title: Negativism and countertransference.
abstract: The purpose of this work is to explore the phenomenon of negativism and the analyst's response to it during the course of analytic work with a patient in whom negativism is a central behavioral pattern. Melville's short story, "Bartleby the Scrivener," describing in telling detail the response of a sympathetic lawyer to profound and pervasive negativism in his legal scribe, is discussed as a literary analogy to the analyst-analysand dyad. Aspects of the concept of negativism within psychoanalysis are discussed. The potential usefulness of understanding certain unexpected countertransference responses to pervasive negativism is explored, as this is a relatively neglected area of psychoanalytic technique. A case is presented describing the analysis of a patient whose character, like Bartleby's, is a mixture of profound negativism along with schizoid, obsessional, and masochistic elements.
authors.affiliation: Emory University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research, Atlanta, Georgia.
authors.forename: S T
authors.initials: ST
authors.lastname: Levy
authors.forename: L B
authors.initials: LB
authors.lastname: Inderbitzin
mesh_terms: D003379:Countertransference; D003674:Defense Mechanisms; D006801:Humans; D009341:Negativism; D011574:Psychoanalytic Theory; D011575:Psychoanalytic Therapy