ABSTRACT
In this paper, Winnicott offers the hypothesis that those children and youth who exhibit an “antisocial tendency” (marked by stealing, destroying things, or engaging in a full range of “nuisance” behaviors) may in fact be exhibiting signs of deprivation in their earlier life. According to Winnicott, the child’s subsequent period of antisocial behavior represents a surge of hope within the child—hope to access that of which s/he was formerly deprived. He believes that in the development of the antisocial tendency there was initial good care and connection that was, at some point, lost. The loss extended so long that it exceeded the child’s capacity to keep the memory of good care and connection alive inside. He suggests that the two trends reflected by stealing and destruction may represent the child’s bid for the restoring of the fusion between the libidinal/love and aggressive/motility drives.
