{"id":33817,"date":"2023-12-16T16:06:30","date_gmt":"2023-12-16T16:06:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/evaggelatos.com\/?p=33817"},"modified":"2023-12-16T16:08:29","modified_gmt":"2023-12-16T16:08:29","slug":"winnicotts-the-concept-of-holding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/evaggelatos.com\/?p=33817","title":{"rendered":"Winnicott’s The Concept of holding"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

\u0392\u03bf\u03ae\u03b8\u03b5\u03b9\u03b1!<\/p><\/div>\n

Paediatric work with children and their mothers led to the development of
\nhis influential concept concerning the &quot;holding environment&quot;. [16] Winnicott claimed
\nthat &quot;the foundations of health are laid down by the ordinary mother in her ordinary
\nloving care of her own baby&quot;, [17] central to which was the mother&#39;s attentive holding of
\nher child.
\nWinnicott considered that the &quot;mother&#39;s technique of holding, of bathing, of feeding,
\neverything she did for the baby, added up to the child&#39;s first idea of the mother&quot;, as
\nwell as fostering the ability to experience the body as the place wherein one securely
\nlives. [18] Extrapolating the concept of holding from mother to family and the outside
\nworld, Winnicott saw as key to healthy development &quot;the continuation of reliable
\nholding in terms of the ever-widening circle of family and school and social life&quot;. [19]
\nWinnicott was influential in viewing the work of the psychotherapist as offering a
\nsubstitute holding environment based on the mother\/infant bond. [20] Winnicott wrote:
\n&quot;A correct and well-timed interpretation in an analytic treatment gives a sense of
\nbeing held physically that is more real…than if a real holding or nursing had taken
\nplace. Understanding goes deeper&quot;. [21]
\nHis theoretical writings emphasised empathy, imagination, and, in the words of
\nphilosopher Martha Nussbaum, who has been a proponent of his work, &quot;the highly
\nparticular transactions that constitute love between two imperfect people.&quot; [22]
\nAnti-social tendency
\nConnected to the concept of holding is what Winnicott called the anti-social tendency,
\nsomething which he argued &quot;may be found in a normal individual, or in one that is
\nneurotic or psychotic&quot;. [23] The delinquent child, Winnicott thought, was looking for a
\nsense of secure holding lacking in their family of origin from society at large. [24] He
\nconsidered antisocial behaviour as a cry for help, fuelled by a sense of loss of
\nintegrity, when the familial holding environment was inadequate or ruptured. [25]
\nPlay and the sense of being real
\nOne of the elements that Winnicott considered could be lost in childhood was what he
\ncalled the sense of being\u00a0\u2013 for him, a primary element, of which a sense of doing is
\nonly a derivative. [26] The capacity for being\u00a0\u2013 the ability to feel genuinely alive inside,
\nwhich Winnicott saw as essential to the maintenance of a true self\u00a0\u2013 was fostered in
\nhis view by the practice of childhood play. [27]
\nIn contrast to the emphasis in orthodox psychoanalysis upon generating insight into
\nunconscious processes, Winnicott considered that playing was the key to emotional
\nand psychological well-being. It is likely that he first came upon this notion from his
\ncollaboration in wartime with the psychiatric social worker, Clare Britton, (later a
\npsychoanalyst and his second wife) who in 1945 published an article on the
\nimportance of play for children. [28] By &quot;playing&quot;, he meant not only the ways that<\/p>\n

