ABSTRACT
In this clinically extremely important paper, Winnicott attempts to show that patients’ fear of breakdown can be a fear of events that have already occurred, but that were never fully experienced—and so, have yet to be experienced. The word “breakdown” refers to a breakdown of one’s defensive structures—a coming apart at the very core of one’s own ego—what Winnicott refers to as the breakdown of the “unit self.” The patient with a fear of breakdown carries within a deep need to remember in the present these events and the unthinkable anxieties that they induced, so as to be able to place the events into the past, instead of fearing their emergence in the future. The therapist must provide a safe-enough holding environment in order for this process to occur.
