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This paper was my contribution to the memorial meeting for D.W. Winnicott, given to the British Psycho-Analytical Society in 1972. Often, when I talked to people about D.W. Winnicott they would say, ‘Oh, but of course, he was a genius.’ I do not know what makes a genius. All I know is that I must take as my text for this paper something he once said to his students just before a lecture: ‘What you get out of me, you will have to pick out of chaos.’
I want to describe the highlights of my contacts with him in matters of theory. I find this particularly hard to do, because I am one of those people who Freud reminded us exist, people who think in pictures. So what I want to say about Winnicott must centre around certain visual images.
One night in 1957, driving through France, I saw a crowd in the market-place of a little town, all gathered around an arc lamp where a trapeze had been set up by travelling acrobats. The star performers were there, in spotless white, doing wonderful turns and handstands on the bar. Below them was a little clown in a grey floppy coat too big for him, just fooling around while the others did their displays. Occasionally he made a fruitless attempt to jump up and reach the bar. Then, suddenly, he made a great leap and there he was, whirling around on the bar, all his clothes flying out, like a huge Catherine wheel, to roars of delight from the crowd.