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Clare Winnicott and D. W. Winnicott had worked as colleagues
for several years during the days of evacuation of children from London to protect them from air raids during World War ll. She and her co-workers have assembled Winnicott's publications and broadcast speeches from that early period, as well as related theoretical papers written much later. The volume presents Winnicott's reflections on his experiences with the children of the war and other situations of emotional deprivation and their relation to delinquency.
In the introduction Clare Winnicott suggests that "It does not seem an exaggeration to say that the manifestations of deprivation and delinquency in society are as big a threat as that of the nuclear bomb. In fact there is surely a connection between the two kinds of threat, because as the antisocial element in society rises, so does the destructive potential within society rise to a new danger level." Present-day violence and systematic terrorism from nations and individual groups make Winnicott's observations about the connection between emotional deprivation and delinquency an important source of reflection for those who may be interested in working preventively with children who are at risk, to minimize the possibility of their developing a delinquent character structure.
The book helps us understand Winnicott the man and Winnicott the thinker. As a man, we see him in a way we have not known him before, as a man of action devotedly engaged in England's effort to protect its children from the horrors of war. We observe Winnicott assuming the task with his usual dedication, clarity of mind, and matter-of-factness while remaining compassionate. We observe him keeping in direct and immediate contact with the emotional needs of the suffering children as well as with those of the colleagues he helped assist the children.
Winnicott was a keen and systematic observer of psychic processes and of the interpersonal events that surrounded the children