The Concept of Health Using Instinct Theory

Abstract

In this chapter, Winnicott describes the imaginative elaboration of the body and its functioning, which becomes organised by the growing self into fantasy. From this, the psyche is created with access to conscious and unconscious fantasy, leading on to the development of what we term the soul. He describes quiet and excited states for the child, all relating to his or her responses to instinctual activity and eventually to triangular relationships. He discusses Freud and the Oedipus complex; child, father, and mother relations; childhood and infantile sexuality; and reality, fantasy, and the unconscious for the child.