Objectives:
The aim of the article is to analyze the patient’s paradoxical response to therapy observed and defined by Freud in 1923 and known as negative therapeutic reaction. In majority of available books touching on the subject of psychoanalysis, the occurrence is described as a phenomenon stemming from patient’s psychological construction. In this paper I intent to present the negative therapeutic reaction as a relational phenomenon– a reciprocal process in which the patient and the psychotherapist experience things and react to them in a specific way. Helplessness, shame and / or anger pose the risk of establishing a sadomasochistic collusion between the patient and the analyst or placing the temptation in psychoanalyst to provoke the patient to quit the therapy. In such circumstances both the psychotherapist and the patient unconsciously aim to develop a state which can be described as negative therapeutic reaction.

Methods:
Case study

Results:
The present article may prove helpful in understanding and preventing the occurrence of negative therapeutic reaction. To better illustrate the subject, the described theoretical conceptions are supported by clinical material.

Conclusions:
The last part of the article is devoted to author’s observations and perception of negative therapeutic reaction.