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.
Winnicott's major difference from his antecedents is that while the others developed integral theories of development, he built rather authentic concepts. While doing this, although he was pretty much influenced by his antecedents, he did not relate his own thoughts with the ones that influenced him, and he even defendes this attitude of himself. What really makes Winnicott difficult to understand is the fact that his concepts are new and authentic. Being so new and authentic, he inevitably developed his own terminology, his own language. Therefore, some people have described Winnicott's theory of development as such “it is difficult to relate the development of the child and the experience of mothering to other approaches, it's a poetic expression in an individual language”. Although it may be considered as a developmental theory, Winnicott didn't develop an integral theory of development in which the periods are divided from one another clearly and sharply. It can rather be stated that he discovered specific aspects of development and mother-baby relationship and focused on their functioning. Even though his conceptual views look like independent islands, when we consider Winnicott's whole theory, we can see how they relate to one another in a certain way. Integration may look like one of these islands, but it encounters and connects with other concepts in the areas of “development of the psychic structure” and “mother-baby relation”.