ABSTRACT
Donald Winnicott, who had interviewed Francoise Dolto in 1963, had found her to be thirty years ahead of everybody else, but also too charismatic to be allowed as a teacher within the International Psychoanalytic Association. She believed little children need to play with water; it reflected her experience as a therapist. Francoise Dolto was not one to interfere in the way parents chose to bring up their children. She did not want to be the cause of separation for a child when it still needed unity. Dolto was acutely aware of the traumas caused by early, un-prepared, or unanticipated mother–child separations and the repercussions that would follow in later life. She thought that psychoanalysis for children worked better in a group offering the opportunity for some sort of social life for the child, with mother and other mothers and children present along with other Maison Verte people.