children of all ages play, but also the way adults &quot;play&quot; through making art, or
\nengaging in sports, hobbies, humour, meaningful conversation, et cetera. At any age,
\nhe saw play as crucial to the development of authentic selfhood, because when people
\nplay they feel real, spontaneous and alive, and keenly interested in what they&#39;re doing.
\nHe thought that insight in psychoanalysis was helpful when it came to the patient as a
\nplayful experience of creative, genuine discovery; dangerous when patients were
\npressured to comply with their analyst&#39;s authoritative interpretations, thus potentially
\nmerely reinforcing a patient&#39;s false self. Winnicott believed that it was only in playing
\nthat people are entirely their true selves, so it followed that for psychoanalysis to be
\neffective, it needed to serve as a mode of playing.
\nTwo of the techniques whereby Winnicott used play in his work with children were
\nthe squiggle game and the spatula game. The first involved Winnicott drawing a shape
\nfor the child to play with and extend (or vice versa)\u00a0\u2013 a practice extended by his
\nfollowers into that of using partial interpretations as a &#39;squiggle&#39; for a patient to make
\nuse of. [29]
\nThe second, more famous instance involved Winnicott placing a spatula (tongue
\ndepressor) within the child&#39;s reach for him to play with. [30] Winnicott considered that
\n&quot;if he is just an ordinary baby he will notice the attractive object…and he will reach
\nfor it….[then] in the course of a little while he will discover what he wants to do with
\nit&quot;. [31] From the child&#39;s initial hesitation in making use of the spatula, Winnicott
\nderived his idea of the necessary &#39;period of hesitation&#39; in childhood (or analysis),
\nwhich makes possible a true connection to the toy, interpretation or object presented
\nfor transference. [32]
\nMany of Winnicott&#39;s writings show his efforts to understand what helps people to be
\nable to play, and on the other hand what blocks some people from playing. Babies can
\nbe playful when they&#39;re cared for by people who respond to them warmly and
\nplayfully, like a mother who smiles and says, &quot;Peek-a-boo!&quot; when she sees her baby
\nplayfully peeking out from behind his hands. If the mother never responded playfully,
\nsooner or later the baby would stop trying to elicit play from her. Indeed, Winnicott
\ncame to consider that &quot;Playing takes place in the potential space between the baby and
\nthe mother-figure….[T]he initiation of playing is associated with the life experience of
\nthe baby who has come to trust the mother figure&quot;. [33] &quot;Potential space&quot; was
\nWinnicott&#39;s term for a sense of an inviting and safe interpersonal field in which one
\ncan be spontaneously playful while at the same time connected to others (again a
\nconcept that has been extrapolated to the practice of analysis). [34]
\nPlaying can also be seen in the use of a transitional object, Winnicott&#39;s term for an
\nobject, such as a teddy bear, that has a quality for a small child of being both real and
\nmade-up at the same time. Winnicott pointed out that no one demands that a toddler
\nexplain whether his Binky is a &quot;real bear&quot; or a creation of the child&#39;s own imagination,
\nand went on to argue that it&#39;s very important that the child is allowed to experience the
\nBinky as being in an undefined, &quot;transitional&quot; status between the child&#39;s imagination
\nand the real world outside the child. [35] For Winnicott, one of the most important and
\nprecarious stages of development was in the first three years of life, when an infant
\ngrows into a child with an increasingly separate sense of self in relation to a larger
\nworld of other people. In health, the child learns to bring his or her spontaneous, real
\nself into play with others; in a false self disorder, the child has found it unsafe or<\/p>\n

impossible to do so, and instead feels compelled to hide the true self from other
\npeople, and pretend to be whatever they want instead. [36] Playing with a transitional
\nobject can be an important early bridge between self and other, which helps a child
\ndevelop the capacity to be genuine in relationships, and creative. [37]
\nPlaying for Winnicott ultimately extended all the way up from earliest childhood
\nexperience to what he called &quot;the abstractions of politics and economics and
\nphilosophy and culture…this &#39;third area&#39;, that of cultural experience which is a
\nderivative of play&quot;. [38]
\nTrue self and false self
\nMain article: True self and false self
\nWinnicott wrote that &quot;a word like self…knows more than we do.&quot;. [39] He meant that,
\nwhile philosophical and psychoanalytic ideas about the self could be very complex
\nand arcane, with a great deal of specialised jargon, there was a pragmatic usefulness
\nto the ordinary word &quot;self&quot; with its range of traditional meanings. For example, where
\nother psychoanalysts used the Freudian terminology of ego and id to describe
\ndifferent functions of a person&#39;s psychology, Winnicott at times used &quot;self&quot; to refer to
\nboth. For Winnicott, the self is a very important part of mental and emotional well-
\nbeing which plays a vital role in creativity. He thought that people were born without
\na clearly developed self and had to &quot;search&quot; for an authentic sense of self as they
\ngrew. [40] &quot;For Winnicott, the sense of feeling real, feeling in touch with others and with
\none&#39;s own body and its processes was essential for living a life.&quot; [41]
\nTrue self
\n&quot;Only the true self can be creative and only the true self can feel real.&quot; [42] For
\nWinnicott, the True Self is a sense of being alive and real in one&#39;s mind and body,
\nhaving feelings that are spontaneous and unforced. This experience of aliveness is
\nwhat allows people to be genuinely close to others, and to be creative.
\nWinnicott thought that the &quot;True Self&quot; begins to develop in infancy, in the
\nrelationship between the baby and its primary caregiver (Winnicott typically refers to
\nthis person as &quot;the mother&quot;). One of the ways the mother helps the baby develop an
\nauthentic self is by responding in a welcoming and reassuring way to the baby&#39;s
\nspontaneous feelings, expressions, and initiatives. In this way the baby develops a
\nconfidence that nothing bad happens when she expresses what she feels, so her
\nfeelings don&#39;t seem dangerous or problematic to her, and she doesn&#39;t have to put
\nundue attention into controlling or avoiding them. She also gains a sense that she is
\nreal, that she exists and her feelings and actions have meaning.
\nWinnicott thought that one of the developmental hurdles for an infant to get past is the
\nrisk of being traumatised by having to be too aware too soon of how small and
\nhelpless she really is. A baby who is too aware of real-world dangers will be too
\nanxious to learn optimally. A good-enough parent is well enough attuned and
\nresponsive to protect the baby with an illusion of omnipotence, or being all-powerful.
\nFor example, a well-cared-for baby usually doesn&#39;t feel hungry for very long before<\/p>\n

