My dictionary defines jealousy as "Apprehension of being displaced by a rival in affection or favour." The Dictionary of Psychology defines jealousy as "a complex emotional state involving the sentiment of hate."

Serious jealousy is a mental disorder and is both blind and devoid of reason. It destroys love, happiness, trust, contentment and human kindliness. Like a cancer it eats away at the vitals of the sufferer. It makes him angry, deceitful and vicious. It can corrode and twist his very soul until it embitters and destroys all human friendship.

Somehow we are inclined to look upon jealousy as a character weakness. We are taught that like cowardice, it is just not nice, and we should be ashamed of it. Children are told "don't be jealous" as if they had any control over the emotion. Sympathy often goes to the person the jealousy is about. We call him the victim of other peoples' Jealousy, The cause of the action, the person who is actually feeling the jealousy, seldom gains sympathy. Yet he is the one who is the real victim of his own jealousy, the real sufferer, and it is a most distressing way to suffer. He greatly desires to be rid of jealousy and often despises himself for his uncontrollable emotion. He cannot help himself, yet

hates with a deep hatred the situation in which he finds himself.

Jealousy is a fear of loss of possession and there is an element of hate in it. A three-year-old is jealous of his

baby sister. She has some exclusive rights to his mother. She seems to get all the attention. She is never growled at. The older child is afraid of losing his mother's love and attention, so what does he do? He attacks his little sister who seems to be the cause of the trouble. He will hit her or pull her hair and thereby pets the immediate and total attention of his mother. He has found a way of getting what he wants, the full attention of his mother.

Mother now complicates the situation still further by being angry and perhaps punishing him. Thus she adds to his fear and seems to prove that indeed baby sister has replaced him in his mother's affection and is receiving most of mother's love. What the child is trying to say is "please don't take your love away from me and give it to baby sister."

I was visiting a good friend and making a fuss of the little baby, not realising that the three-year-old was looking on with jealousy. As soon as the baby was put down, the three-year-old did something to make her cry. I realised that I had given a lot of attention to the baby and not enough to the three-year-old- After taking him on my knee and giving him all my attention for a while he was quite happy to go off and play about with only occasional attention. He had been reassured of his own importance-Parents should be very careful to avoid infantile jealousy by making sure the older child has continuous unstinted love and attention in the early years. Punishment only reinforces infantile jealousy and in the chitds eyes proves that he is not loved as formerly. He will come back and back again in the hope of getting that love and attention and each time may get his fear of loss of love confirmed.

J.A. Hadfield says "Jealousy of a new child is simply a drive for self preservation and every mother should understand this. If the child is punished for this, he is thrown into a still greater sense of insecurity."

In adults, sexual jealousy is common and can be dangerous. Let us not forget that the jealous person is the real sufferer, often acutely so, and is the real victim of his own jealousy. Again it is fear of loss of possession of the object. Fear is a very powerful emotion, often causing the person to over react.

I know a young man who actually spied on his wife because he feared that she might be attracted to some other man. No wonder his marriage was on the point of breaking up. He came to me and was able to talk about his problem. Doctors had advised him that because of physical damage in an accident, he would be unlikely to be able to have children. This played on his mind and he doubted his sexual adequacy as a partner to his wife.

The stages of his psychological adjustment and the success of re-establishing the marriage relationship came in conjunction with improvement of his own evaluation of himself. An acceptance of himself as a person of worth, a dignity in his own right. He accepted that his wife was also a dignity in her own and separate right, and not his personal possession. He realised that his acts of mistrust were driven by a fear of loss and were doing the opposite to what he really wanted for his marriage- Jealousy drives away the love object.

This gave him the willingness to really look for an answer. He accepted that his wife wanted to marry him, even though she knew that his sperm was likely to be sterile. The marriage had started off in mutual trust and acceptance.