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Claiming a book is a tour de force is a strong statement, and Tea with Winnicott deserves the designation. Brett Kahr is an eminent Winnicottian scholar, affiliated with Tavistock, who in 1996 published D. W. Winnicott: A Biographical Portrait, the first full-length biography of Donald Woods Winnicott. This biography won the 1997 Gradiva Award offered by the National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis.
Kahr is deeply steeped in every aspect of Winnicott, including Winnicott's writings, teachings, radio broadcasts, clinical work in hospital settings, and personal life. He incorporates his vast knowledge in this highly accessible, creative, playful book.
Playful is the operative word, a word that of course evokes one of Winnicott's most compelling contributions to psychoanalytic thought. This book is part of a Karnac project, “posthumous interviews” with iconic psychoanalytic figures, “resurrected from the dead.” In this instance, Kahr gives his readers the opportunity to join him in a playful adventure, in which he meets Winnicott, deceased 45 years, at Winnicott's home, 87, Chestnut Square, Belgravia, London S.W.1, where tea is served by Mrs. Joyce Coles (also deceased), Winnicott's long-time personal secretary. In addition to providing tea, she types the transcript of the discussion Kahr and Winnicott share.
A note about the illustrations and the illustrator: Alison Bechdel is known for her comic strip, “Dykes To Watch Out For”; her graphic memoirs, Fun Home (2006), which was adapted as a musical and won a 2015 Tony Award, and Are You My Mother (2012), a large portion of which is a comic strip exegesis of Freud's and Winnicott's theories, which prompted the International Forum for Psychoanalytic Education to give her a Distinguished Educator Award in 2013. She is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, 2014.
The illustrations appear at the beginning of each chapter, and are images of Winnicott thinking, talking, and paying attention to his tea. The imag