ABSTRACT

Many people influence our work and thinking. Often we can forget, or not fully allow ourselves to know, how much someone has influenced us. And one reason for this can be that someone’s ideas become so central to our thinking that we lose touch with their source in that other person. Nina Coltart was an influence on me of this kind, one who was so close that I risk taking her for granted. It is also hard to know what comes directly from her, quotably, as it were, and what comes more indirectly but pervasively by means of assimilation and identification from a whole attitude to life and work. In just such latter ways, I think, we also take things in from our parents and our analysts.