Denise Cullington, 'The freedom to know your own mind: the bad and the mad, and the sad, as well as the good and the sane'

Freedom of thought – and at best I think we still have a very limited freedom in that respect – means the freedom to know our own thoughts and that ... means knowing the unwelcome as well as the welcome, the anxious thoughts, those felt as “bad” or “mad”, as well as constructive thoughts and those felt as “good” or “sane”… - Hanna Segal 

In this talk I’m speaking particularly to students who may be interested in psychoanalysis, but not have much of an experience of one for themselves. Then it’s easy to get hold of an idea in an intellectual way, but not so much in an emotional, gut, way. 

    I am bringing parts of a book that is being published bringing psychoanalytic thinking to the everyday reader: The Rough Beast. I am bringing ideas and vignettes to do with defences against knowing; and what is defended against: the mad, the bad (and the sad) as well as the good and the sane.