ABSTRACT
Towards the end of the Second World War Donald Winnicott became very much involved in the issues surrounding the use of the physical treatments of mental-hospital patients that were at the time gaining acceptance in psychiatric practice. This chapter contains most of his writing on the subject, divided into two sections dealing with the treatments about which he was most concerned, namely convulsion therapy and leucotomy. Psycho-analysis enables the patient and the analyst to get very deep into the unconscious meaning of things, at least in so far as the particular patient is concerned. In the International Journal of Psycho-Analysis last year Dr Cyril Wilson published what he called "An Individual Point of View on Shock Therapy." Introverted personalities tend to expect nothing from the external world, at least nothing of importance. Paranoid personalities are always expecting to be attacked and for them all treatments tend to feel like a return of their projected hate.
