Reading Winnicott

Reading Winnicott brings together a selection of papers by the psychoanalyst and paediatrician Donald Winnicott, providing an insight into his work and charting its impact on the well-being of mothers, babies, children and families. With individual introductions summarising the key features of each of Winnicott’s papers this book not only offers an overview of Winnicott’s work, but also links it with Freud and later theorists. Areas of discussion include: the relational environment and the place of infantile sexuality aggression and destructiveness illusion and transitional phenomena theory and practice of psychoanalysis of adults and children. As such Reading Winnicott will be essential reading for all students wanting to learn more about Winnicott’s theories and their impact on psychoanalysis and the wider field of mental health.

Winnicott is concerned with the springs of imaginative living and of cultural experience in every sense, with whatever determines an individual's capacity to live creatively and to find life worth living.

Describes Winnicott's theories of child development, the mother-child relationship, and human sexuality.

Winnicott’s work on the developmental process is paired with interactions of child therapists and their patients to link theory and practice. More than 25 of his works are analyzed and presented with partial transcripts of actual sessions to demonstrate the value of his contributions to child and adult psychology and psychotherapy.

One of Britain's leading psychoanalysts and pediatricians, Donald Woods Winnicott (1896 - 1971) was the creative mind behind some of the most enduring theories of the child and of child, adolescent and adult analysis. Winnicott's work is still relevant today for child and adult therapists, psychoanalysts, social workers, teachers, and psychologists, and his papers and clinical observations are routinely studied by trainees in psychoanalysis, psychiatry, and clinical psychology. Brought together into a single volume for the first time, the writings that compose Twelve Essays on Winnicott originally appeared as part of the landmark publication The Collected Works of DW Winnicott (winner in the Historical category of the American Board & Academy of Psychoanalysis Book Prize for best books published in 2016). These twelve works of original scholarship provide a distinctive chronological map to Winnicott's theoretical developments and clinical innovations. The result is a substantial contribution to psychoanalytic theory and practice that will be of interest to clinicians, scholars, and new and lifelong students of the work of Donald W. Winnicott.

Study of nostalgic representations of the maternal, the home, and childhood in the literature and photographs of early-20th-century artists.

Volume 4 (1952-1955) is introduced by the distinguished Canadian analyst, Dominique Scarfone. It contains texts of further BBC broadcasts and papers on Winnicott's contribution to the psychoanalytic study of psychosis and the meaning of regression in analysis. There are letters to members of the British Society and reviews of contemporary books, including a review, with Masud Khan, of Ronald Fairbairn's Psychoanalytic Studies of the Personality. This volume contains the first published version of 'Transitional Objects and Transitional Phenomena' and the whole case history Holding and Interpretation, first published posthumously in 1972 and then in 1986, but based on detailed case notes for a patient seen 1940-1941 and from 1953, and written between January and July 1955.

What in Winnicott’s theoretical matrix was truly revolutionary for psychoanalysis? In this book, the editor and contributors provide a rare in-depth analysis of his original work, and highlight the specifics of his contribution to the concept of early psychic development which revolutionised the theory and practice of psychoanalysis. Including re-publications of selected Winnicott papers to set the scene for the themes and explorations in subsequent chapters, the book examines how Winnicott expanded Freud’s work, and how his discourse with Melanie Klein sharpened his thought and clinical innovations. Divided into 3 sections, it covers: Introductory overviews on the evolution of Winnicott’s theoretical matrix Personal perspectives from eminent psychoanalysts on how Winnicott’s originality inspired their own work Further recent examinations and extensions including new findings from the archives Drawing on her own extensive knowledge of Winnicott and the expertise of the distinguished contributors, Jan Abram shows us how Winnicott’s contribution constitutes a major psychoanalytic advance to the concept of subjectivity. As such, it will be an inspiration to experienced psychoanalysts, psychotherapists and all those interested in human nature and emotional development.