1. Chapter 7
Donald Winnicott

2. Development of true self Development of false self
Mother / Infant unit
FAILURE
SUCCESS
Father
Development of true self
Development of false self
primary maternal preoccupation
Impingements / appropriate failure
good-enough mothering
holding / stage of dependence
rhythms of unintegration and integration
inner reality
transitional space and objects
capacity to be alone
– personhood +

3. Winnicott’s Focus Relationship between mother and infant
Real mother or primary caregiver
Influences extent to which become a person
Influences stability of person
Psychological birth and personhood
No “infant”: only mother and infant
Initial state of omnipotence
Hallucinatory relationship to the world
Intact grandiosity and wish fulfilment

4. Impingement and Appropriate Failure
Mother makes demands that infant cannot meet
If persistent, infant disturbed out of state of being
Results: weak ego disintegrates
Appropriate failure
Need degree separation for infant to develop
Failure must occur in specific parameters
Need environment sensitive to infant’s experience

5. Un-integration to Integration
Initially primary un-integration (total dependence)
No support = lack of integration = pathology
Integration
Developmental achievement
Result of maternal ego support

6. Holding 3 Stages of Holding
Quality of mother’s provision of infant care
Fundamental influence on selfhood actualisation
Based upon empathy, not understanding
3 Stages of Holding
Absolute dependence
Relative dependence
Approaching independence

7. Primary Maternal Preoccupation
From last weeks of pregnancy to days after birth
Form a psychological oneness
Provides containment
Can feel infant’s body-needs and later ego-needs
It is state of illness for mother (psychosis)
Mother must be psychologically healthy

8. Role of Father Provides strong containment of environment
Allows mother to relax psychological boundaries
Parents form parental dyad which is the infant’s macro containment

9. Good-Enough Mothering
Cannot have near perfect attunement indefinitely
Infant needs to separate as entity
Need appropriate failure
Good-enough mothering
Will fail infant appropriately to enhance growth
Slowly disillusions to prevent disintegration
Does not challenge / disrupt omnipotence

10. Transitional Phenomena
Need capacity to be alone to develop creative capacity and symbolic thought.
Transitional space
Space available for child to be alone while safe
Child is neither “me” nor “not me”
Results in sense of self and confidence
Transitional object
First object that’s both “me” and “not me”
Contrasting impulses: love and destroy
Bridges phantasy and reality
The first rudimentary symbol formation

11. True Self and False Self
Experiencing the body (id needs)
Body integrity (emotional lives)
False self
Need degree of false self functioning to channel instinctual life
Protects true self by conforming to social norms
Protects from impingements and failing environment

12. Continuum of false self development
PATHOLOGICAL
NORMALITY
False self allows smooth passage in world
False self protects true self from harm
False self acts as if real person

13. Critiques of Winnicott
Writing style
Difficult to find adherence to fundamental psychoanalytic concepts
Lacks theoretical rigour