In a psychoanalytic career spanning three decades, Nina Farhi worked primarily with people who had survived near impossible emotional and psychological circumstances. In a series of clinical papers, she theorized the ways in which her patients had managed to preserve embryonic self-states against all odds and the arduous, imaginative and resourceful psychoanalytic work required to transform these vestiges of survival into creative living. This paper traces the evolution of Farhi's clinical thought, from her surprising and fresh uses of particular concepts of Winnicott's to her original re-working of some of Marion Milner's foundational insights. It explores the ways in which Farhi's clinical practice was original and the clinical and theoretical legacy she leaves.