Home is Where We Start from: Essays by a Psychoanalyst by Clare Winnicott

by D.W. Winnicott

This collection brings together many of Winnicott's most important pieces, including previously unpublished talks and several essays from books and journals now difficult to obtain.

Genres: Psychology, Psychoanalysis, Nonfiction, Parenting, Philosophy, Essays, Self Help

Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

Donald Woods Winnicott was an English pediatrician, psychiatrist, sociologist and psychoanalyst.

Reviews

[Thomas · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book contained some astute insights as well as misfires related to social justice topics and obfuscating prose. I appreciated some of the points D.W. Winnicott made about how as children, we are dependent on our caregivers and how they treat us shapes how we turn out. I also liked his writing about the “good enough parent” forming a base for healthy attachment and how what happens in society shapes us as individuals.

However, there were quite a few comments he made where I was like, what is happening?? Yes, these essays came out a long time ago and at the same time even the logic of these statements made little sense controlling for that time gap. To provide a few examples, first, he writes about “healthy heterosexual trends” which I was like uh there are a lot of unhealthy heterosexual relationships so idk why heterosexuality is positioned as the norm here. He also writes about how war is beneficial so that men can develop a sense of confidence and self-worth and I was like um have you heard of PTSD? Yikes!

Finally I think at times his writing was a bit over-intellectualized and he could have made some of his points in a more direct way. If you’re looking for psychology/mental health books, I’d recommend Why Do I Do That? by Joseph Burgo for psychodynamic content, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Made Simple by Seth Gillihan for cognitive behavioral content, and the memoirs Tastes Like War by Grace Cho and The Body Papers by Grace Talusan for content about how social forces affect mental health.

[Flora · Rating 5 out of 5]

Winnicott's brilliance is matched only by his humility, and for an avowed Freudian, he's strikingly original -- you'll find little real received wisdom here, as he filters his training and mastery of psychoanalytic theory through a deeply personal vision, informed by a diverse and beautifully-vignetted practice. What's most striking is how Winnicott develops Freud's notorious pessimism in the direction of a subversive optimism that regards depression as a manifestation of ego-strength-in-the-making, and juvenile delinquency as an act of "hope." Plus, his pithy humor and unpretentious lyricism makes his rigorous, uncompromising work truly pleasurable to read: perhaps itself a demonstration of his vision, which regards "creative living" as the prime condition of individual (and, by extension, cultural) health. By asking us, as readers, to contain the destabilizing insights here, and reconcile them with the wit and whimsical metaphor, Winnicott offers us a "dry run" of what he sees as our life's goal, as individuals: the achievement of true integration. He's teaching us, through reading, more than we realize.

[Sergio Gomes]

In this book, Winnicott shows the theoria development maturacinal from a particular idea: it is at home that the child's development begins. Some ideas about democracy from their point of view are also presented in this book.

[Rick Sam · Rating 2 out of 5]

Winnicott is paediatrician and psychoanalyst.

Topic is Childhood Development Psychology.

His writing is Academic, Research Essays.

One must understand some terms, background with Psychoanalysts like Freud.

He says -- home is where, society's members are formed, and ends with Society.


Deus Vult,
Gottfried

[Suélen Fernandes · Rating 4 out of 5]

gente psicanálise é muito coisa de lele da cuca né meu deus só consigo entender winnicott pq ele se deu ao trabalho de ser sucinto mas mesmo assim várias coisa q eu ficava que????

[sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

really beautiful and special book. i never knew that winnicott had such a tender and concise and personable tone but it was a pleasure to encounter; the care he feels for his patients is very evident. his thinking is very insightful and satisfying tho tbh i did skip the very last two bits on democracy.

