On Winnicott's Marriages: A Response

In 1963, Donald Winnicott inaugurated his essay “Communicating and not communicating leading to a study of certain opposites” with an epigraph derived from a letter written by John Keats: “Every point of thought is the centre of an intellectual world” (quoted in Winnicott, 1963, p. 179). The responses by Jeremy Elkins, Bernard Macleod, Neil Vickers, and Lindsay Wells might well be described as Keatsian, each having stimulated a raft of compelling intellectual points.

Jeremy Elkins, a noted scholar and clinician, has provided us with a careful reading of my study of Winnicott's marriages, and I particularly appreciate the way in which he has engaged with the supposition that Winnicott's second analysis, with Joan Riviere, may have helped Winnicott to find his voice, having had to stand up to this very tall and domineering woman from whom he needed to separate. Elkins has underscored that this act of potency might have facilitated Winnicott's ultimate departure from his first wife. Elkins has also added a vital insight, namely, that whatever Winnicott might have gained from his time on the couch, his joyful and collaborative second marriage may, in itself, have facilitated his growth as a thinker, writer, and broadcaster in the field of mental health. Although I have focused exclusively on the potential healing effects of Winnicott's psychoanalyses, Elkins has reminded us quite powerfully of the transformative capabilities of a good marriage itself, and rightly so.

Bernard Macleod, who has devoted his professional life to the field of child mental health, has raised a compelling question, namely: why did Winnicott never become a parent in his own right? Although we cannot ever know the true answer, we must wonder whether Winnicott's inability to procreate can be explained by external circumstances (i.e., a fragile first wife; a forty-something second wife who would have struggled to become pregnant), or whether Winnicott's psychoanalysts had failed to help him to become