Dear S.,


Thank you for writing and sharing with us some of your concerns. If I understood correctly, your letter presents a couple of issues you are confronting with at the moment. In the beginning you are talking about your feelings of jealousy towards you cousin and guilt accompanying it. Another problem you are exposing is that you seem to have a high need of acceptance focusing your attention and resources on individuals whom appear to you that they do not accept you or agree with you. In your letter you were presenting the case of spending all the time focusing on one student that does not agree with you to the point of ignoring the rest of the class. Lastly you seem to avoid relationships in an attempt not to get hurt. In this letter I will try to explain some of the mechanisms of jealousy, and low self-esteem. Further, since you started your letter talking about psychotherapy and psychoanalysis, I would like to briefly mention some forms of psychotherapy and therapy options you might want to further explore.
Firstly, you describe your close relationship with your cousin whom you love dearly. You seem to be concerned about the jealousy you feel when she is going out with other friends. As a result of this, you get angry at yourself and feel guilty. It is not completely clear from you letter if you indeed act upon your jealousy and confront you cousin or if you bottle up inside all these negative emotions. Jealousy is used to describe thoughts, feeling, and behavior that occur when an individual perceives a relationship as being threatened by a rival. Jealousy can be viewed as resulting from a perceived rival that can be: real, imagined, or considered likely to occur. Jealousy exhibits as a combination of fear that you are losing your relationship and anger on the person who is threatening your relationship. Bringle & Buunk (1991 as cited in Rydell & Bringle, 2007) separated jealousy into reactive and suspicious. They argue that reactive jealousy is triggered when concrete factors such as an affair, have occurred that violate critical aspects of the relationship. This seems to be related to extraneous factors such as trust, and the situational factors. On the other hand, suspicious jealousy is triggered by minor perceived jealousy-evoking cues in the absence of any evidence. Suspicious jealousy seems to be related to endogenous factors such as insecurity, attachment, low self-esteem. It is important to identify the jealousy trigger. The majority of individuals experience jealousy at one point in their daily life. It is important to note however that jealousy does not have to always be destructive. Sometimes, a low level of jealousy can help consolidate relationship since it enables communication. It is thus important to communicate and express ones feelings and emotions when feeling jealous. When presenting your emotions, you should not blame the other but use this as a mean of making the other understand how you feel. Often, after such an assertive communication jealousy seem to diminish since the fear of the rivals threatening your relationship will be either true or false thus not leaving space for any more speculative thoughts. However, in extreme situations jealousy can be destructive both for the person experiencing it and for his/her relationships and human interactions.
One important factor contributing to jealousy is low self-esteem. Low self-esteem means poor confidence and negative thought leading to taking fewer risks and giving up easily for fear of failure. Furthermore, low self-esteem can lead to feeling oversensitive to the behavior and comments of the individuals around you. For example, when in a group of people, a person with low self-esteem will feel angered or upset of the comments a single individual makes. Low-self esteem can lead to repressed hurt and anger that can trigger outburst of momentary fury. Most of the time this is followed by guild when the individual understands the impact of her actions.
However, one of the biggest problems with low self-esteem is the need of acceptance and people pleasing. In your letter you give the personal example of teaching a class and focusing all attention on the one individual that does not agree with you. This comes from an underling belief that you have to please others so that they like and respect you. It is important to understand that your worth does not depend of other’s approval and such a task seems impossible to accomplish. Individuals who seek the other’s approval at all costs appear to have low confidence in their abilities, skills, and knowledge. The “looking glass self” theory (Cooley, 1902 as cited in Sciangula &Morry;, 2009) argues that people see themselves from the perspective of the others, integrating these outside perceptions in their self-concept of self-worth. An individual with low self-esteem would have the tendency to focus on individuals that perceive him/her not favorably and thus would internalize this and see themselves in the same light. Furthermore, they would ignore the favorable commentaries or perceptions. An individual with low self-esteem will underestimate the other’s love and respect as well as the positive perception the others have of her. Individuals with high self-esteem are able to accurately judge how others perceive them. It is important to further note that individuals with low self-esteem have an overall history of feeling rejected by others and disappointed by people, whereas high self-esteem individuals have a history of feeling accepted, more confident and happier in their relationships. Ones’ self-esteem plays a vital role in his/her relationships. If the person does not perceive him/herself as being loved and appreciated in a relationship, he/she will tend to distance from the relationship and avoid future ones. In your letter, you were mentioning that you avoid having developing further friendships due to a history of disappointment and rejection.
In order to minimize the effects of low self-esteem it is important to cut the negative thought patterns. Constantly being aware and repeating negative comments about your skills and abilities will only further negatively impact self-esteem. Mistakes should be seen as they are and learned from them rather than overanalyzed. Furthermore, the use of affirmations might help. You can use positive affirmations (such as positive statements about yourself) throughout the day in order to improve your self-confidence. This will further help you acknowledge your positive qualities and skills. Making a list about the positive qualities and skills you possess might also help. This list should be internalized by reading it constantly and used in the combination with the positive affirmation. The purpose of such exercises is to make yourself aware of your capabilities and positive attributes while taking your mind of your shortcomings and negative feelings.
You mention in your letter that you have some experience with psychotherapy that you found fruitful though not completely efficient in elevating the anger. You further mention you would like to further attend psychotherapy sessions even though at the moment you lack the financial resources for psychoanalysis. I was not able to understand if you attended more forms of individual psychotherapy or just psychoanalysis. However, I would like to mention that over the years, psychotherapy has expanded incorporating more approaches to cater individual needs that more traditional approaches where limited in. For example a grown body of research supports the efficiency of Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) or Cognitive Behavior Interventions. CBT can take the form of individual or group session. Recently CCBT (computerized Cognitive Behavior Therapy) has been approved and introduced in the NHS for depression symptomatology. Research showed the efficiency of CCBT also in anxiety problems and recurrent depression. This can be an option since it can be attended from home at the convenience of the individual. Furthermore, the costs are lower since it does not require a therapist. Another approach is REBT (Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy) that takes a similar short approach as CBT. Introduces by Albert Ellis, REBT focused on the irrational thinking and believes individuals tend to exhibit that in turn will lead to high levels of distress. Albert Ellis was also the author of a number of self-help books clearly explaining the underlining processes of irrational thinking patterns and how to overcome them. These are only a small fragment of the psychotherapy approached available. You can choose from short-term therapy to long-term therapy. Furthermore, counseling should not be overlooked either.
Hope the information helps put a light on the processes of jealousy and self-esteem. Please do not hesitate to contact us in case of further clarifications


Best regards