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How Jealousy, Goal-Orientation, and Insecurity are Intertwined

A therapist outlines a means of repurposing jealousy.

Synthia Stark
Preoccupy Negative Thoughts
6 min readMay 15, 2023

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Photo by Rafael Barros from Pexels

As a former psychological researcher and as a current trauma therapist, I know that jealousy can be interpreted as an underlying sign of insecurity, stemming from our earliest reaches of childhood — and the attachments we accrued with mom and dad (or any other allied family member).

For many of us, we received reliable and ongoing nurturance, fostering a healthy and positive attachment style — and for others, they may have had sporadic contact with their guardians, fostering insecure and inconsistent attachments, through no fault of their own.

These may include:

  • Neglectful parents, including those who partied hard
  • Parents caught under too many commitments or were trying to make ends meet
  • Workaholics who rarely saw their children

This desire to have a healthy attachment style can bleed into our relationships, where we might inadvertently chase for what we didn’t previously have, or look for the next closest approximation.

In the process, some of us may feel pangs of jealousy, because we want something that is just out of reach — and it becomes a form of goal-orientation, a…

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Preoccupy Negative Thoughts
Preoccupy Negative Thoughts

Published in Preoccupy Negative Thoughts

A psychology, neuroscience, mental health, and human resources writing space.

Synthia Stark
Synthia Stark

Written by Synthia Stark

Canadian Therapist & Former Researcher | 5x Top Writer | Writing about mental health, psychology, science, etc. https://linktr.ee/SynthiaS

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