Many of the themes which were elaborated in Hanna Segal's earlier work return in this volume of her most recent papers. Two act as connecting strands and give the book its unity: the clinical usefulness of the concept of the death instinct and the relationship between fantasy and reality.

A past mistress at capturing the vitality of the clinical session on the page, Segal shows how the same conflicts between life and death instincts, fantasy and reality, are experienced in the consulting room, reflected in literature, and played out by nations in their attitudes to war.