Introduction: Winnicott's Collected Works, Volume 6

Peter Goldberg's deeply felt essay on Volume 6 of Winnicott's Collected Works (1960-1963) presents us an expansively conceived discussion of core Winnicottian developmental and clinical principles. In his rich, evocative review, Goldberg explores Winnicott's concepts of early holding, and of the vicissitudes of affect—necessarily including security in concert with aggression—that emerge in human development. Countering the shallow criticisms of Winnicott as insufficiently attuned to aggression, Goldberg vigorously illustrates how Winnicott's engagement with human destructiveness is central to his clinical and developmental theories. His essay ties Winnicott's clinical theory to contemporary phenomenological accounts of countertransference as a creative and transformative experience—a moment when the analyst may fall ill with many of the same forces and torments that have befallen the patient. Goldberg notes that Winnicott's aim was to help the patient find a way to live, not to cure an illness.

Goldberg focuses not only the theory but also on the malaise of Winnicott's postwar audiences, and he asks us to consider Winnicott as a psychoanalyst-activist. The enrichment of our understanding of Winnicott—the person, the ambitious scholar, the activist, and the clinician—is a welcome event, celebrated here and in reviews of other volumes of the Collected Works.

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