On the domestication of envy

In response to the debate between followers of Klein and other theorists ab out the origins of envy, this article proposes an alternative account of th e career of envy in development. This account is located against the backgr ound of current thinking about the relationship between preoedipal and oedi pal dynamics. Its argument is grounded in concepts found in Winnicott's the ories of development in general as well as in his writings specifically on envy; however, as part of its argument, this article offers a critique of t he latter in light of the former. It is proposed that envy represents one p ossible response to the state of being overwhelmed or impinged on, which is then shaped, within a given environment, by subsequent experience and refi nements in the capacity for judgment that are made by the infant in the cou rse of discovering the world.