ENVY AND ADMIRATION

Envy and admiration are analysed as alternative ways, in essential res pects contrary to each other, to cope with situations of relative depr ivation, when one becomes aware of having less of some good than some other has. In terms of phantasies and with respect to the organisation of the objects, envy is a paranoid-schizoid phenomenon, with hopeless ness, persecutory phantasies, and object-splitting, whereas admiration is in the depressive position, with hope, sympathy, and compartmental isation of the admired trait out of its whole-object context. The clos e relations between envy and admiration and narcissism are pointed out , as are the differences between admiration and idealisation.