Often the patients maintain their indifference in Spite of Opposition; it may be that very strongly negativistic patients are permanently euphoric and do not come out of this mood, while they resist with bites, scratches, and blows the invitation to shake hands; their defense is sport for them like a jolly play. More commonly the whole behavior looks like that Of a ?irt; women patients watch the physician, as if they were waiting for him to offer them his hand, or bring forward a request, so that he must busy himself with them, and then, in their negation, be have like a maiden who stimulates her lover, but tries to appear as if she were keeping him Off. At other times the negativism has a plainly erotic character, sometimes in the agreeable sense of a love-play, sometimes in an unpleasant sense, as the aversion to an attack, and Often in both directions at once. Besides this outer negativism there is also an inner, which most frequently affects the will. The patient can not do exactly what he wishes to do. In the stage between thought and expression an inhibition, a contrary impulse, or a cross impulse can make the action impossible. SO we see patients who rush to take a prof feted bit Of food, stop half way between plate and mouth, and finally refuse the morsel; with every other act the same results follow. If they start to shake hands: at any point the action may not only stop but the hand, as the result of a contrary impulse, may be placed behind the back.
