Understanding negative hallucination: toward a developmental classification of disturbances in reality awareness

Abstract

Negative hallucinations are explored from a psychodynamic viewpoint in four cases of neurosis. Next, shifting to the level of clinical theory, negative hallucinations are contrasted with five better-studied disturbances in reality awareness. It is noted that all six function as screen phenomena, and all occur in everyday contexts. These and other phenomenological issues lead to an assertion that negative hallucinations are regressive perceptual phenomena, similar in form to both preconscious perceptions and infantile amnesia. Finally, developmental considerations are used to derive a coherent hierarchy of disturbances in reality awareness.