ABSTRACT
We open with a brief story that R. Masud R. Khan tells about the child psychoanalyst D. W. Winnicott in the introduction to Winnicott’s Holding and Interpretation: Fragment of an Analysis (1972). In January of 1971, six months before Winnicott died, a group of young Anglican clergy invited him to speak with them. They were concerned about how to distinguish between a person who seeks their help because she is sick and needs psychiatric treatment, and a person who is able to help herself through a more straightforward process of speaking and listening in pastoral conversation. When telling this story to Khan, Winnicott noted how stunned he was by the sheer simplicity of their question. Winnicott offered the young group of priests the following advice: “If a person comes and talks to you and, listening to him, you feel he is boring you, then he is sick, and needs psychiatric treatment. But if he sustains your interest, no matter how grave his distress or conflict, then you can help him alright” (Winnicott 1972, 1).
