Description
Hanna Segal was one of a small group of major thinkers, along with Bion and Rosenfeld whose influence has remained central to the development of psychoanalysis and whose early work has been described as one of “pioneering optimism”.
Segal’s influence was confirmed from an unexpected quarter when it was discovered that, unbeknown to her, this quotation from her paper ‘A psychoanalytical approach to aesthetics’ was used as a rallying call for the World Trade Center Mural Project.
“It is when the world within us is destroyed, when it is dead and loveless, when our loved ones are in fragments, and we ourselves in helpless despair – it is then that we must recreate our world anew, reassemble the pieces, infuse life into dead fragments, recreate life.”
The project was set up following the terrorist attack of 11 September 2001 with the aim of creating a mural, 70 feet high, on the Equitable Building in New York as a symbol that life could survive destruction.
