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This is the first in a series of books which aims to explore the relationship between Freudian and object relations theory. The author has come from an unusual background in the Kibbutz Movement and then Clinical Psychology, New York. His journey from the Kibbutz to Winnicott is tantalizing and, like Winnicott, he feels unclassifiable. But, also like Winnicott, he has an ability to write in an accessible style which leaves one feeling enriched without having had to work too hard.
Goldman stresses this is not a psychobiographical book. Rather, he aims to illustrate the centrality of certain themes in Winnicott's life and in his work and to show his theory speaks to his condition - the pivotal theme being his search for experience that feels real. In so doing, Goldman weaves in and out of biography, theory, Winnicott's clinical papers and the Psychoanalytic Movement in a way which befits Winnicott's contribution to the creative space of the middle ground, to play and to paradox. The author also has an appealing technique of asking questions and then attempting to answer them which draws the reader into the desire to discover.
The introduction provides a skilful overview of what is to come and propels one immediately into the dynamism of Winnicott's world, in which he struggles to understand and distinguish between existing and aliveness, approaching things always as if from scratch. Winnicott's vehemently anti-dogmatic, Hermes-like stance leads him to choose the edges, the intermediate, often turning conflict into paradox and classical ideas on their head, asking, for instance, what is the penis symbolic of? The chapters then unfold ‘developmentally’ through Winnicott's life and theory. The environment which influenced the maturing Winnicott is brought to bear on the Winnicottian concepts with which we are all so familiar.
There are still questions. Most pertinently, although his work is devoted to the examination of the conditions of infancy that sponsor integration, th