ABSTRACT
Donald Winnicott (1896±1971), a key ®gure in what is known as the British Object Relations School, placed a key emphasis on the connection between the infant and the environment. He provided us with a set of important ideas rather than a `theory' but in doing so brought to our attention some key concepts of particular relevance to an integrative psychotherapy. Like Stern, Winnicott emphasized normality, with the `patient' presenting as a person with a unique way of construing the world, a way that was to be understood rather than pathologized (Newman, 1995). He also highlighted the importance of a `facilitating environment', play and creativity, the difference between the true self and the false self, and the complexity of transitional phenomena. The idea of the `good enough' mother was a concept that became incorporated into broad social awareness through the publication of The Child, the Family, and the Outside World (1964) providing new mothers with the relief that they did not need to be superhuman. However, Winnicott's idea of `good enoughness' brought with it, as was the case with all of his clinical ideas, a number of interesting complexities. `Good enough' protection for the infant involved ®rst protective holding, a concept that pointed to the need for the infant to remain in a state of unintegration; in Winnicott's terms, the absence of this jolts the baby into a form of defensive holding together (Winnicott, 1988). The handling of the baby was also regarded as signi®cant in terms of the achievement of `good enoughness'. His view was that babies who were left alone for long periods were likely to identify with the mind rather than with the body, a primitive form of splitting. There was also the need to present the outside world to the infant in a way that enabled the baby to develop a trust in the world. Failure to achieve this would, in Winnicott's view, lead to the experience of `primitive agony' and `deep loneliness'. These ideas created in
however, need the analysis of our problems, but instead the kind of sensitive, involved and unsentimental care that the `good enough' mother naturally gives to her young baby (Winnicott, 1965/1990). In therapeutic work what the patient wants is to meet a therapist who is a real person: `If we all become persons in our work, then the work becomes much more interesting and rewarding' (Winnicott, 1965/2006: 155).
