You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Jan Abram has given us a gem of a book. It is clearly the result of many years of studying, discussing, and teaching, both at The Squiggle Foundation series titled “The Original Themes of Winnicott” and in her numerous psychotherapy courses given to various groups in London. Her decision to write the book arose out of her observations, as a student and a teacher, of the many ways in which Winnicott's idiosyncratic use of language led to misunderstanding of his key concepts.
Though well versed in classical psychoanalytic theory and principles of technique, Winnicott was not burdened by a need to integrate his thinking with that of his forebears or to trace the development of his ideas in any coherent way. “Mature adults,” he wrote, “bring vitality to that which is ancient, old and orthodox, by recreating it after destroying it” (Winnicott, 1965, p. 94). He was creative, spontaneous, maybe even a little bit naughty in his disregard for a style bound by the rigors of empiricism and loyal adherence to classical paradigms or to early pioneers. His irreverence for the conventional is nicely captured by his penchant in adult life for riding his bicycle with his feet on the handlebars, much to the chagrin of the local village police. Describing his approach to theory-building, Winnicott unabashedly wrote, “What happens is that I gather this and that, here and there, settle down to