ABSTRACT
This brief chapter is about creating connections—what Winnicott did best. I think he would have appreciated how I came to write about a connection with him. At the book launch for The Emotional Needs of Young Children and their Families, edited by Judith Trowell and Marion Bower, Professor Andrew Cooper talked to points from the various chapters including one by me entitled “Consultation in general practice” (Daws, 1995). It describes the work in a baby clinic with parents and infants which I have done for thirty years. Often during this time I have used Winnicott’s ideas, and have also felt a connection to him through my father Jack Kahn, who was a general practitioner before becoming a child psychiatrist. (After Donald died, my father was one of the colleagues who supported his wife Clare, who said charmingly to him that he understood Donald’s work better than anyone.) Cooper likened an anecdote in my chapter about an electric socket to Winnicott’s “spatula game”. The connection to Winnicott was made!