[Julia]

I read this book of essays because despite having an interest in psychoanalysis, I don’t really know all that much about it. The reason that I have said that I am interested in psychoanalysis in the first place is that it strikes me as a potentially fruitful study of psychology in that it allows for theory derived from individual cases to stand the test of time, rather than only what can be derived from painstakingly conducted controlled studies. As Winnicott says himself in the essays, “A computer cannot be programmed to give motives that are unconscious in the individuals who are the guinea pigs of an investigation. This is where those who have spent their lives doing psychoanalysis must scream out for sanity against the insane belief in surface phenomena that characterizes computerized investigations of human beings” (p. 156). That being said, like many people, I struggle with some of the far-fetched ideas produced by a psychoanalytic research approach. (According to Winnicott the psychoanalytic research approach is one in which “the analyst looks back at what has happened and relates this to theory, and modifies theory accordingly” (p. 174).) This continued to be an issue as I read this book. For instance, I struggled with his belief that the reason men are risk-prone is that they are deprived of the inherently dangerous experience of childbirth they therefore seek risk in other areas of life. While there may be risk-taking behavior that is especially pronounced in men, how can we know it has anything to do with this? I read Home is Where We Start From in order to develop a foundation in some principles of psychoanalysis and begin to assess whether it is a form of psychiatry I would eventually want to practice.


From this book, I did not get many answers about the technique of psychoanalysis, but I did get a working definition of psychoanalysis and an introduction to an assortment of beliefs that form the foundation of the practice. One definition of psychoanalysis is that it is the study of the emotional development of a person, or how their ‘psychomorphology’ (a term Winnicott believes would be an improved substitute for the word ‘psychology’) came about, that takes into consideration the unconscious of the person, as I will discuss further on.

At the foundation of this emotional development is Winnicott’s well-known idea of the ‘good enough mother’ or the ‘good enough holding environment.’ He repeats multiple times throughout the essays his belief that each person has inherited tendencies, much like it could be said that the seed for a tree contains the blueprint for its final form, but that the facilitating environment must be able to allow the embryonic form of personality to reach its intended shape. He offers a hopeful view of human psychology: “The individual baby is born with inherited tendencies that fiercely drive the individual on in a growth process. This includes the tendency towards integration of the personality, towards the wholeness of a personality in body and mind, and towards object-relating, which gradually becomes a matter of interpersonal relationships as the child begins to grow up and understand the existence of other people” (p. 144)

For a person to develop their full potential, Winnicott believes they must have the ability to ‘live creatively,’ which is a skill that the holding environment helps to develop early on, and also accept the ‘Reality Principle,’ or the idea that the world has its own rhythms (“fact of the existence of the world whether the baby creates it or not” (p. 40)). These two abilities, Winnicott believes, arise from the mother giving infants an early experience of omnipotence, by which he means facilitating the environment in such a way that it appears to the child that he or she has created their surroundings. The experience of omnipotence comes about because, “The infant becomes ready to find a world of objects and ideas, and, at the pace of growth of this aspect of the baby, the mother is presenting the world to the baby. In this way, by her high degree of adaptation at the beginning, the mother enables the baby to experience omnipotence" (p. 49).

The experience of omnipotence gives the child an early experience of “living creatively” in that it offers the infant the sense that it has created its own surroundings even if it has not in fact done so. In its later form, when it is not orchestrated by the mother, living creatively is the state of “not getting killed or annihilated all the time by compliance or by reacting to the world that impinges; I mean seeing everything afresh all the time” (p. 41). By giving the infant an experience of omnipotence early on, and by a certain age having the ability to “live vicariously, to use projection and introjection mechanisms” (p. 50), they have an easier time accepting the Reality Principle. Winnicott argues that the child who has not had the experience of omnipotence, “has no chance to be a cog, but must go on pushing round omnipotence and creativeness and control, like trying to sell unwanted shares in a bogus company” (p. 50). It is an interesting idea that people who have not had an early experience of omnipotence attempt to capture the experience in later childhood or adulthood perhaps to the annoyance of others, but it is again an idea whose cause and effect nature seem difficult to stand behind as necessarily true.


Winnicott believes that “Happy is he or she who is being creative all the time in personal life as well as through life partners, children, friends, etc.” (p. 49) and thus people “must not take jobs that they find stifling - or if they cannot avoid this, they must organize their weekends so as to feed the imagination” (p. 43). “The symptom of uncreative living is the feeling that nothing means anything, of futility, I couldn’t care less” (p. 50). One way in which this experience is enhanced is through partnership, as, “a wife may enjoy her husband’s enjoyment of his work or a husband enjoy his wife’s experiences with the frying pan. So in that way marriage - formal union - widens our scope for creative living” (p. 53). However, he cautions that sometimes in a relationship, instead of living one’s own life lives a person can end up only vicariously through another person. He claims, “In so far as we are fairly healthy personally, we do not have to live in a world created by our marriage partner and our marriage partner does not have to live in ours. Each of us has his or her own private world, and, moreover, we learn to share experiences by use of all degrees of cross-identifications” (p. 53-54).

