Book
Envy and Gratitude
Klein's last major theoretical work, expanded from the paper "A Study of Envy and Gratitude" that she read at the International Psychoanalytical Congress in Geneva in July 1955. It sets out her theory of primary envy of the good, feeding breast, distinguishes envy from greed, and pairs it with gratitude as an expression of the life instinct.
What it shows
- 1957
Melanie Klein introduced Envy
Klein first read the theory as 'A Study of Envy and Gratitude' at the Geneva congress in July 1955 and published it in expanded form as Envy and Gratitude (1957). Envy appears in her earlier work on the early Oedipus conflict, but here she makes primary envy of the good breast a concept of its own and pairs it with gratitude.
- 1957
Melanie Klein introduced Gratitude
In Envy and Gratitude (1957) Klein makes gratitude a psychoanalytic concept: the capacity, grounded in a securely established good object, to enjoy what is received and to wish to give back.