Page - 113 - in Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Puberty and Adolescence - The Inner Worlds of Teenagers and their Parents

Development of feeling 113 writes of envy as a potentially constructive power. “Envy – involves to a greater or less extent a spoiling quality or at least hostility towards to good abilities or the other person, though this may not be recognized” (Joseph 1986b, 182). Envy leads to humiliation and insult through observing the advantages and successes of another person. The usual reaction is the unconscious wish to belittle and destroy these accomplishments. However, if there also exist loving feelings towards this envied person along with the hope of accomplishing something similar to what he has, hate can be ameliorated and the envied activities may be imitated. Ado- lescents are experts at provoking envy in others by teasing and mocking the adult until he loses his countenance. The same adolescent who has such difficulty con- trolling himself in this phase can now successfully (and triumphantly) elicit this behavior in adults. Instead of showing gratitude, the adolescent often chooses to provoke – in order not to envy the adult. Envy makes it difficult to recognize another person’s achievements. When the adolescent metes out praise, it is often accompanied by a qualification: “it was good, but . . .”. It is equally difficult for the envious person to accept something of value from another person; in analysis, we term this a “negative therapeutic reaction” when the patient, after an improve- ment in his life, engineers a relapse since he is unwilling to admit his analyst has helped him. As in Ian’s case, it can constitute a major burden for an adolescent to feel responsible for his mother’s depression. Ian could study independently only when his mother was able to positively change her own life. Parents of adolescents are forced to observe themselves more precisely and come to some kind of reckoning. At first, physical growth – where the son might be taller than the father, or the daughter compares the length of her legs with those of her mother – can reminder a parent of her own aging process. Parents may notice painfully that their children no longer want to spend as much time with them: this period seems gone forever, and they must ask themselves whether they used this time of early childhood and childhood adequately. Parents automatically compare their own adolescence – their former dreams, ideas and fears – with their children’s. This comparison can elicit painful thoughts if parents did not exploit their talents and possibilities adequately back then. If parents are able to admit these painful thoughts, then they can support their son or daughter even when the child embarks on a better education than they could in their own adolescence. If such reflection is not possible, there is a danger that parents will unconsciously envy their children, thus failing to support them in their endeavors. The Irish poet William Butler Yeats communicates this issue vividly in his poem “Sailing to Byzantium” (1989, first published 1933): That is no country for old men. The young In one another’s arms, birds in the trees – Those dying generations – at their song, (. . .) An aged man is but a paltry thing A tattered coat upon a stick, unless