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This article develops a method to address the impact of the negative (Green, 1997, 2002) in transference work with schizoid trauma survivors. Two such patients are presented, each of whom was in a kill-or-be-killed relationship with an elder brother. The author suggests that violent sibling dyads are powerful stimulators of schizoid shutdown, specifically because they are based on this black-or-white dilemma: kill-or-be-killed. It was crucial that the parents of both patients turned a blind eye to the abuse, allowing the violent elder sibling free reign over the younger. Both patients, therefore, had a double trauma to deal with: parental absence and sibling hatred. This formed a problematic object choice: absent parent or abusive sibling? The abusive elder siblings, though terrifying, were in effect all that these patients had.
Introducing a new concept, the author suggests that the abusive elder siblings became negative objects—formless forces of affect, vaguely reflecting a dangerous historical object, yet erasing that object's human features. This process of depersonification is described as a method of schizoid shutdown. In both cases the negative object caused confusion and a sense of paralysis in the transference. The author describes a method for perceiving, and then repersonifying, the negative object. This brings both the predatory sibling and the absent parent back into the transference as human objects.