(De)negation in the Clinic of Psychoses: Between Schizophrenia and Paranoia

Feature Section ‟Psychoses”
By Manoel Madeira, Thomas Lepoutre, Alain Vanier
English

In his text “Die Verneinung,” Freud introduces into psychoanalysis the notion of an affirmative / negative operation that unveils the structure of repression. The mechanism of Verneinung, also named denegation, is thus connected to the clinic of neurosis. Maintaining this Freudian proposition, this article seeks to highlight the scope of differential constructions of affirmation / negation in psychoses. Knowing that in fact there is no Verneinung in psychoses like the one suggested by Freud, we suggest the term (de)negation. From this first proposition, the article seeks to position (de)negation as a means of cure in the psychoses, sustaining them as a parameter of a clinical distinction between schizophrenia and paranoia. This way, the success of (de)negation would be articulated to paranoia, and its failure to schizophrenia. To maintain our hypothesis, we go from negativism, which is here thought of in terms of an attempt at cure, to then establish two distinctive clinical paths: the weaving of (de)negation at the heart of the delusion and its stitching in relation to an unbearable representation in the absence of delusion, but intrinsically related to a fantasmatic trace.

Keywords

  • denegation
  • psychoses
  • paranoia
  • schizophrenia
  • weaving
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