Donald Winnicott Research Articles

알코올중독의 문제와 그 극복의 방안 - 도널드 위니캇 이론을 중심으로 -

알코올중독의 문제와 그 극복의 방안 - 도널드 위니캇 이론을 중심으로 -

Following John Wilkinson

This article reads closely John Wilkinson’s essay ‘Following the Poem’ (2007) alongside some of Wilkinson’s poetry from the 1980s and 1990s. Using the work of Donald Winnicott as a touchstone, the article critically evaluates the claims made in Wilkinson’s essay about fullness and intersubjectivity against some of his poetry’s expressions of fragmentation and dismemberment. The article concludes with some reflections on Wilkinson’s quotation of Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound in Proud Flesh (1986), and on the later collection Hid Lip (1992). It argues that an illuminating disparity or contradiction exists between the avowed aim of the reading practices described and advocated in ‘Following the Poem,’ and the state of the subjects repeatedly presented in Wilkinson’s poetry. The article finally suggests that this contradiction itself speaks volumes about the kind of world in which both poetry and poetics exist.

Prejudice as Ideology: The Creation of “Us” and “Them” Groups in Society (and Psychoanalysis)

Prejudices are never experienced as prejudice: they always seem reasonable. Forms of multiculturalism presume that we are prone to prejudice when we are faced with strangers whose ways and looks we are unfamiliar with. They think that one can be taught to think and experience differently though a process of familiarization and education. This work takes place in the conscious realm. Psychoanalysis, meanwhile, provides a range of explanations that have their sources in the workings of the internal worlds of individuals. The main culprit here is the mechanism of projection. To this way of thinking, the antidote to prejudice is greater self-knowledge and a better understanding of one's internal world. This work is grounded in the unconscious realm. While each of these discourses has its merits, neither explanation is sufficient in itself. I think that this is because neither gives sufficient weight to the way power relations structure psyche as well as social context. I will argue that an understanding of the human condition grounded in the works of S. H. Foulkes, Norbert Elias and Donald Winnicott provides us with a deeper way of grasping the workings of prejudice. Finally, I will use these ways of thinking to draw attention to, and think about, the forms of prejudice (and the rationales that bolster them) to which the world of psychoanalysis is prone. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Adolescência e Tendência Antissocial: o Rap como Expressão de uma Privação Emocional

O presente estudo objetiva refletir sobre a tendência antissocial no adolescente/jovem, por meio da análise do conteúdo descrito nas letras de músicas de rap brasileiro, as quais em geral surgem carregadas de revolta, inconformismo, denúncias sociais e esperança. A pesquisa se caracteriza como exploratória, documental e qualitativa. Para tanto, foi realizada análise de conteúdo das letras, e posterior discussão embasada na teoria de Donald Woods Winnicott, buscando nos trechos das músicas indícios referentes a privações ambientais e o sentido que as letras carregam no contexto do comportamento antissocial. Na análise de conteúdo encontraram-se três categorias: a falha ambiental como princípio para a tendência antissocial, a tendência antissocial enquanto esperança de reparação, e o rappara além da música. Nos excertos das letras de rapselecionadas, os comportamentos antissociais mostraram-se enquanto saída emocional encontrada pelos adolescentes/jovens com histórico de privação, fazendo-os adotarem uma conduta desafiadora socialmente como forma de buscar uma contenção externa para reparar a falha vivenciada antes por alguma figura referencial. Conclui-se que o rap se instaurou como solução positiva para a expressão dos sentimentos e a conquista de uma identidade e reconhecimento social frente aos pares.

Formas de reconhecimento e força intersubjetiva de grupo

<title>RESUMO</title><p>O ensaio busca justificar a intersubjetividade do grupo como formação humana solidária e cooperativa. Aborda o reconhecimento como força motriz de formação do grupo, deixando claro que é por meio do reconhecimento alcançado no grupo social que o ser humano confirma valores centrais à formação de sua individualidade, como autoconfiança, autorrespeito e autoestima. Na sequência, volta-se para os traços da idealização metódica de grupo delineada por Axel Honneth com base na noção de objeto transicional de Donald Winnicott. Por fim, faz um ingresso pontual em um pequeno texto de Piaget, escrito ainda na metade dos anos trinta do século passado. Por ver no grupo a força motriz do desenvolvimento da condição natural de cooperação e ajuda recíproca da criança, Piaget antecipa uma ideia importante da teoria honnethiana do reconhecimento.</p>

Forgotten dreams: recalling the patient in British psychotherapy, 1945-60.

The forgotten dream proved central to the early development of Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic technique in The Interpretation of Dreams (1900). However, little attention has been paid to the shifting uses of forgotten dreams within psychotherapeutic practice over the course of the twentieth century. This paper argues that post-war psychotherapists in London, both Jungian and Freudian, developed a range of subtly different approaches to dealing with their patients’ forgotten dreams. Theoretical commitments and institutional cultures shaped the work of practitioners including Donald Winnicott, Melanie Klein, Anna Freud, and Edward Griffith. By drawing on diaries and case notes, this paper also identifies the active role played by patients in negotiating the mechanics of therapy, and the appropriate response to a forgotten dream. This suggests a broader need for a detailed social history of post-Freudian psychotherapeutic technique, one that recognises the demands of both patients and practitioners.

