ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the issue of psychoanalytic resistance generally but of the negative therapeutic reaction in particular. The concept of psychoanalytic resistance occupies a significant role as a relentless shadow to the psychoanalytic process. It has many faces. Freud believed that the neurotic analysand demonstrates normal resistance to id irruptions in the analytic process, otherwise he would be overwhelmed by them. The negative therapeutic reaction is a special instance of resistance in which one aspect of the personality or a sub-personality undermines treatment by (a) attacking the collaborative link between patient and analyst; and (b) discrediting or impugning, separately, either analyst or analysand. Since the psychic retreat is split off from the guidance, control, and regulation of the normal personality, it seems to fend for itself by reconstructing a new, rogue or feral, and contumacious worldview, one characterized by "alpha-function in reverse".
