ABSTRACT
The concept of mother as environment includes the woman mother is—that is, the woman she was before baby was born and will continue to become as she develops in her own right—as well as the father, siblings, the extended family, society, and the world at large. The recognition of the details of good mothering is used as a paradigm for D. W. Winnicott in the psychoanalytic and therapeutic setting. The analyst’s techniques in the consulting room symbolically mirror the techniques of good mothering. The mother’s adaptation to the infant’s needs provides him with the illusion of omnipotence that he creates the object. The mother’s object-presenting depends on her consistency and reliability. In 1967, Winnicott elaborated his thoughts about the functions of mother in his paper, "Mirror-Role of Mother and Family in Child Development". Techniques of good-enough mothering are continually transposed by Winnicott into the analytic setting, so that positive use can be made of the good-enough mother–family–infant paradigm.
