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‘I shall not first give an historical survey and show the development of my ideas from the theories of others … What happens is that I gather this and that, here and there, settle down to clinical experience, form my own theories and then, last of all, interest myself in looking to see where I stole what’ (p. 146; Winnicott 1945). This is not untypical of Winnicott. He often writes simply and honestly. We keep on quoting him. He enlivens our talks and lectures when tedium threatens. Of course he read the theories of others, not least Freud, but it as if he were saying here that he did not feel duty bound by them or fettered by the institutions that housed them. It may well be that in the very ordinariness of a remark such as this resides the clue to Winnicott's originality, born of playfulness.
In many ways, what Winnicott had to say was clear and memorable. However, he was not always easy to follow. As Martin James wrote in a letter to Winnicott in 1961, there was a ‘mixture of fright and misunderstanding [surrounding] your work in some circles. Those with literal or obsessional minded approaches cannot comprehend your allusive and illustrative skills, which I find so attractive’ (p. 165; Rodman 2003). There are certainly many times when Winnicott's meaning is difficult to catch hold of. One thought or other slides imperceptibly into another thought or other. The ground often seems to shift and it can all be a little bit infuriating - but at the same time, it is always compelling. We can't leave it be.
This is another book that can't leave Winnicott be - but it is by no means one book too many. It is collection of chapters by a range of experienced psychoanalysts who have been associated in different ways with his work. One of the reasons for Winnicott's sometimes obscure writing was the obscurity of what he was trying to examine. The nature of the early mother/baby relationship, of the intricacies of the psychoanalytic process, of the formation of the child's person