| Hanna Segal: I like talking about my early childhood, not only because old people like to reminisce but also because I find that in the biography of great analysts (and other people as well) information about their early childhood is always missing. We know a few things about Freud ā that he was his motherās favourite and how he, I think out of jealousy, threw shoes out of the window, things like that, but nothing consistent. I am rather lucky in that way in that I have very clear memories of my childhood and of a number of things, thanks to Mrs Kleinās approach, linked with it. What I can tell you is partly memory, partly what I discovered in analysis ā certain links ā and partly, letās say, my speculations about it. A good memory for oneās childhood usually means more integration. Well, I consider my childhood decisive in the formation of my character and eventually in what took me to analysis. I think I had a very traumatic childhood. I think that if I had turned out to be schizophrenic, people would have said: āNo wonder, with that childhood ā mother not containing and so onā, but things are not quite as simple as that. A trauma can make a good analyst out of you, but so can good experiences. I know that I had a bad start because ā thatās not memory, itās whatās been told to me ā until the age of 3 months I screamed incessantly. I donāt know what it was ā perhaps my mother didnāt have enough milk, or maybe it was what they call the three monthsā colic. And then suddenly I was weaned, because my mother had Spanish flu. But apparently I thrived on the bottle. I immediately put on weight. So, it was either three monthsā colic or something wrong with the feeding, but I know that I didnāt see my mother. The loss of the breast was combined with the loss of the person because my mother disappeared, I think. She survived [the epidemic], but she had a very severe flu. I remember very little of my parents from my early childhood, but my older sister died when she was 4 years old and I was a little over 2. I have very clear memories of my sister, so I must have been even younger than 18 months when she first fell ill. And I remember the dream I had soon after her death ā it was a very amusing dream and it was important to me because ours was a sort of rich bourgeois household where children were in the hands of nannies. I hardly ever saw my parents, I think, and basically my sister was my good object. I have a photograph of her holding my hand and I remember the occasion it was taken. The mythology is that she loved me very much ā Iām sure thatās true ā but the amusing thing is that one day she stuffed my mouth with chocolate and I nearly choked, so it must have been ambivalent. I remember a blue carpet on which she was pretending to teach me to swim. She died of scarlet fever, and I remember her standing by my cot with my father feeding her. I remember the place I went to when the diagnosis was made ā I was sent away immediately, of course. Then the rest is very much what I reconstructed in analysis. I have a memory of my mother all in black and looking terribly detached and me running to her and getting no response. But what I worked out ā certain things clicked ā is that my motherās way of dealing with depression was always to travel, so she must have left me and travelled and that was her return. [ā¦] So I was left with a very depressed father and a lot of stories from maids about what a pity it was that my sister had died rather than me, because she was the favourite and prettier and cleverer and so on. I think some of the comments must have been true, because sh... |
