What if the patient says “no”

Jan 2023

The meanings of saying “no” can be philosophically and psychologically interpreted in very different ways. The philosopher Martin Heidegger considered a negative judgment to be tied to an original experience of nothing. The psychologist René Spitz attributed the acquired capacity to say “no” to the acquisition of the so-called third psychic organizer, since it implies having learned the meaning of prohibition from parents and having lived a first manifestation of identification with them.

In the article The refused interpretation in Freud, Jung and beyound: What if the patient says “no”,
Marco Innamorati, PhD, PsyD, Professor of History and Philosophy of scientific concepts at University of Rome “Tor Vergata” (Italy)  tries to show how the consequences of refusing an interpretation can be very different within Freudian, Jungian, and other psychotherapeutic models.  A “no” may imply in some cases a refutation of the model of reference, and in others less radical meanings.

There was no literature about confronting the meaning of a refused interpretation in psychoanalysis and analytical psychology. The paper tries to figure out what is the consequence of a different attitude from an epistemological and a historical point of view.

This article is part of the special issue Transcultural histories of psychotherapies: new narratives (HCS-Manguinhos 29 suppl 1, 2022), coordinated by professors Sonu Shamdasani (Health Humanities Centre/University College London) and  Cristiana Facchinetti (postgraduate Program in History of Sciences and Health/Casa de Oswaldo Cruz/Fiocruz).

Read more in HCS-Manguinhos:

Innamorati, Marco. The refused interpretation in Freud, Jung and beyond: what if the patient says “no”. História, Ciências, Saúde-Manguinhos [online]. 2022, v. 29, suppl 1 [Accessed 16 January 2023], pp. 109-121.

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