interpretation was responded to with a patient, teacherlike remonstration that all of S.'s behavior was "for the sake of heaven." Most of the
sessions were stimulating, and the therapist soon found himself imitating
S.'s accent both at work and at home.
On one hand, the therapist experienced the usual degree of frustration
typical when attempting to establish a working alliance with a psychotic
personality. At the same time, the therapist very quickly acknowledged
intense envy of the patient's behavior, one that transcended envy of the
psychotic's ability to make use of regressive behavior not permitted to the
therapist (Will, 1979). The envy of S. seemed to focus on the strength of his
conviction in his Messianic calling, his grace, his private mystery at whatever psychic level he experienced himself to enjoy a redeemed state.
While the therapist joined the rest of mankind in trudging on amid crippling doubts of ever truly witnessing the realization of the basic doctrine of
Jewish faith that Messiah will come, the patient appeared to be the antithesis
of such doubt.
Further understanding came from an analysis of the ways in which the
therapist's countertransference reaction expressed a secondary elaboration of or response to conflicts in the patient. If S. exuded self-assuredness
and Messianic omnipotence, these feelings were proportionate to the amount
of doubt, weakness, and emotional hunger which existed deeper within his
personality. The patient was struggling not only against the hateful attack
of painful introjects drawn from his own private interpersonal experience,
but also in some way S. was a victim of the awesome, increasingly debilitating
internecine conflict that torments his country. S. had partially solved his problems by bringing the Messiah at his own initiative, by identifying pathologically with an internal object existing independently of any real Messiah. S.
could feel a worthfulness as Messiah that was unexperiencable to him in any
other state of mind. The therapist, however, no less burdened emotionally

by the interpersonal and ideological tremors round about him, is obedient
to the stricter, less playful operating of the reality principle. He ought to be able
objectively to regard the patient's belief as delusional. And yet there is for
the therapist a temporary respite in momentary identification with the patient's
delusion.
In a sense, then, the therapist's genuine envy confirmed the worthfulness
of S.'s mission. This awareness helped the therapist remain sensitive to
the patient's experience as the, slow, almost sad surrender of psychosis


COUNTERTRANSFERENCE ENVY

53

transpired. In fact, the therapist chanced to meet S. several months later on
a Friday afternoon at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. With the sun casting
its golden glow upon the myriad stones and faces, S. suddenly appeared
from around the corner where the therapist was standing, S.'s face catching full the annointing rays of providence. Standing tall, well groomed, and
dressed in his gleaming black caftan and fur hat, S. continued in the therapist's direction and for a moment seemed to not recognize him. When the
therapist offered his hand, S. recalled-perhaps everything-and returned
a slightly distant blessing. With a last glance, one that might hawe explored
for a mutual perplexity, S. turned the corner again and disappeared into
the Sabbath.
The therapist was overwhelmed with depression. This was undoubtedly
the result of a sense of loss of shared deliverance, of Messianic omnipotence, of the possibility of private redemption from the struggles that continued to gnaw away within. Old political and ideological lines had been
drawn again, primarily because both individuals had recommitted themselves to good reality testing. Yet S. had become more knowable to the
therapist not simply because S.'s delusions spoke to the therapist's neurotic
needs, but because S.'s enviable characteristics, and the therapist's envy of
them, served as a link across otherwise unintelligible, disordered thought
processes. As Searles reports (1979c), therapists working with primitively

disturbed patients may develop a form of jealousy of the partially split-off
aspect of oneself which enjoys at least momentarily a relatively close relationship with the patient, giving rise further to a sense of loneliness.
Emotions, as the object relations perspective has taught, are primarily
relevant as aspects of human relationship, and the envy experienced by
the therapist for S. comprised one aspect of their relationship. The therapist's envy was carefully restrained so that it did not represent a greater
threat to the patient than his own inner conflicts and harmful introjects.
The therapist ultimately wished to share rather than to deprive, ultimately
conveying to the patient that he was valuable even when he was not
Messiah. That part of the therapist that psychotically imagined itself
redeemed by virtue of its contact with S.'s Messiah dissipated that Friday
afternoon, and thus his depression involved to some degree a small loss of
self. If S. remains sane because, unknown even to himself, he has internalized some fragment of an object that envied him and instilled in him a
sense of realness superior to all the glories of kingship, then the therapist's
loss was worthwhile.
SUMMARY

Four illustrations have been presented which demonstrate the uses and


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interpretations of envy in countertransference reactions to religious
patients. To be sure, envy reactions to any patient are significant, whether
they simply distort the therapist's perception or contribute to a deeper
understanding of the patient. In the case of the religious patient, envy reactions in the therapist may serve as an additional instrumentality for understanding the ways in which the dynamic determinants of religious behavior
and metaphor become enmeshed in and also transform the pathology of
the patient as well as the therapeutic process itself. Both the constructive
and destructive object relational implications of envy must be borne in

mind by the therapist in order to adequately explore the range of reciprocating forces between therapist and patient. Primitive mechanisms such as
projective identification and psychotic transference are particularly prone
to evoke envy reactions of surprising intensities, yet an empathic attitude
will usually enable the therapist to differentiate the true source of his envy
as he more carefully comprehends the quality of object relational and
dynamic needs such envy serves.
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