0.4 Neo-freudian perspectives on personality  (Page 17/28)

Discussion Question: Winnicott felt that transitional objects were important for helping children to develop without too much anxiety. Did you have a favorite transitional object, and do you still have it? Do you think it is healthy for children to have such objects, and what might you do with your own children if you have them? If you already have children, do they have transitional objects, and did you ever consciously expect them to have them?

Winnicott proposed that the transition that occurs during early development, from subjective omnipotence to objective reality, is facilitated by transitional objects. In the picture on the left, John is cuddling his blanket. To the right is John’s other important transitional object, his gorilla HaHas, and the author’s old Teddy bear. [Images © 2010 Mark Kelland]

For Winnicott, the psychoanalytic process was an opportunity for the patient to re-experience the early subjective experiences of a relationship with the good enough mother. The therapist takes the role of the good enough mother, allowing the patient to spontaneously “be” in the relationship, while the analyst tries to anticipate and accommodate the patient’s needs. The hope is that the analyst and the therapeutic environment will allow the patient’s aborted development to be reanimated, with the patient’s true self emerging as a result (Mitchell&Black, 1995). However, there can be no single technique in this process, as each case is different (Winnicott, 1971). More important than technique is the analyst’s overall skill as an analyst, their ability to make use of various techniques within the psychoanalytic session. Perhaps the most important aspect of this overall view of what is necessary for effective psychoanalysis, according to Winnicott, is that the analyst needs to have been a good, healthy candidate in the first place. Winnicott believed that “it is not easy to turn a badly selected candidate into a good analyst…” (Winnicott, 1971).

Although Winnicott may have felt that technique was not some special trick to be used by anyone in performing psychoanalysis, he did have some favorite techniques. As described above, he watched the playful interaction between child and mother, in much the same way as Klein used her play technique. Winnicott also liked to use the Squiggle Game , a technique that makes use of drawings by the child and the analyst, including the opportunity for each to make changes in the other’s drawings. Winnicott believed that this process provided a special opportunity to make contact with the child, in which it felt to him as if the child were alongside him helping to describe the case (Winnicott, 1971). In Therapeutic Consultations in Child Psychiatry , Winnicott (1971) offers many examples of such drawings along with brief descriptions and analyses of the corresponding cases.

In closing, Winnicott felt it was important to focus on psychological health, and he defined this as something much more than simply making it through each day, going to work, and raising a family. He believed that healthy individuals actually lived three different lives: 1) a life in the world, with interpersonal relationships being key; 2) a personal psychic reality, including creativity and dreams; and 3) their cultural experience. Winnicott admitted that it was difficult to incorporate the cultural experience into the life of an individual. However, he favored the transitional space between the child and its mother, and felt that it was dependent on the mother having been very supportive of the child during development (Winnicott, 1967/1986). In considering the overall purpose of life, in contrast to Freud’s perspective, Winnicott wrote: