ABSTRACT
The psychological and physical holding an infant needs throughout his development continues to be important, and the holding environment never loses its importance for everyone. The holding environment includes the father, the extended family, and society at large. However, D. W. Winnicott’s contention throughout his work is that an adoptive mother who is able to go into a state of primary maternal preoccupation will also be able to offer the necessary ingredients of the holding environment. Winnicott’s view of the good-enough holding environment begins with the mother–infant relationship within the family and grows outwards to other groups in society. He enumerates the necessary characteristics of the environmental provision. Good-enough handling results in the infant’s “psyche indwelling in the soma”; Winnicott refers to this as “personalization”. He often referred to holding as a form of management—especially when he was addressing groups of professionals who were involved in the daily care of people who could not care for themselves.
