Chronic jealousy bends and distorts our perceptions.
“It is not love that is blind, but jealousy.”
– Lawrence Durrell
Okay, love can make us overlook flaws. That which seems, in the heady days of initial infatuation, to be a ‘cute idiosyncrasy’ may, in the caustic days of pending divorce, morph into an unforgivable fault.
But Durrell was at least half right. Chronic jealousy bends and distorts our perceptions. The green-eyed monster clouds judgement and perspective, causing individuals to become possessive and suspicious, and see ‘evidence’ of infidelity where others see nothing at all.
I’ve written before about how jealousy is more of a distortion of the imagination than a thought disorder, and the best way to treat disorders of the imagination (like catastrophization, worry, and health anxiety) is to use hypnosis, because hypnosis deals directly with client’s misuse of the imagination, the part ‘doing’ the problem.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
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Thoughts and feelings – which comes first?
We know that a huge array of emotional problems, including jealousy, can be caused by faulty pattern matching from past emotional conditioning.
Pattern matching isn’t a cognitive process but an emotional one, meaning that it works outside of and before thought.1 If I see a coiled hose in my garage and react by jumping in the air, I will do this a fraction of a second before I think, “Oh my God, there’s a snake in my garage!” (And eventually, when I’m calm enough, I’ll see it was a hose!)
So we have emotion (shock) followed very fast by a thought.
Emotions do cause thoughts as well as being caused by them. The stronger the emotion, the more likely it is to precede thought.
A large meta-analysis of 18 studies has shown that cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is a whopping 70% more effective when used in combination with hypnosis than when used alone.2
This, I suspect, is because human beings don’t just think their way into emotional reactions but experience them, almost as a kind of naturally occurring post-hypnotic response.
However, encouraging clients to observe their own thoughts and challenge assumptions can still be highly valuable, especially if you haven’t trained in inner-work methods like hypnosis or mindfulness training.
Jealousy – fear of betrayal and rejection, often coupled with controlling behaviour – has, of course, many aspects.
Jealousy: A complex emotion
Jealousy often intertwines with feelings of insecurity, fear, and low self-esteem, as well as anger and, for some, a sense of entitlement – of owning another person, of them being property, to be told what to wear and what to do.
As a practitioner, you may sometimes encounter clients who struggle with jealousy. It can arise in various aspects of their lives, not necessarily just in romantic relationships but also friendships or even professional settings.
While CBT may be an incomplete approach in some ways for reasons I hope I’ve made clear, it can still offer effective techniques for helping clients manage and overcome jealousy, enabling them to develop healthier emotional responses and stronger relationships. Self-observation is vital if we are to understand ourselves better.
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So how can we help jealous clients cognitively? Well, there are varied ways, but here are three approaches I find useful.
Technique one: Ask your client to make a thought record
Introduce your clients to thought records as a way to identify and challenge their cognitive distortions.
One client, Kevin, found this self-observation exercise transformational because he’d never really noticed his triggers before, nor his reactions to them. He’d been so absorbed in the experience that it was a revelation for him to discover he could, psychologically speaking, be outside the experience and just observe himself. This alone helped lessen his chronic jealousy.
A thought record typically includes:
- Trigger: Identifying the situation that triggered the jealousy
- Emotion: Observing and recording the specific emotion caused by the trigger (e.g. fear, disgust, anger) and its intensity
- Thoughts: Observing and recording the immediate thoughts that then arose (for example, “She prefers him!” or “He’s going to leave me for someone else!”)
- Evidence for/against: Analyzing the evidence supporting and contradicting the automatic thought.
- Balanced thought: Replacing the distorted thought with a more balanced, realistic perspective.
By guiding your clients through this process, you help them develop greater awareness of their thought patterns and empower them to challenge and reframe those that are irrational or unhelpful.
Of course, this technique sounds simple written down here, but we may need to help our clients actually rehearse doing this during a session. We may get them to do it retrospectively, with regard to a situation when they were jealous in the past, before suggesting they can do it as therapeutic ‘homework’ in the future.
Technique two: Set behavioural experiments
If jealousy is, as I’ve described, a misuse of the imagination, a kind of negative self-hypnosis, then we need to help clients replace imagination with reality. Or at least empirically discover whether the two overlap at all.
