ABSTRACT
Hannah Segal’s essay, “Silence Is the Real Crime,” poses a challenge to the institution of psychoanalysis that has yet to be met. Considering the specific role of the psychoanalyst as a working practitioner faced with the facts of injustice and the abuse of human rights, she states the following:
I think we have a specific contribution to make. We are cognizant with the psychic mechanisms of denial, projection, magic thinking, and so on. We should be able to contribute something to the overcoming of apathy and self-deception in others and ourselves. When the Nazi phenomenon was staring us in the face, the psychoanalytic community outside Germany was largely silent. This must not be repeated. Nadezhda Mandelstam said: “Silence is the real crime against humanity.” We psychoanalysts who believe in the power of words and the therapeutic effect of verbalizing truth must not be silent. (Segal 1987, 127)