being fed. Winnicott thought the parents&#39; quick response of feeding the baby gives the
\nbaby a sense that whenever she&#39;s hungry, food appears as if by magic, as if the baby
\nherself makes food appear just by being hungry. To feel this powerful, Winnicott
\nthought, allowed a baby to feel confident, calm and curious, and able to learn without
\nhaving to invest a lot of energy into defences. [43]
\nFalse self
\nIn Winnicott&#39;s writing, the &quot;False Self&quot; is a defence, a kind of mask of behaviour that
\ncomplies with others&#39; expectations. Winnicott thought that in health, a False Self was
\nwhat allowed one to present a &quot;polite and mannered attitude&quot; [44] in public.
\nBut he saw more serious emotional problems in patients who seemed unable to feel
\nspontaneous, alive or real to themselves anywhere, in any part of their lives, yet
\nmanaged to put on a successful &quot;show of being real&quot;. Such patients suffered inwardly
\nfrom a sense of being empty, dead or &quot;phoney&quot;. [45]
\nWinnicott thought that this more extreme kind of False Self began to develop in
\ninfancy, as a defence against an environment that felt unsafe or overwhelming
\nbecause of a lack of reasonably attuned caregiving. He thought that parents did not
\nneed to be perfectly attuned, but just &quot;ordinarily devoted&quot; or &quot;good enough&quot; to protect
\nthe baby from often experiencing overwhelming extremes of discomfort and distress,
\nemotional or physical. But babies who lack this kind of external protection, Winnicott
\nthought, had to do their best with their own crude defences. [46]
\nOne of the main defences Winnicott thought a baby could resort to was what he called
\n&quot;compliance&quot;, or behaviour motivated by a desire to please others rather than
\nspontaneously express one&#39;s own feelings and ideas. For example, if a baby&#39;s
\ncaregiver was severely depressed, the baby would anxiously sense a lack of
\nresponsiveness, would not be able to enjoy an illusion of omnipotence, and might
\ninstead focus his energies and attentions on finding ways to get a positive response
\nfrom the distracted and unhappy caregiver by being a &quot;good baby&quot;. The &quot;False Self&quot; is
\na defence of constantly seeking to anticipate others&#39; demands and complying with
\nthem, as a way of protecting the &quot;True Self&quot; from a world that is felt to be unsafe.
\nWinnicott thought that the &quot;False Self&quot; developed through a process of introjection (a
\nconcept developed early on by Freud) or internalising one&#39;s experience of others.
\nInstead of basing his personality on his own unforced feelings, thoughts, and
\ninitiatives, the person with a &quot;False Self&quot; disorder would essentially be imitating and
\ninternalising other people&#39;s behaviour\u00a0\u2013 a mode in which he could outwardly come to
\nseem &quot;just like&quot; his mother, father, brother, nurse, or whoever had dominated his
\nworld, but inwardly he would feel bored, empty, dead, or &quot;phoney&quot;. Winnicott saw
\nthis as an unconscious process: not only others but also the person himself would
\nmistake his False Self for his real personality. But even with the appearance of
\nsuccess, and of social gains, he would feel unreal and lack the sense of really being
\nalive or happy.
\nThe division of the True and False self roughly develops from Freud&#39;s (1923)
\nnotion of the Superego which compels the Ego to modify and inhibit libidinal Id
\nimpulses, possibly leading to excessive repression but certainly altering the way<\/p>\n

