Concept
Work of the negative
André Green's umbrella concept, set out in his 1993 book of that name, for the psychic operations that say no: repression, negation, disavowal, foreclosure, splitting and negative hallucination. Taking the phrase from Hegel, he held that the negative is not only pathological, since the psyche has to refuse excess drive in order to form itself, as in repression and sublimation; in its destructive forms, however, it empties the psyche, attacks links and undoes the investment of objects.
developed by
- André Green 1993 The phrase comes from Hegel, and Lacan had brought it into psychoanalysis; Green made it the organising concept of his 1993 book, gathering under it repression, negation, disavowal, splitting and negative hallucination, and their destructive forms.
derives from
- Negation Green's work of the negative widens Freud's negation, together with repression, disavowal and other forms of saying no, into one category of psychic operations.