ABSTRACT
Juliet Hopkins describes from a Winnicottian perspective, with considerable sensitivity and conceptual clarity, different types of mother–infant interaction particularly the over idealising or oversensitive mother who is "too-good". The infant had difficulty moving to an approach to the world that was a more depressive one and after the birth of her sister rejected her mother, which was one of the outcomes that Winnicott foresaw, the other being a persisting state of merger with the mother. This chapter outlines some implications about future therapeutic needs of some of these children, and differentiates from other types of children and parent/child interaction. It explores Winnicott's ideas on the detrimental effects of mothering which is too well adapted to infant needs. Winnicott claimed that such too-good mothering, when pursued beyond the baby's earliest months, led to two possible outcomes.
