Revisiting the Negative Therapeutic Reaction: An Example of Comparative Psychoanalysis

Abstract

This article offers a method for comparative psychoanalysis. The author maintains that progress is psychoanalysis is best assured when the various psychoanalytic theories currently in use in our pluralistic psychoanalytic world are examined with the help of carefully reported clinical material. The article offers three clinical episodes in which two different explanations are possible: the negative therapeutic reaction in contrast to the disruption of a selfobject transference.