The collected works of D. W. Winnicott

Winnicott, surprised to be the defender of “the right not to communicate” (Volume 6, 433), did of course have “a great deal to communicate” (Volume 2, 358). Indeed on the evidence of the Collected Works, he seems to have been busy talking, writing, and drawing much of the time. The sheer quantity of this communication poses two obvious challenges to the editors of the Collected Works: the scholarship required to produce an authoritative text, and the question as to what to include and what to exclude.

The scholarship challenge has been met by over 40 years’ work, originating with Clare Winnicott’s plan, after her husband’s death, to gather together some previously unpublished papers and to republish others. The task has grown since in ambition and over 40 psychoanalysts and editors, working in relays, are recognised for their contributions by Christopher Bollas (Foreword). However, there is a cohesiveness to the Collected Works, derived from the clarity of the editorial policy, which seems to have evolved as the project gathered weight and direction. Robert Adès, Assistant Editor, states this policy clearly: to be inclusive and to present the texts chronologically, according to the year in which they were written, delivered, or first published. The guiding principle here is that the Collected Works are “about the analyst, about the analyst’s work” (Volume 12, p. liv, quoting Winnicott CW 2:7:8). This policy supports the reading Scarfone recommends, a reading that captures “the mode, the logic, the very movement of Winnicott’s thinking” (Volume 4, 3).

So here, in a work of prodigious scholarship, we find collected nearly all of Winnicott’s works. Volume 1 opens with teenage Winnicott’s letters home, including an exuberantly enthusiastic letter to his sister about his initial encounters with the “astoundingly controversial axioms” of psychoanalysis (Volume 1, 27). “Works”, generously interpreted, encompasses Winnicott’s own drawings and doodles, heartfelt poems and play