www.psychspace.com心理学空间网Hanna Segal obituary
Psychoanalyst who examined the struggle between forces of life and destruction
David Bell and John Steiner
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 14 July 2011 18.35 BST
Hanna Segal applied her professional insights to subjects as wide-ranging as global politics and artistic creativity. Photograph: Graeme Robertson for the Guardian
Hanna Segal, who has died aged 93, was among a handful of psychoanalysts whose international pre-eminence was unquestioned. She made fundamental contributions to psychoanalytic theory and practice and, over a career of more than 60 years, was the leading exponent of the ideas of Melanie Klein.
Segal developed the theory of symbolism, the understanding of the nature of creativity, and the establishment of a psychoanalytic approach to severe disturbance, including psychosis. She was also known for her exploration of the functioning of phantasy (unconscious fantasy) and for her detailed elaboration of the inner struggle between forces that strive towards living and development, and those that pull towards destruction.
Segal, Herbert Rosenfeld, Wilfred Bion and Betty Joseph constituted a small group of major thinkers whose influence has remained central to the development of psychoanalysis; but Segal was unique among this group since, in the tradition laid down by Sigmund Freud, her work encompassed a very broad span. She was able to demonstrate the relevance of psychoanalytic thinking to human knowledge in general, and this made her work well known outside the field of psychoanalysis.
She was born Hanna Poznanska, into a highly cultured family in Łódz′, Poland. Her father, Czeslaw, was a barrister, an art critic and a newspaper editor. In the early days, Hanna's mother, Isabella, lived the life of a typical bourgeois lady but, when life took a downward turn, her strength and resourcefulness became manifest. The family moved to Geneva, although Hanna returned to Warsaw to complete her education.
By her late teens she had already read all the Freud that had been translated into Polish. Other early intellectual influences included Voltaire, Rousseau, Montaigne, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Proust and Pascal. Having witnessed both poverty and lack of political freedom, she joined the Polish socialist party and her commitment to the left continued throughout her life. Psychoanalysis was, as she put it, "a godsend", as in it she found a way of combining her deepest intellectual interests with her desire to help people.
The rise of fascism saw the expulsion of her father from Switzerland, and the family, now stateless and impoverished, took up residence in Paris, where Hanna joined them in 1939. In 1940 they again took flight, this time for the UK, where Hanna completed her medical studies in London and Edinburgh. In Edinburgh, she met the psychoanalyst WRD Fairbairn, which determined the further course of her life. After completing her medical education she moved to London, where she played a major part in the rehabilitation of mentally ill Polish soldiers. She was accepted for training at the British Psychoanalytic Society and entered into analysis with Klein, completing her training in 1945, at the young age of 27. The analysis with Klein was central to her development. The year 1946-47 was an extraordinary one as during it she married the mathematician Paul Segal, conceived her first child and presented her first paper, A Psychoanalytic Contribution to Aesthetics, to the British Psychoanalytical Society.
Soon after she qualified, she trained as a child analyst, being supervised by Paula Heimann, Esther Bick and Klein, and began teaching students at the Institute of Psychoanalysis. Her first book, Introduction to the Work of Melanie Klein (1964), in which Klein's ideas were illustrated through clinical material from Segal's own patients, became and remains a standard text. Her second book, Klein (1969), in the Fontana Modern Masters series, was also a homage to Freud and Klein. This series was meant for a popular audience and Segal put Klein's work in its context by reviewing Freud's contribution and showing how Klein built on this and extended it.
Psychoanalyst who examined the struggle between forces of life and destruction
David Bell and John Steiner
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 14 July 2011 18.35 BST
Hanna Segal applied her professional insights to subjects as wide-ranging as global politics and artistic creativity. Photograph: Graeme Robertson for the Guardian
Hanna Segal, who has died aged 93, was among a handful of psychoanalysts whose international pre-eminence was unquestioned. She made fundamental contributions to psychoanalytic theory and practice and, over a career of more than 60 years, was the leading exponent of the ideas of Melanie Klein.
Segal developed the theory of symbolism, the understanding of the nature of creativity, and the establishment of a psychoanalytic approach to severe disturbance, including psychosis. She was also known for her exploration of the functioning of phantasy (unconscious fantasy) and for her detailed elaboration of the inner struggle between forces that strive towards living and development, and those that pull towards destruction.
Segal, Herbert Rosenfeld, Wilfred Bion and Betty Joseph constituted a small group of major thinkers whose influence has remained central to the development of psychoanalysis; but Segal was unique among this group since, in the tradition laid down by Sigmund Freud, her work encompassed a very broad span. She was able to demonstrate the relevance of psychoanalytic thinking to human knowledge in general, and this made her work well known outside the field of psychoanalysis.
She was born Hanna Poznanska, into a highly cultured family in Łódz′, Poland. Her father, Czeslaw, was a barrister, an art critic and a newspaper editor. In the early days, Hanna's mother, Isabella, lived the life of a typical bourgeois lady but, when life took a downward turn, her strength and resourcefulness became manifest. The family moved to Geneva, although Hanna returned to Warsaw to complete her education.
By her late teens she had already read all the Freud that had been translated into Polish. Other early intellectual influences included Voltaire, Rousseau, Montaigne, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Proust and Pascal. Having witnessed both poverty and lack of political freedom, she joined the Polish socialist party and her commitment to the left continued throughout her life. Psychoanalysis was, as she put it, "a godsend", as in it she found a way of combining her deepest intellectual interests with her desire to help people.
The rise of fascism saw the expulsion of her father from Switzerland, and the family, now stateless and impoverished, took up residence in Paris, where Hanna joined them in 1939. In 1940 they again took flight, this time for the UK, where Hanna completed her medical studies in London and Edinburgh. In Edinburgh, she met the psychoanalyst WRD Fairbairn, which determined the further course of her life. After completing her medical education she moved to London, where she played a major part in the rehabilitation of mentally ill Polish soldiers. She was accepted for training at the British Psychoanalytic Society and entered into analysis with Klein, completing her training in 1945, at the young age of 27. The analysis with Klein was central to her development. The year 1946-47 was an extraordinary one as during it she married the mathematician Paul Segal, conceived her first child and presented her first paper, A Psychoanalytic Contribution to Aesthetics, to the British Psychoanalytical Society.
Soon after she qualified, she trained as a child analyst, being supervised by Paula Heimann, Esther Bick and Klein, and began teaching students at the Institute of Psychoanalysis. Her first book, Introduction to the Work of Melanie Klein (1964), in which Klein's ideas were illustrated through clinical material from Segal's own patients, became and remains a standard text. Her second book, Klein (1969), in the Fontana Modern Masters series, was also a homage to Freud and Klein. This series was meant for a popular audience and Segal put Klein's work in its context by reviewing Freud's contribution and showing how Klein built on this and extended it.