Introduction

This introduction covers some key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book is concerned with early development and environmental failure—two areas that are given prominent attention by the Independent School. It is also concerned with psychic structures that either are present or develop in earliest infancy. The book offers a clinical account of an intensive psychoanalytic psychotherapy treatment with a woman whom she had had in treatment for just under ten years. It also addresses the theme of the limitation of psychotherapeutic work. The book traces the development of Winnicott’s ideas on aggression and destruction over a period of thirty years, which culminated in his classic paper, “The Use of an Object and Relating Through the Use of Identifications”. It explores the sources of dreams and day-dreams and examines their relationships to the creative process.