The Analyst’s Necessary Nonsovereignty and the Generative Power of the Negative

For the most part psychoanalytic scrutiny of what remains unregistered and unsymbolized has focused on its power to disrupt thinking or prevent integration. Yet what is not represented in words or affect can just as well be nonpathological, ubiquitous and a generative condition of being human. This paper reorients analytic focus on the powerful elements of unrepresented subjectivity, in other words “the negative,” that contribute to generative experience by unleashing energy that fosters creativity. This paper is not meant to be read forward to a prescriptive end. Engaging post-Bionian field theory, experimental clinical writing and the art of Agnes Martin, I write in three sections to explore the possibilities and limits of the analyst’s assumption of a nonsovereign position vis a vis the negative.