ABSTRACT
D. W. Winnicott suggests that fear of breakdown draws on breakdowns suffered by the individual before the latter could process or remember them. Winnicott depicts the infant as overwhelmed by states too much for it. The infant's environment cannot protect it from overstrain, and the person carries the imprint of being broken in infancy. He postulates a madness that always remains somewhat out of reach, but which we cannot stop trying to reach. In an especially telling passage, Winnicott wonders whether it would not be useful to use the symbol X to suggest the madness at issue. The core of madness is not encompassed by even the most ghastly nameable agonies. For Winnicott, the madness he points to is so much worse because it occurred while the personality was beginning to form, a time too early to organize, hold, and experience what was or was not happening.
