Home is where We Start from: Essays by a Psychoanalyst

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W. W. Norton & Company, 1990 - Family & Relationships - 287 pages
His ideas have influenced the diverse psychoanalytic schools of Anna Freud, Melanie Klein, and Hans Kohut. But his reach extends far beyond professional circles: his talks to general audiences over the years won him enormous numbers of followers among parents and teachers who have found his observations rich in penetrating insight.

This collection brings together many of Winnicott's most important pieces, including previously unpublished talks and several essays from books and journals now difficult to obtain. They range widely in topic--from "The Concept of a Healthy Individual" and "The Value of Depression" to "Delinquency as a Sign of Hope"--and elucidate some of Winnicott's seminal ideas, such as the "transitional object" and the concept of false self. All convey Winnicott's vision of the ways in which the developing self interacts with the family and the larger society.
 

Contents

Preface
9
The Concept of a Healthy Individual 21 22 323
21
Living Creatively
35
Am
55
The Concept of the False Self
65
The Value of Depression
71
Aggression Guilt and Reparation
80
Delinquency as a Sign of Hope
90
Children Learning
142
Adolescent Immaturity
150
Thinking and the Unconscious
169
The Pill and the Moon
195
Discussion of War Aims
210
Berlin Walls
221
Freedom
228
Some Thoughts on the Meaning of the Word
239

Varieties of Psychotherapy ΙΟΙ
101
Cure
112
The Mothers Contribution to Society
123

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About the author (1990)

Donald W. Winnicott was born into a well-to-do nonconformist family in Plymouth, England. He started his career as a pediatrician at the Paddington Green Children's Hospital in London. While working there, he developed an increasing interest in, and concern for, the emotional problems of his parents, as well as some of his patients. Hence, he later became a psychoanalyst and child psychiatrist. Twice president of the British Psycho-Analytical Society and the author of many books, Winnicott took the theory of emotional development back into earliest infancy, even before birth. His ideas, along with those of his contemporaries, led to the development of the British "object relations" school within psychoanalysis. This focused on familiar, inanimate objects that children use to counter anxiety during times of stress.

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