ABSTRACT
The relations between the categories of the primary and the primal on the one hand, and classical Oedipal categories on the other are at the heart of the clinical work and practice of Sandor Ferenczi. Nevertheless, to approach them clinically and theoretically, Ferenczi lacked the concepts of denial and splitting as they would subsequently be elaborated on the basis of Freud's advances, as well as the concepts of pathological projective identification and normal projective identification. It could also be said that he lacked a theory of the negative. It was nonetheless those concepts linked to the category of the negative that would be the key issues of these latest advances. This chapter lists the main concepts linked to Ferenczi's theoretical reflections which justify the affirmation that he was a pioneer in the creation of the instruments necessary for exploring clinical categories linked to the despair, the paralysis or the agony of psychic life.