My Two Moms: Disability, Queer Kinship, and the Maternal Subject

Dominant Western discourses of motherhood have depicted disabled women as incapable of being mothers. In contrast to these representations, recent literature in disability studies has argued that disabled women can provide maternal care and should therefore retain custody over their children. This literature is commendable, but its emphasis on custodial rights excludes from the category of “mother” those disabled women who cannot maintain child custody. In this article, I challenge this exclusion via an account of my experience with my two mothers: my biological mother, who relinquished custody over me because of her inability to provide care, and my maternal grandmother, who raised me as her child. Theorizing this account, I argue that disability studies must adopt a conception of motherhood that recognizes both alternative kinship structures and mothers whose disabilities preclude them from fulfilling normative conceptions of maternal care. I develop such a conception by synthesizing Judith Butler's theorization of queer kinship with Donald Winnicott's rethinking of the maternal subject. I conclude by drawing on this flexible conception of motherhood to argue that my disabled mother's relinquishing of custody over me to her own mother was the very gesture in which she accepted and adopted a maternal role.

Temporality 2: The relevance of the Heideggerian concept of time to the treatment of borderline conditions

In this article I attempt to demonstrate the relevance of the philosophy of time to psychiatric, psychological and psychoanalytic theories of development and therapeutic action. In an accompanying article I established a range of relevant temporal concepts, emerging from the philosophy of Martin Heidegger, with links made to Freudian concepts of time, in particular Nachtraglichkeit, developed in the writings of psychoanalyst Andre Green and philosopher Jacques Derrida. In this article I proceed to explore this philosophy of time through a consideration of the developmental theories and clinical approaches of Donald Winnicott, Jean Laplanche, Andre Green and Hans Loewald. I conclude by establishing that the temporalizing function of therapeutic action can be seen to be a core or essential element of work with patients presenting with socalled borderline conditions. I demonstrate how a range of problems or ambiguities that coalesce around this condition (including dissociation, traumatization, self harm and brief reactive psychosis) can be understood in temporal terms.

Object relations in the museum: a psychosocial perspective

This article theorises museum engagement from a psychosocial perspective. With the aid of selected concepts from object relations theory, it explains how the museum visitor can establish a personal relation to museum objects, making use of them as an ‘aesthetic third’ to symbolise experience. Since such objects are at the same time cultural resources, interacting with them helps the individual to feel part of a shared culture. The article elaborates an example drawn from a research project that aimed to make museum collections available to people with physical and mental health problems. It draws on the work of the British psychoanalysts Donald Winnicott and Wilfred Bion to explain the salience of the concepts of object use, potential space, containment and reverie within a museum context. It also refers to the work of the contemporary psychoanalyst Christopher Bollas on how objects can become evocative for individuals both by virtue of their intrinsic qualities and by the way they are used to express personal idiom.

Aggression and Play in the Face of Adversity

Recent discussions about the affective dimension of democracy have said too little about the way in which disempowered citizens can sustain their struggles in the face of adversity. This article develops a theory about democratic resilience of disempowered citizens by turning to the theory of aggression and play of Donald Winnicott. Drawing on Winnicott, I argue that resilience depends on a capacity to mourn, a capacity for dissent, and a capacity to invent new techniques for interaction. Yet, we need also think beyond Winnicott and investigate how these capacities are radically transformed by democratic struggles. This allows us to see that democratic struggles can open up new possibilities for facing adversity but that they can also undermine resilience by developing rigid attachments to strategies of resilience. I conclude with a preliminary discussion of how democratic struggles might undo a tendency to rigidity.

4/7 Donald Woods Winnicott

4/7 Donald Woods Winnicott

Donald Winnicott as Theorist: Revolutionary or Paradigm Expander?

(2014). Donald Winnicott as Theorist: Revolutionary or Paradigm Expander? The Psychoanalytic Quarterly: Vol. 83, No. 2, pp. 465-478.

On the Seashore of an Endless World, Children Play

The author discusses intuition, creativity, aspirations, and play and suggests that these areas of experience are resources for therapeutic intervention in childhood. The thoughts of Eric Berne, Donald Winnicott, and Marion Milner intertwine with the voices of contemporary transactional analysts to comprise the theoretical basis of this article. The author draws on her years of clinical experience with children to offer a contemporary vision of the use of transactional analysis in psychotherapy during important developmental ages. The article concludes with a case example.

Winnicott and Arendt: bridging potential and political spaces.

In this article, the author seeks to bridge analytic theory, which is used as an interpretive framework to understand patients' psychic lives, and political philosophy, which accounts for individuals living a life in common as citizens. Specifically, I address how we can understand the relation between the psychosocial space of a parent(s) and child interaction, which becomes part of the child's psychic life, and the political space between and within citizens. The underlying claim is that there is a correlation between political space and the space between parent and child. I use an emended version of Donald Winnicott's concept of potential space and political philosopher Hannah Arendt's notion of the space of appearances to suggest connections between the consulting room and political space.