the environment is perceived and responded to. However it is not a close
\nequation as the Id, Ego and Superego are complex and dynamic inter-related
\nsystems that do not fit well into such a dichotomy. The theory more closely
\nresembles Carl Rogers&#39; simplified notions of the Real and Ideal self. According
\nto Winnicott, in every person the extent of division between True and False Self
\ncan be placed on a continuum between the healthy and the pathological. The
\nTrue Self, which in health gives the person a sense of being alive, real, and
\ncreative, will always be in part or in whole hidden; the False Self is a compliant
\nadaptation to the environment, but in health it does not dominate the person&#39;s
\ninternal life or block him from feeling spontaneous feelings, even if he chooses
\nnot to express them. The healthy False Self feels that it is still being true to the
\nTrue Self. It can be compliant to expectations but without feeling that it has
\nbetrayed its &quot;True Self&quot;.
\nWinnicott on Carl Jung
\nMain article: Carl Jung
\nWinnicott&#39;s assessment of the other great pioneer of psychoanalysis, Carl Jung,
\nappeared when he published an extensive review of Jung&#39;s partially autobiographical
\nwork, Memories, Dreams, Reflections. [47] In it Winnicott focuses on the first three
\nchapters of the work that:
\nevery psychoanalyst must read&#39; and in particular the first chapter, &#39;First Years&#39;.
\nWinnicott [48]
\nHe discusses Jung&#39;s evident early experiences of psychotic illness from around the age
\nof four, from within his own theoretical framework. He goes on to comment on the
\nrelationship between Freud and Jung. He also discusses the Jungian &#39;unconscious&#39; and
\nJung&#39;s concept of the &#39;self&#39;. [48]
\nCriticism and influence
\nWinnicott&#39;s theoretical elusiveness has been linked to his efforts to modify Kleinian
\nviews. [16] Yet whereas from a Kleinian standpoint, his repudiation of the concepts of
\nenvy and the death drive were a resistant retreat from the harsh realities she had found
\nin infant life, he has also been accused of being too close to Klein, of sharing in her
\nregressive shift of focus away from the Oedipus complex to the pre-oedipal. [49][50][51][52]
\nThe psychoanalyst, Jan Abram, a former director of the Squiggle Foundation,
\nintended to promote Winnicott&#39;s work, who therefore may be said to be partisan, has
\nproposed a coherent interpretation for the omission of Winnicott&#39;s theories from many
\nmainstream psychoanalytic trainings. His view of the environment and use of
\naccessible everyday language, addressing the parent community, as opposed to just
\nthe Kleinian psychoanalytic community, may account in part for the distancing and
\nmaking him somewhat &quot;niche&quot;. [53]
\nWinnicott has also been accused of identifying himself in his theoretical stance with
\nan idealised mother, in the tradition of mother (Madonna) and child. [54][55] Related is his<\/p>\n

downplaying of the importance of the erotic in his work, as well as the
\nWordsworthian Romanticism of his cult of childhood play (exaggerated still further in
\nsome of his followers). [56][57]
\nHis theories of the true\/false self may have been over-influenced by his own
\nchildhood experience of caring for a depressed mother, which resulted in the
\ndevelopment of a prematurely mature self which he was only subsequently able
\nto undo. [58][59]
\nNevertheless, Winnicott remains one of the few twentieth-century analysts who, in
\nstature, breadth, minuteness of observations, and theoretical fertility can legitimately
\nbe compared to Sigmund Freud. [60]
\nHe has been a major influence for the American psychoanalyst Thomas Ogden, and
\nthe Italian psychoanalysts Giuseppe Civitarese and Antonino Ferro, all of which have
\ncited Winnicott&#39;s interest in play as being central to their work. He has also strongly
\ninfluenced the work of Adam Phillips.
\nAlong with Jacques Derrida, Winnicott is a fundamental resource for philosopher
\nBernard Stiegler&#39;s What Makes Life Worth Living: On Pharmacology<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Paediatric work with children and their mothers led to the development of his influential concept concerning the &quot;holding environment&quot;. [16] Winnicott claimed that &quot;the foundations of health are laid down by the ordinary mother in her ordinary loving care of her own baby&quot;, [17] central to which was the mother&#39;s attentive holding of her child. … <\/p>\n

\u03a3\u03c5\u03bd\u03ad\u03c7\u03b5\u03b9\u03b1 \u03b1\u03bd\u03ac\u03b3\u03bd\u03c9\u03c3\u03b7\u03c2<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[160],"class_list":["post-33817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-10","tag-160","item-wrap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/evaggelatos.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/evaggelatos.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/evaggelatos.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/evaggelatos.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/evaggelatos.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33817"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/evaggelatos.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33818,"href":"https:\/\/evaggelatos.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33817\/revisions\/33818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/evaggelatos.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/evaggelatos.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/evaggelatos.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}