Winnicott and Transference: The Knife-Edge of Belief

This paper was originally given at the Guild of Psychotherapists’ Summer Conference in July 1993.

The mother commented: “How strikingly the use of the transference emerges in the knife edge between participation and interpretation” (The Piggle).

In social work a man says to the worker, “You remind me of my mother”. Nothing need be done about this, except for the worker to believe in it. (Counter-transference).