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In 1962 D. W. Winnicott visited San Francisco, his one and only visit to the city. There he presented a paper on the topic of communication, which for years and decades after was mistakenly thought to be the prepublication text of the well-known paper “Communicating and Non-Communicating Leading to a Study of Certain Opposites,” published the following year (Winnicott 1963a), a gem of a paper that would become especially beloved for many of his readers. Only recently was a typewritten manuscript of the actual presentation found in the archives of the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute.1 Clearly a forerunner of the published paper, the San Francisco presentation (Winnicott 1962a) is nonetheless a distinctive contribution in its own right.
A dearth of contemporary accounts of Winnicott's visit to San Francisco makes it hard to know how his ideas were received, but the newly discovered manuscript provides a fascinating picture of what he was trying to do in his presentation. It also captures a most creative and almost fervent juncture in Winnicott's conceptual journey, a period when