The following essay has been placed at the Free Associations web site:

'"..AGAINST ALL OTHER VIRTUE AND GOODNESS" AN EXPLORATION OF ENVY IN
RELATION TO CONCEPTS OF SIN' by Mary Ashwin
http://www.human-nature.com/free-associations/ashwin.html

Envy has always had a bad press. Of all the negative traits or vices a person
will own up to envy is the least likely one that they will acknowledge. They
may well admit, with a deprecating grin, to being proud, greedy, covetous,
lazy, bad-tempered or promiscuous; but most will be chary of professing their
envy. Why is it that envy is so repugnant? I would suggest it is to do with the
understanding, conscious or not, that envy is so bound up with a feeling of
deficit. We envy what we do not have, not what we have, though psychologically
it might be said we can envy what we have, but that we are unconscious of that
asset. Impoverishment both real and imagined, material and psychological is
implicit in envy.

There are innumerable other resources, essays and books at the web
site of which this forms a part: http://www/human-nature.com
For further resources on psychoanalysis, psychotherapy and human
nature, go to the growing information base at
http://www.egroups.com/list/human-nature-info/