Sándor Ferenczi’s Legacy: His Influence on My Work with Difficult Patients

The pioneering work of Sandor Ferenczi laid the groundwork for the relational theory and has had a profound impact on my work with traumatized children, adolescents, and adults. Throughout this article, I reflect upon his life’s work and its influence on theorists such as Anna Freud, Donald Winnicott, and Michael Balint. Case illustrations capture the significant contributions that Sandor Ferenczi has made to the field of psychoanalysis with specific emphasis on “The Confusion of Tongues” trauma theory.

Book Review: Donald Winnicott Today

Book Review: Donald Winnicott Today

“Raindrops on roses:” The Sound of Music and the political psyche of the Sixties

The Sound of Music is typically treated as a middlebrow cultural artifact of the Sixties. Within the British historiography its popularity is now taken to signify the conservatism of public taste, and hence to offer a corrective to claims of “cultural revolution.” The article interrogates this assertion, focusing principally on the Hollywood movie, but also encompassing related manifestations in other media, and introducing a British perspective to a hitherto US- or German-centric discussion. It surveys the critical literature, finding that contemporaries and later commentators dismissed the work as over-sentimental or irrelevant, and claimed it mythologized Austria’s Nazi past. However, other investigators have emphasized its semiotic diversity and liberating messages, exploring, inter alia, its countercultural imagery, its work as a lesbian text, its proto-feminist meanings, and its theme of female striving. The argument here is that the key to the film’s extraordinary reception lies in those scenes which bring emotional weight to the themes of child-rearing, discipline, and play, and the relationship between psychological health and the good society. This though is neither a psychoanalytic reading nor a claim that the film appealed to the collective unconscious of the audience. Rather it suggests that it both resonated with, and helped constitute, understandings of the self and society which were then current in intellectual and popular culture. The exposition begins by examining aspects of the political and personal lives of the librettist, Oscar Hammerstein, the director Robert Wise, and the leading lady Julie Andrews, to provide context for the subsequent interpretation. It draws on recent cultural histories that explore the influence of the popular musical and film, and also on biographical material, to emphasize the importance of internationalism, peace and tolerance to Hammerstein and to Wise. Andrews’ personal life at the time of filming, her journey into Freudian psychoanalysis, and her earlier friendship with the British analyst Masud Khan are also described. The central sections develop an argument which relates the film’s popularity to its handling of two issues. The first is its emphasis on the importance of emotional expression and play in child-rearing, expressed through Maria’s role as a surrogate mother, and her challenge to the authoritarianism of Captain von Trapp. These ideas were current in mothering manuals and the discussion traces the underlying psychoanalytic thought that influenced them, notably the work of John Bowlby and Donald Winnicott (with whom Masud Khan collaborated). The second issue is its explicit and allegorical treatment of Fascism. The work suggests a relationship between psychological health, inculcated by Maria’s love and encouragement of collective activity, and broader social health, in the family’s rejection of Nazism. Again this is related to postwar writings examining psychological development and political outcomes. While not positing necessary authorial intent on the part of creators, the argument turns on a case for audience recognition of these themes, and this is supported by reference to the literature on psychological subjectivity between the 1940s and 1960s. All this casts doubt on a simplistic treatment of the work as manifestation of conservative Sixties’ values.

Pascal’sFragments d’un discours amoureux

In this article, Pascal’s Ecrits sur la Grâce is considered from an unusual angle. Using Barthes’s Fragments d’un discours amoureux as an intertext, it is argued that the Ecrits, seemingly so intractable and impersonal, is Pascal’s most deeply personal work, to be read on both theological and existential levels. Through the writings of Donald Winnicott, which feature prominentl­y in the Barthes text, the crucial role played by abandonment (delaissement) is explored in the Ecrits and in other Pascalian works.

The Mulberry Bush School and UK therapeutic community practice for children and young people

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to inform readers and researchers about the use of a “lived experience” of therapeutic community work as an effective intervention for severely emotionally troubled children. Design/methodology/approach – An explanation of the main developmental influences and how the Mulberry Bush School is continuing to incorporate new theories and approaches. Findings – How the Mulberry Bush as a specialist therapeutic residential provision can bring about excellent outcomes for severely emotionally troubled children. Research limitations/implications – The paper explores the work and legacy of the school's founder Barbara Dockar-Drysdale and of her collaboration with Donald Winnicott to create a lived experience of community as an agent of therapeutic change. The paper also provides descriptions and a case study of the current multi-disciplinary work of the school, including how neuroscientific research is influencing the evolution of the therapeutic task with traumatised children. Practical implications – The paper shows how a highly evolved model of integrated provision can support excellent outcomes for traumatised children and young people. Originality/value – To broaden and deepen knowledge about the use of therapeutic community principles in the treatment of severely emotionally trouble children and young people.

Device Consciousness and Collective Volition

Device Consciousness and Collective Volition