Envy: Myths That Get in the Way of Understanding Yourself

Envy is a phenomenon people tend to explain too quickly and too confidently. Some of those explanations trace back to outdated theories; others spring from everyday assumptions. Both kinds stand equally in the way of genuine understanding.

Myth one: classic psychoanalytic constructs explain envy universally

One of the most widely known attempts to explain envy is Freud's concept of "penis envy." Dr. Saulitis points out that Freud can only be understood in the context of his era. Austria at the time was a deeply religious, patriarchal monarchy where sexuality was harshly suppressed. Freud perceived something real — that suppressing basic needs produces psychological disturbance. But the conclusions he drew were built on speculation, not on knowledge of how the brain works; that knowledge simply did not exist yet.

His theory was created within a specific culture — patriarchal and, in his words, religiously castrating. In other cultures, including matriarchal ones, the same phenomena are not observed in nature. Projecting conclusions drawn in one cultural context onto all of humanity is a mistake.

Myth two: envy always has a "correct" theoretical framework

When someone else's theory grips us, we begin to see the world through its lens — and unwittingly step into another person's narrative, their interpretation of life. Dr. Saulitis draws a parallel with psychiatry: a clinician who fails to maintain distance risks being drawn into a patient's delusional system. The same happens with any dogmatic theory — it starts "playing its own tune," and the person loses the ability to distinguish between someone else's interpretation and their own experience.

Each of us is a product of culture and society, and cannot speak outside that context; each person contributes only their own grain of sand to everything human.

Myth three: psychoanalysis is a reliable tool for working with envy

Freud made a genuine contribution: he demonstrated the power of the unconscious and showed that basic needs cannot simply be "dammed up" — they will break through regardless. But his conclusions about the nature of envy and its mechanisms were built without any understanding of neurobiology — without knowledge of how the emotional brain, the neocortex, and neuroplasticity actually function. Applying these constructs as a clinical tool today means navigating by an outdated map.

Psychoanalysis today is simply charlatanism; people who practice it cause harm to the human psyche.

What to keep in mind

Envy is a real psychological phenomenon — but explaining it through concepts created in a specific historical and cultural context, without accounting for that context, is a mistake. Thinking critically about theories that claim to explain "everything" is not scepticism for its own sake; it is the foundation of genuine self-understanding.