Tribute by Odile Gavériaux at Arthur Hyatt Williams' memorial service at the Tavistock Clinic:
Hyatt used to come every year with Gianna to Larmor-Plage in Brittany.
From 1988 until 2003, together with Alex and Hélène Dubinsky,
they would give a marvellous impetus to the annual symposium of the
Martha Harris Study Centre in Larmor, of which Hyatt was one of the
founding members.
I had always felt it to be a privilege to be able to count on his presence
– the presence of someone with such immense resources of humanity
and an incomparable professional experience.
Hyatt was a model of modesty and discretion. The look in his eyes and
the expression on his face bore witness above all to his benevolence
and generosity. Hyatt was interested in other people and really appreciated
them. His lively and firm step echoed the liveliness of his mind and
the strength of his thinking: clear, concise and incisive. Whenever
he had something to say, every word was well worth listening to.
When he came to Larmor, he would talk about Bion from his own personal
experience. He would explain Bion's thinking with such clarity and persuasiveness
that we could understand just how forceful and brilliant Bion's ideas
can be.
Hyatt taught us a lot about Bion, and also about Melanie Klein and
Hanna Segal. Today, however, I would like to emphasize above all what
I learned from him through his remarkable papers on the poets Samuel
Coleridge and John Keats: the sheer beauty that is to be found in the
search for truth, as well as the immensely precious dimension of creativeness
that is part of working-through our internal conflicts. In his essay
on Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Hyatt puts us in touch with
a human being struggling to get back into close contact with himself
when faced with the negativity of some of his drive impulses, pointing
out that "as long as there was emotional conflict in the good and
bad parts of himself, some development and maturation could proceed...".
Similarly, in noting how Keats's poetical genius matured quite remarkably,
Hyatt emphasizes just how precious creativeness is. In his essay on
Keats's La Belle Dame sans Merci, he highlights how, through his writing,
the poet can accomplish some degree of processing and reparation; in
this way, "the result will be integration, which by its wholeness
and balance will be both true and beautiful".
If we can look at Truth courageously and acquire the quality that Keats
called "negative capability", then we will be in a stronger
position to hold on to what is best in us.
Hyatt's final years were a reminder of just how fragile human nature
can be. What he so generously shared with us, nevertheless, remains
intact and lives on in our thinking.
The imprint of his wonderful mind will stay with us; it is with immense
gratitude that I think of him. Thank-you, Hyatt.
Odile Gavériaux
Larmor-Plage, mai 2010