Since this book is a series of disparate essays – often transcripts of talks given at various meetings and conferences – the tenets of psychoanalysis I will discuss are more an assortment than a series building a single concept. Another tenet that Winnicott discusses is that “the true self is psychosomatic” (p. 59) by which he means humans are both a body and a mind. Although he reflects on the great capacity of the intellect functioning in a split-off manner, noting that “higher mathematics gets a boost” (p. 59) and a person can “function brilliantly without much reference to the human being” (p. 60), a person functioning in this manner is limited in their ability to accrue wisdom. Achieving wisdom depends on experience being “duly assimilated” (p. 60), which depends on the stage of personality development. Even if a brain can accumulate an unlimited amount of knowledge or experience, the amount that they can feel identified with is limited by their stage of personality development, which depends on being a “psyche-soma” rather than just a “psyche.” Winnicott reflects on a psychoanalytic case of his in which it took a woman until her fifties to break free and “lose her split-off intellectual capacity (of which her parents were proud) and to find her true self” (p. 59).

As Winnicott believes that an aspect of the intact personality is being a psyche-soma, he also believes that the capacity to experience depression marks “an achievement of emotional growth” (p. 73) of this psyche-soma. He states, “There comes a stage at which the child has become a unit, becomes able to feel: I AM, has an inside, is able to ride his or her instinctual storms, and also is able to contain the strains and stresses that arise in the personal inner psychic reality. The child has become able to be depressed” (p. 73). He believes that depression arises from “a new experience of destructiveness and of destructive ideas that go with loving” (p. 76), which though provocative and interesting is another idea that isn’t entirely convincing to me. Regardless, his belief that the capacity for depression indicates a maturity of personality is convincing to me in that it suggests a prerequisite for depression is being a being rather than a mind and being attuned to the feelings therein. This is not to say that depression is always a good thing, as he notes it “may have features that make it obviously a description of illness, but always, even in severe affective disorders, the presence of the depressed mood gives some ground for belief that the individual ego is not disrupted and may be able to hold the fort, if not actually come through to some sort of resolution of the internal war” (p. 74). Whether a person comes out of depression “stronger, wiser, and more stable” (p. 77) depends on the “freedom of the depression from what might be called ‘impurities.’” (p. 77). These impurities include some general ego disorganization such that disintegration threatens (schizoid depression), the presence of delusions (using external factors or memory of traumata to obtain relief from the full blast of internal persecutions), the presence of a hypochondriacal expression of depression as somatic illness, the denial of depression with hypomania in which depression is substituted with its opposite (“aliveness, lightness, luminosity, flippancy”), or frank mania (which Winnicott terms as “maniacal” as opposed to manic by which he means the former manic-defense) in which the patient is activated by internal tensions to the point of dissociation from their depression entirely (p. 77-78). In all of these impurities, there is a commonality of deflection from the experience of depression as though the ego cannot fully hold down the fort. In summary, Winnicott states that, “What is to be emphasized is the ego strength and personal maturity that is manifested in the ‘purity’ of the depression mood” (p. 79).

In terms of personality disorders, Winnicott discusses the antisocial personality briefly in his essays. He claims that in the development of antisocial personality, things went well enough until they didn’t, and this deprivation occurred after the point when the child was conscious enough to remember the experience (p. 91). He argues that when a person with an antisocial personality is acting delinquently, it means that they are experiencing a moment of hope of security and as a result, instead of feeling despondent, they are rediscovering aggressive tendencies that occurred in the face of the deprivation (p. 90). “The child, without knowing it, hopes to be able to take someone who will listen back to the moment of deprivation or to the phase in which deprivation became consolidated into an inescapable reality. The hope is that the boy or girl will be able to re-experience in relation to the person who is acting as psychotherapist the intense suffering that followed immediately the reaction to deprivation. The moment that the child has used the support that the therapist can give to reach back to the intense suffering of that fateful moment or period of time, there follows a memory of the time before the deprivation. In this way the child has reached back either to the lost capacity to find objects or to the lost security of the framework” (p. 98).

