ABSTRACT
Margaret Boyle Spelman, the author of two and co-editor of another book on Winnicott, focuses here only on silence in the oeuvre of this pediatrician-psychoanalyst. Infants are, of course, often silent and never verbal, so it is not surprising that Winnicott’s developmental theory emphasized the importance of this phenomenon. The chapter discusses developmental aspects, as well as silence and growth. Also interesting is the elaboration of the idea that silence can be counted among potential transitional objects. There are also more direct clinical contributions, like the ideas of the silent holding between the analyst and patient, or the idea of the silent self, only to prove that Winnicott never ceases to inspire.
