ABSTRACT
Throughout her writing career, Hanna Segal has always been particularly interested in freedom of thought and its relation to creativity, and the influence of her work can be seen on this paper. This contribution is essentially concerned with creativity—mental vision—based on the freedom to think and imagine, and its connection with mature sexuality as opposed to sexualisation. This chapter discusses how sexualisation, which in the analytic situation means enactment, is in fact the antithesis of thinking, it is used by patients to avoid thought which they both hate and fear. The sexualisation is ordinarily rather hidden but when it emerges it is clear that it is directly opposed to real sexuality and real relating. The chapter explores something of the nature of the personality organisation of this type of patient showing this combination of sexualisation and little mature sexuality or mature emotional relating.
