ABSTRACT
Another approach would be to say that the concept of continuity of being and its implications constitute the context in which misunderstanding, criticism and rejection of Winnicott’s theory are rooted. The concept of a transition from complete adaptation of the mother to her infant’s needs, to gradual disidentification from the mother culminating in independence, is seen by Winnicott’s critics as an idealisation, even a Rousseauistic, angelic, sentimental conception of the mother.
