Envious gazes and evil eye beads: A self-psychological perspective on the evil eye

ABSTRACT

The evil eye, the harmful effects of the envious gaze, is a common superstitious belief in many societies around the world, including Turkey. Since ancient times, people have developed a wide variety of practices and rituals to ward off the evil eye. It is generally believed that the evil eye is motivated by one of the most challenging emotions, envy. The discussion of envy has a long history in psychoanalysis. Unfortunately, psychoanalytic self-psychology has neglected envy and confined it to the concept of fragmentation products. This paper aims to contribute a self-psychological understanding of an envy-related cultural concept, the evil eye. The evil eye-related phenomena in Turkey, such as the harmful potential of gazes, the use of talismans and amulets for protection, and the fear of praising and exhibition, are discussed from a self-psychological perspective. Several short clinical vignettes delineating the evil eye in clinical practice are presented.

KEYWORDS:

• Envy
• evil eye
• gazing
• psychoanalysis
• self-psychology

Acknowledgments

We would like to dedicate this article to our dear teacher, Zeynep Atbaşoğlu, who passed away recently. Moreover, we want to thank Neslihan Rugancı for her valuable suggestions during the development of this work. We also wish to acknowledge the help for proofreading provided by Aybala Gülcan Türkarslan and Ceren Aydın.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kutlu Kağan Türkarslan

Kutlu Kağan Türkarslan is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at Atılım University and a member of the Anatolia Association for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapies. Türkarslan does research in clinical psychology, psychoanalysis, and evolutionary psychology.

Ekin Doğa Kozak

Ekin Doğa Kozak is a PhD candidate at Middle East Technical University in the Developmental Psychology field, holding a master’s degree in clinical psychology, and is a research assistant at Hacettepe University. Kozak’s research interests lie at the intersection of developmental psychology, mental health, and culture.