Accounting for the Harm of Death

I defend a theory of the way in which death is a harm to the person who dies that (i) fits into a larger, unified account of harm (so that death is not a special kind of harm but is harmful in the same way that any harmful event is harmful); and (ii) includes an account of the time of death's harmfulness, one that avoids the implications that death is a timeless harm and that people have levels of welfare at times at which they do not exist.     

“What If” Dimensions of the Analytic Field: Imagination,Object Vitality,and Psychic Growth

This paper considers the role of imagination in the context of Bionian Field Theory. Expanding on Hanna Segal’s idea of “what if” dimensions of the analytic process, it is argued that “what if” states engage evocative and vital aspects of objects. They set up particular tensions in the analytic field that trigger “imaginative work.” The processes at work share many similarities with the artist’s creative process. For this reason, William Kentridge’s reflections on his own creative process are used to elucidate “imaginative work” as an esthetic, creative and agentive process. Three case fragments are used to illustrate some of these ideas in the clinical setting.