Psychoanalysis, Literature and War : Papers 1972-1995

Hanna Segal, pioneer in psychoanalytic thought, has made many original contributions to her field of study. This volume of her most recent papers revisits the themes elaborated in her earlier work and brings new insights into their relevance to understanding of the external world as well as to clinical practice.

The two themes which act as connecting strands and give the book its unity are the clinical usefulness of the concept to the death instinct and the relationship between fantasy and reality. l The author is past mistress at capturing the vitality of the clinical session on the page, and the clinical papers in this volume deal with a variety of topics.

These include: symbolism; a delusional system as defence against the re-emergence of a catastrophic situation; early infantile development as reflected in the psychoanalytic process:emergence from narcissism; the Oedipus complex today; paranoid anxiety and paranoia; termination; and the use and abuses of contertransference.

The papers on literature deal with Joseph Conrad and Salman Rushdie, while those on politics deal with problems of war and disarmament. Segal shows how the same conflicts between life and death instincts, phantasy and reality, experienced in the consulting room, are reflected in literature and played out by nations and individuals in their attitudes to war. l Sympathetically edited and set in context by John Steiner, this collection of writings by an exceptional analyst provides a rich source of clinical insights and challenging theory for others.