Questions and Answers

I am realizing after almost 2 years of psychoanalysis that I have feelings I hide so well that I thought I did not have them. I am confused, feeling scared and vulnerable, but still very engaged to the therapy process and trying to understand myself. And when things seem to get better, something happen and I feel miserable again. Ok, now I am more resigned that this is the way it works. A few weeks ago, I encountered one of the female clients of my analyst at the elevator, just that, and I felt so jealous! Jealousy is a feeling that I had never felt with anyone else (even with my husband) or this is the way I thought. I don’t know why I felt like this, because I sure know my analyst has other clients, right? But I felt rejected. I wondered if she is more intelligent and interesting than me, if she is making more progress than me and if she is in love with him as I am (and when I think so I can feel a little compassion for her because I know how it hurts, but still I do not want her to feel like that – can you see how far my feelings go?) I want the impossible, I want to be the only one. Because of you (thank you for your website), I have encountered courage to talk about these feelings of love and, after that incident, jealousy. It is difficult to talk about this mainly because it does not make any sense at all (I keep feeling silly because it looks like as if I am demanding, asking for something that I already know I will not get, it is too embarrassing). He has comfort me saying that only if I talk, even if it makes no sense, we can work on what is behind these feelings. My question is about the meaning of jealousy. I have not found much of this subject when it is not related to a real couple (husband and wife). Thank you in advance for your attention and sorry about my English (although I understand well, I am not good at writing).   For those professionals who have been trained properly, the unconscious does have its own language and its own logical structure, but, for the average person, the unconscious really does not make much sense at all. That is why many persons will try to make psychotherapy into something they can control. Usually they do this, as you yourself have done, with two characteristic self-protective strategies: they hide things, and they try to make the psychotherapist like them. In short, they turn psychotherapy into a game. Now, in the pure sense of the word, a “game” refers to a process of social interaction that depends on procedural rules to ensure that all participants know what to expect of each other. If you were playing chess and your opponent suddenly pulled out a gun and shot you, you would be at a clear disadvantage. Therefore, because any participant interested only in the acquisition of power will dominate the others, games require rules of conduct to provide a certain fairness, so that true expertise, rather than raw force, should decide the outcome. Accordingly, politics is a game. Business is a game. Warfare is a game. And, like it or not, even romance is a game.  Nevertheless, even though life is full of games, not everyone will always play by accepted rules. Some persons can feel so victimized and “out of control” that they will resort to pseudo-games, making up their own “rules” to gain an advantage. Terrorism is an example of a flagrant disrespect for civilized rules. Other pseudo-games can be more subtle, using tactics of deception and feigned honesty made possible through the use of language;[1] a client refusing to talk about certain things and trying to make the psychotherapist like her—through deceptive words, clothing, and behavior—is an example of this. Therefore, it sometimes takes a psychologist to figure out the game. In fact, figuring out the “game” of the client, and helping him or her to move on to honest interactions, is what the psychologist has to do in the psychotherapeutic process. Now, in your case, you are only beginning to reveal your secrets to your analyst. You are still playing a game with your own secret tactics. Jealousy is one of those tactics, and it relates to the game of romance as played out in the erotic transference. As I said above, because romance is not based in true love, romance is, in technical psychological terms, a game—and to play this game, you must put yourself in competition with everyone else playing the same game. This explains the essence of jealousy: in your fear of losing what you desperately want—that is, your analyst’s admiration—you hate any person—that is, another female client—who might come between you and what you want. You can overcome this jealousy in your psychotherapy, however, if only you do what your analyst has already said: talk, even if it makes no sense. By talking honestly, without playing games, you can work to understand what is behind your feelings, and you can begin to respect, rather than fear, the unconscious.   ___________ 1. See Lacan, Jacques. The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-Analysis. (Jacques-Alain Miller, Ed.; Alan Sheridan, Trans.) New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1981. See also Berne, Eric. Games People Play. New York: Ballantine Books, 1964.    Back to the list of questions

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