The Clinic of Donald W. Winnicott

137 Pages·2018·4.15 MB·English

by  Laura Dethiville

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The Clinic of

Donald W. Winnicott
Paediatric psychoanalyst Donald W. Winnicott is widely recognized
as a remarkable clinician. Deprivation, regression, play, antisocial
tendencies and “the use of the object” are part of the many clin-
ical conceptions he conceived, and here Laura Dethiville explains
each in a clear and precise way, highlighting Winnicott’s originality
and enduring relevance. The Clinic of Donald W. Winnicott offers all
readers a glimpse of what Winnicott brings to the understanding of
the human being, and will appeal to students new to his work, as well
as practitioners looking for a concise overview of his work.
Laura Dethiville, psychoanalyst, member of the Society of Freudian
Psychoanalysis (SPF), has been leading a seminar on Winnicott for
20 years. Her previous work includes Donald W. Winnicott: A New
Approach.
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The Clinic of

Donald W. Winnicott
Laura Dethiville
Translated by
Susan Ganley Lévy
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First published 2019
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
English Edition © 2019 Éditions Campagne Première, Paris
© 2013, Éditions Campagne Première, Paris
The right of Laura Dethiville to be identified as the author has been asserted in
accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks,
and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing- in- Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
A catalog record has been requested for this book
ISBN: 978- 0- 367- 02759- 9 (hbk)
ISBN: 978- 0- 367- 02761- 2 (pbk)
ISBN: 978- 0- 429- 39794- 3 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Newgen Publishing UK
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For Dalva
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Contents

Acknowledgements viii

Introduction: Winnicott and his clinical work 1

1 Therapeutic consultation 3

2 The squiggle 13

3 The father 25

4 The family 38

5 Antisocial tendency and deprivation 50

6 Aggression and destructiveness 68

7 Adolescence 81

8 Regression 96

9 The area of playing in the cure 113

Index 124
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Acknowledgements

With thanks to all who have accompanied the writing of this book:
To the participants in my workshop, whose questions added to
my own thinking.
To Marie Lacôte, for her reactivity, competence and effective-
ness throughout this work.
To François Lévy, for his support, advice and his patience.
To Marie Baldit, for the care taken with the updating of the
bibliography.
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Introduction
Winnicott and his clinical work
At the beginning of my essay Donald W. Winnicott: A New Approach
(Dethiville, 2014), I  maintained that it is impossible to define
Winnicott’s concepts. All we can do is describe them. They have a
life of their own, and often all we can do is follow them, trying not to
lose our way. This second work is a confirmation of this.
Winnicott was writing up his work all his life. His texts show proof
of continual research, sustained by his intense clinical experience, the
influence of the world around him and the events he was involved in.
The study of children evacuated from London during the Second
World War led him to conceptualize antisocial tendencies and
deprivation, two revolutionary ideas that are absolutely essential in
understanding certain pathologies. Those troubled times enabled
him to formulate many of his principal ideas on the importance
of the family and the “paternal” father – or, should we say, he who
is something other than a simple replacement of the mother. But
Winnicott’s use of language, the intermixing of inventiveness and
facilitation/ compromise that are so typical of him, often obscure the
originality of that which he is trying to show us.
In the course of his work, we are able to discern how his thinking
and practice become more and more personal. His development of
“the use of the object” remains the culminating point of his research
and, retrospectively, clarifies his whole thought process. Dare we say
that practice constantly preceded theory? To study how he worked,
to discover his incredible presence in consultations with his patients,
whether adult or child – a presence that owed everything to his ability
to “play”, whether it be in the squiggle game with a child, or in the
transitional space he constructed with his adult patients – are an
incredible lesson for us.