We're all a little jealous.
But when the symptom of jealousy becomes excessive, even pathological, it can ravage romantic, friendly, family relationships, and even personalities.
It is then a question of overcoming jealousy by looking at things with lucidity – the issue of maturity is then essential –, in order to get out of excessive victimization.
And this, without regret, because ultimately jealousy is not used for much and the jealous do not make envy.
Clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst Joseph Agostini, author of a new book on the benefits of love songs (1), is preparing a show on the subject.
He explains the springs to us.
In video,
Jalouse
by David and Stéphane Foenkinos with Karin Viard, the trailer
A primary reflex
“Jealousy reactivates a primary human mechanism.
When the baby is very small, he wants to fight to have his mother's breast all to himself!
His environment is hostile to him.
If we go even further, his reflection in the mirror can even be unbearable to him if the mother does not come to name him, to appease him, to soften the contours of existence.
So to speak, without this first object of love, he would be naked, alone, doomed to the wolves in the forest!
This ultra-dependence gives rise to a clinging, a distrust of others, at the source of jealousy at all times of life.
But then, are jealousy and generosity irreconcilable?
“Generosity only comes afterwards, when the child is able to give to the other, that is to say to have a breastplate thick enough to make the difference between the inside and the outside.
What he holds deep inside, no one can steal from him.
The exterior is then no more than a scintillating surface, which comes and goes, in an impermanence to be accepted.
The other does not belong to him.
We are generous when we are not afraid of losing, when we have passed a first stage of ultra-vigilance.
The mechanisms of gift, gratitude, loyalty can then dominate.
But if the jealous remains at the stage of rivalry without reaching that of gratitude, exchange, reciprocity,
When jealousy still dominates in adulthood, it is often combined with excessive pride
Joseph Agostini
An oversized ego
Since you have to live well with jealous people and deal with them, you might as well know who you are dealing with.
“When jealousy still dominates in adulthood, it often combines with excessive pride, as if the person in question is claiming the right to possess the other, with complete impunity.
The assertion “when I really love, I am jealous” seems to legitimize the mode of being in the jealous world.
Read alsoBeing nice while being respected: the 6 rules to follow to achieve it
However, in terms of mental progression, it is the opposite: "The more we love the other, the more it is a question of going beyond, in the name of love, our primitive mechanisms of possession, alienation, all -power."
This is the tipping point.
“The jealous person is pathetic because he reverses the situation, justifies his inclinations by finding it normal to monitor the loved one.
He becomes again the baby anguished at the idea of sharing the breast.
"
His majesty the baby
", said the English pediatrician Winnicott.
Only here it is: he is above all an old child without a crown, who does not adapt well to the rules of life: growing up alone, living alone, meeting beings different from us, on roads that intersect with ours but which do not join it. never quite."
A deadly world
It's time to choose your path.
“The mechanisms of generosity, letting go, tolerance and flexibility have a bright future ahead of them because they embrace the movement of life, the ephemeral, the furtive, the inconstancy… Like a love song three minutes.
We seize it on the fly, we savor it like a candy.
It does good and can even console.
Conversely, “the mechanism of jealousy leads to a petrified world, where we want everything to remain unchanged, for the other to have eyes only for us, for things to be governed by our one and only power.
It's a puppet world, completely imaginary, which ends badly because it finds itself totally out of step with the real human condition.
Jealous is a failure.
It is said.
(1)
Love songs heal the heart of the world
, by Daniela Lumbroso and Joseph Agostini, Éditions Robert Laffont, 224 p., €19.
On video, the secrets of couples that last
