Abstract

MARRACCINI, Eliane Michelini  and  FIGUEIREDO, Luís Cláudio. Where is Eros?: About envy and envious superego. Estud. psicanal. [online]. 2021, n.55, pp.181-192. ISSN 0100-3437.

Based on the notion of primary envy, this paper aims to examine the constitution and action of the envious superego, a notion that has been little examined since its presentation by Melanie Klein in 1957. In the psychoanalytic clinic, there are frequent cases that raise the question "Where is Eros?", in which the death drive leads to simple survival, without subjective achievements and without libidinal investment in objects. The only strong bond being with non-life, producing extensive subjective erasure. The exacerbated primary envy promotes the internalization of the remains of the primary object destructively attacked, triggers the constitution of a fragile ego and an envious superego with strength intensified by the predominance of the death drive. Within a dominating action that subdues and tyrannizes the ego, the envious superego sneakily and persistently destroys the possibilities of ego development since the beginning of mental life. A submission crossed by intense conflicts, which enclose the subject in the vicious circle of threat, guilt, self-punishment and impossibility of reparation.

Keywords : Primary envy; Envious superego; Vicious circle; Compulsion to repeat; Self-punishment.

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