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I have always enjoyed reading Winnicott's clinical work. His writing is playful, startling, provocative, often elegant, and always lively. His papers are frequently cited—perhaps even more often than they are read. In the opinion of Thomas Ogden (20011), psychoanalysis has had “only one great English-speaking writer” (p. 299), Winnicott—an accolade for which Ogden himself might be in contention.
Yet for all his liveliness and originality, when I have been called upon to teach Winnicott's theoretical work, I have come up against two problems. First, I find that frequently I cannot say what he means, especially whether he means to be taken metaphorically or literally. His use of words, including psychoanalytic terms, is often idiosyncratic and rarely elaborated. Second, I find in many cases that I cannot tell how he arrived at his conclusions. He is apt to state an idea as a fact almost in passing; he does not always explain or even acknowledge that others might have other ideas. When I turn to Ogden for help, I find both enlightenment and further confusion.
In what follows, I would like to share my reading of Ogden's paper, “Reading Winnicott” (2001). I will try to show that Winnicott's writing style, enjoyable though it may be, does not encourage the reader to engage in dialogue with his ideas. After doing so, I would like to respond to what I believe is a false dichotomy set up by Ogden between those analysts who embrace