The Collected Works of D. W. Winnicott

Abstract

Volume 5, introduced by Jennifer and Marcus Johns, covers the years 1955–1959, an extremely productive period of Winnicott’s work in broadcasting, social work, child psychiatry and psychoanalysis. His two Tavistock publications, The Child and the Family, and The Child and the Outside World; and his first collection of essays, Through Paediatrics to Psychoanalysis, were published during this time. In 1955 he married Clare Britton, with whom he had been working during the previous decade, and in 1956 he became President of the British Psychoanalytical Society. It was in this capacity that many of the large number of letters in this volume were composed, relating to the work of his analytical colleagues and the integration of the different training and theoretical groups within the BPAS.Included in this volume are important papers covering diverse areas of Winnicott’s work, including ‘The Anti-social Tendency’, ‘Primary Maternal Preoccupation’, ‘The Mother’s Contribution to Society’, ‘The Capacity to be Alone’, and responses to Klein’s 1957 book Envy and Gratitude.