Kevin, my client, thought he knew how he’d react to certain events (such as attending a party with his wife and seeing her look at or communicate with attractive co-workers).
“But do you know for sure what will happen and how you’ll react?” I asked him.
Behavioural experiments involve encouraging clients to engage in activities that they typically avoid due to jealousy. For example, if a client avoids going to social events with their partner (as Kevin had started to do) because they fear their partner might be attracted to someone else, a behavioural experiment could involve attending a social event together and observing the outcome.
We want our clients to divorce how close their prediction of the event corresponds with the reality of the event. How aligned to reality is their imagination?
Steps for conducting a behavioural experiment can be:
- Hypothesis: Ask your client to articulate their fears or expectations (for example, “If we go to this party, my partner will spend the evening talking to someone else.”) and write this down.
- Experiment: Plan an activity that tests this hypothesis (attending the party). Asking a client to actively seek out what they previously avoided is a kind of paradoxical therapy and can in itself provide a powerful reframe.
- Observation: Have the client observe what actually happens during the experiment.
- Reflection: Discuss the outcome and compare it to the initial hypothesis or expectation. Was the client’s fear justified? If so, was it completely justified? We want to replace imagination with knowledge. What did they learn from the experience?
Through these experiments, clients can challenge their assumptions and develop a more balanced perspective on the situations that trigger their jealousy.
Technique three: Enhance self-esteem and self-compassion
Some jealous people are essentially narcissistic and treat other people simply as possessions. They want – in fact, demand – all the attention at all times.
But for many jealous clients it’s insecurity and self-doubt, perhaps a sense they themselves can’t possibly really be worth valuing, that drives the jealousy.
Jealousy is often rooted in low self-esteem and a lack of self-compassion.
Clients who feel unworthy or insecure are more likely to experience jealousy, as they may perceive others as threats to their relationships or self-worth. Enhancing self-esteem and cultivating self-compassion can help clients build resilience against jealousy.
Introduce self-compassion exercises to help clients develop a kinder, more supportive relationship with themselves. This might include:
- Mindful self-compassion: Encourage clients to practise mindfulness when they experience jealousy, noticing the emotion without judgement and offering themselves understanding and kindness in response. They might breathe their way into a calmer state during such times and focus on seeing wider contexts of reality.
- Self-talk: Your client could practise ‘giving themselves a talking to’ as though they were someone they really care for and value. So in difficult times they might say to themselves things such as: “You are fine! You are attractive and interesting! Don’t be put off by those old doubts! They’ll soon fade away and get lost so you can really feel confident and relaxed.”
- Compassionate letter writing: Ask clients to write a letter to themselves from the perspective of a compassionate friend, acknowledging their feelings, offering support and encouragement, and telling them how jealousy is going to fade to low/normal levels.
By fostering self-compassion, clients can reduce their reliance on external validation and develop a stronger sense of inner security, which can significantly reduce feelings of jealousy. After all, always having to seek reassurance from others makes us overreliant in some ways and drives neediness, which can spoil relationships.
Jealousy can be a challenging emotion for clients to navigate, but with the right tools and support, it is possible to transform it into an opportunity for growth. By integrating these CBT techniques – identifying and challenging cognitive distortions, conducting behavioural experiments, and enhancing self-esteem and self-compassion – into your wider practice, you can empower your clients to overcome jealousy and build healthier, more fulfilling relationships.
After all, for most of us it’s relationships that matter most. When you help your clients improve their relationships, you give them a wonderful gift.
Use Your Language Artfully to Effect Quick, Painless Change
As practitioners, we know that it’s impossible to argue clients out of their negative, self-limiting beliefs. What’s needed is a more indirect, artful approach that eases them into a new, more effective way of looking at the world.
Like the sun whose warmth made the beleaguered man take off his coat when the howling wind only made him wrap it tighter, Mark’s online course Conversational Reframing will give you creative new ways to use language and ideas to help people discard the beliefs that have been damaging them. Read more about the course here.
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About Mark Tyrrell
Psychology is my passion. I've been a psychotherapist trainer since 1998, specializing in brief, solution focused approaches. I now teach practitioners all over the world via our online courses.
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