ABSTRACT
During one of her rare visits to Brazil, Melanie Klein’s favourite pupil talks about the extraordinary adventure that is the human mind.
Acclaimed as one of the greatest pioneers of psychoanalytic thinking, Hanna Segal, at the age of 80, continues to work from her London consulting room, publishing books (Psychoanalysis, Literature and War has just been released in Brazil by Imago Editora) and living on the borders of politically correct conventions.As often as she can, she smokes cigarillos (‘the Brazilian ones are some of the best in the world’) or a cigar (‘it’s a Havana or nothing’), punctuating every reflection with a puff. ‘Unfortunately I had to abandon the pipe,’ she laments. She admits that, despite her Jewish origin, there are irreconcilable differences between her values and the predominant culture in Israel, and she has also little sympathy for the feminist movement. A former Freud Memorial Visiting Professor at University College London, Hanna Segal met with Veja, wearing Birkenstock sandals, shorts, and with a desire to finish the interview as soon as possible, so she could go for a swim.
