ABSTRACT
According to the London weather report, Wednesday 5 February 1947 proved to be a bitterly cold and dull day, with virtually no sunlight. Indeed, the entire winter of 1947, marked by arctic blizzards, power cuts, and a fuel crisis, could only be described as grim. Donald Winnicott lambasted much of the treatment of psychologically ill men and women as cruel; and though he acknowledged the extreme challenge of treating "insane" patients, Winnicott admonished his colleagues nonetheless, quite sternly, for relying too readily on what he regarded as sadistic attacks on patients' bodies. Winnicott has made an immense contribution to the study of psychoanalysis, and to the understanding and treatment of the more unbearable patient by speaking about the hatred that practitioners can experience countertransferentially. In the late 1940s, pharmacological treatments prevailed, consisting mostly of hypnotics, such as the sedative paraldehyde, the most common treatment for mental illness at this time.
