Donald W. Winnicott: A New Approach

Winnicott continually innovated, inventing and proposing unexpected solutions in his analytical work whenever he noticed that clinical experience “doesn’t stick to the theory”. This approach can make his work seem rather diffuse, with concepts that are sometimes confusing, and needing to be clarified.

Laura Dethiville has taken on the task of going over and explaining the principal rudiments of Winnicott's theories (the transitional object, the self, false self, the importance of environment, dissociation), and she reveals how Winnicott showed himself to be a forerunner in the care of symptomatic illness in our society: loss of identity, anorexia or bulimia, delinquency, psychosomatic illness, and school disorders. The success of this work is due to the fact that the author has managed to avoid psychoanalytic jargon, and her comments, which are obviously initially destined for psychoanalysts, are also accessible for educators, child carers, pediatricians, and to all those who in one way or another are interested in early childhood, the constitution of the psyche, and the constitution of the interpersonal link. And of course also to new parents, who will find here the way to come into contact with their newborn baby.