When D.W. Winnicott died in 1971 he left behind him some eighty unpublished papers, together with a large number which had been published in various journals and books but which were then out of print and difficult to obtain. The present volume is drawn mainly from these sources, and has been selected, arranged and edited by Robert Todd, Clare Winnicott, Ray Shepherd and Madeleine Davies.

The aim of the editors, following Winnicott's intention to arrange for the publication of this material, is to show how convinced he was that the structure of society reflects the nature of the individual and the family. As Winnicott himself put