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Winnicott believed that, “one case proves nothing, but it may illustrate much” (1989, p. 369). This book discussing the case of “Piggle” illustrates much about both the individual being treated (Gabrielle/Piggle) Winnicott and his theory and therapeutic method, and how Winnicott's treatment and method relates to wider historic and contemporary debates within psychoanalysis. Debates such as the role of the environment, the impact of trauma, and methodological questions such as the role of interpretation. Masur has gathered and edited a book which (with contributions from Angela Joyce, Deborah Anna Luepnitz, Brett Kahr, Christopher Reeves, Laurel Silber, Justine Kalas Reeves, and Zack Eleftheriadou) provides a fascinating account of the work done with Piggle which deserves to be alongside books about other famous psychoanalytic case studies (an obvious example being Anna O.), and as widely read. The book will be of interest to social workers, child psychiatrists and psychotherapists, adult psychotherapists and psychoanalysts, and historians of psychoanalysis and social psychiatry. This is despite Winnicott's wry comment that the case of Piggle is: “pretty dreadful as analysis, but it should lead to a useful discussion” (Winnicott, 1977, as cited by Reeves, 2021 p. 101). It raises a question of what would analysis which is not considered “dreadful” actually look like?
Chapter one of the book is by Deborah Anna Luepnitz and is entitled: “The name of the Piggle: Reconsidering Winnicott's classic case in the light of some conversations with the adult Gabrielle”. Luepnitz's discovery of the identity of “Piggle” (first published in 1977 posthumously by Clare Winnicott) came about by a chance
correspondence between colleagues where Gabrielle reveals that she was “Piggle”. It is rare for there to be an opportunity for treatment to be discussed with the former patient, let alone a patient who was the subject of such a famous and impactful case study. This also presented an o