ABSTRACT
The evolution of D. W. Winnicott’s thinking on illusion as a concept stems from his early paediatric work and his observations of the effects on infants through premature disillusionment. The symptoms of disillusionment are associated with the antisocial tendency and the work with evacuees in which Winnicott was engaged during the Second World War. The mother’s eventual task is gradually to disillusion the infant, but she has no hope of success unless at first she has been able to give sufficient opportunity for illusion. Fantasy is more primary than reality, and the enrichment of fantasy with the world’s riches depends on the experience of illusion. The mother who is able to be in a state of primary maternal preoccupation will facilitate the baby’s illusion of omnipotence, and in this sense, for the infant, she is the subjective object.
