Patients exposed to intense negativity during early life may develop an addiction to negative experience as adolescents and adults. This may become the central organizing feature of their personalities. Manifestations of early negativity include anhedonia, attachment to physical pain, fear of success, masochism, deprivation of self and others, and searching only for the negative. The dynamic function of negativity can involve a desire for revenge against the caretakers from infancy who were sources of deprivation and frustration. In addition, negativity can serve a defensive function by expressing through projective-introjective mechanisms, as well as warding off, dangerous wishes to merge. Countertransference reactions frequently appear in treatment and their resolution is crucial. Patient and therapist must investigate the adaptive functions of extreme negativity to resolve this symptom.