The author, a French psychoanalyst and thinker, draws attention to the work of the negative in Freud, examining aspects such as dream works and the work of mourning. The "work of the negative" refers to how we cope, or do not cope, with the inevitability of lacking what we want.

This is the first English translation of Le Travail du Negatif by the French psychoanalyst and thinker Andre Green. Green draws our attention to the work of the negative in Freud, examining aspects that are not normally associated with it: dream work, the work of mourning, identification, etc. The kernel of Green's argument is that the development of the ego and any experiencing of ourselves as subjects has to be achieved against an essential background of loss and absence. The phrase work of the negative refers to how we do or do not cope with this inevitability of lacking what we want.