ABSTRACT
The negative is not an individualized notion as such in psychoanalytic writings. In Freud’s work, it figures as an adjective. Negative hallucination, a concept to which I attribute a central importance, was mentioned on several occasions by Freud during the hypno-cathartic period.The idea was common in Bernheim’s circles. Freud gave several examples of it at the beginning of his work; then the notion was eclipsed in the theory, only reappearing incidentally in a note in ‘A Metapsychological Supplement to the Theory of Dreams’ (1917d). Two particular mentions of it must be recalled here: the first defining neurosis as the negative of perversion; the second characterizing a regrettable evolution in the treatment, namely, the negative therapeutic reaction. It can be said that Freud’s work is situated between two limits.But there is still nothing there to justify the noun, ‘the’ negative, for this form of thinking is quite far removed from Freud’s.The idea re-emerged during Lacan’s Hegelian period, though he paid little attention to it.
