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It is most gratifying to see this little ‘post-Platonic dialogue’ reprinted in the 20th anniversary issue of the BJP. ‘The Symposium’ was an attempt to express an analytic idea in a more vivid idiom than the familiar clinical/theoretical paper. Given the current restrictions on the presentation of confidential clinical material, it may become increasingly necessary to find new ways of disseminating psychotherapeutic ideas in the future.
When ‘The Symposium’ first appeared many readers assumed Dr W could only be Donald Winnicott. At the time I thought I had simply invented a composite of my ideal psychotherapist. With hindsight I realize now how much the ideas of Donald Winnicott had permeated my thinking.
At a more conscious level I had in mind a different Dr W: the late, much loved Dr Heinz Woolf. He certainly fitted my image of the ideal psychotherapist. But by the time I met him he had retired. Much later I had the good fortune to find another gifted psychotherapist, one to whom I have reason to be profoundly grateful. But, at the end of the day, I suppose the Dr W of this paper describes the kind of therapist all of us would wish, but inevitably fail, to become.
When the funeral service for Dr W was over, five mourners adjourned to the large Victorian pub adjacent to the Crematorium. Although strangers to