In terms of the method of psychoanalysis, it could be said that being aware of these unconscious reasons for what might otherwise seem like inexplicable aggression, for example, allow for effective therapy. In general Winnicott advocates for a professional setting of general reliability in which the repressed unconscious may become conscious, although he does not exactly make it clear how this works (p. 106). It is reminiscent of an idea I have read from Mary Oliver about having a dedicated time for writing each day should one want to become a writer, because then you are effectively ‘making an appointment’ with a certain part of your psyche.

Overall, reading this book stimulated and affirmed various thoughts. I found the ideas of impurities in depression to be interesting characterizations of how the psyche might mitigate the full strength of a depression. The importance of being both a body and a mind was affirmed. And insight into inexplicable behavior such as that of people with an antisocial personality was welcome for approaching patients in the future. I have excluded full discussion of some of Winnicott’s more far-fetched theories such as the previously mentioned risk-taking nature of men resulting from not having the ability to experience childbirth. Generally speaking, I view psychoanalytic writings as a rich source to read from to illuminate psychology while remaining unsure about “subscribing” to the school of thought.

[Claire · Rating 4 out of 5]

This compilation of Winnicott's essays/lectures proved a mixed bag from me. Content covers issues of mental health and illness and psychopathology, in the individual, in the family and through to level of society, country and even the world. What was clearer than ever to me in these writings compared to other material I have read, was his understanding and knowing of mind-body holism, our innate wisdom - even of our 'pathology', and our interdependent nature.

He has heart and compassion for the difficulties of adolescence and adulthood, and I think this arises from his understanding of the conditioning factor of early infancy/childhood - our first bonds (or lack there of), our first environments, and the support we receive. Unlike other psychoanalysts/psychologists etc he has not forgotten the lasting impact of our early years. These writings convey this in a straightforward, matter-of-fact manner without being righteous - what he says is just common sense.

The later chapters in this book focused more on social structure and our mental health - not surprisingly, his thoughts feel a little outdated, with many comments on gender issues seemingly more fitting of the Victorian era than early-mid 20th century. His views on democracy and monarchy also have limited relevance to us today perhaps, but what remained interesting was the continual connections made between an individual's health and society's health.

Overall definitely a worthwhile, classic, to read for anyone in the field. Im definitely more deeply appreciative and liking of Winnicott following this read - this usually happens with him. He seems ahead of his time in his views, no doubt a testament to his intelligence, acute observational and listening skills, his genuine empathy and ability to connect with others. Notably, there's little on object relations theory or therapy in practice if thats what someone is looking for.

[Arek · Rating 4 out of 5]

Psychoanalytical essays about individuals, family and society. Especially interesting when it comes childhood and creation of individual self. Main thoughts: 1. society and parents expect kids to be always a good boy/girl which is very harmful. Children have to have space to rebel and to show and feel full spectrum of emotions.
2. Being good enough parent (and generally person) is better than perfect parent. World is not perfect, we all have to learn that when we are children. Additionaly it puts too much unnecessary pressure on everybody

[Emerson · Rating 4 out of 5]

some of these essays spoke deeply to me and others felt like they missed the mark. "delinquency as a sign of hope" reminded me so much of some of my past work. i will always love winnicott's beautiful writing style

[natalia · Rating 4 out of 5]

o winnicott diz que pra alguém existir, precisa existir um alguém (ou alguéns) devotados a cuidar e espelhar, a criar as necessidades juntos e sanar a maior parte delas. ajudar alguém a existir só pode ser feito em cadeia, o que me lembra como o feijão germina no algodão. a autonomia que muitas vezes desejamos não deve necessariamente significar independência radical, mas a capacidade de ser só sem se sentir abandonado ou aniquilado, e isso só acontece se o ambiente facilitador permite que o bebê desenvolva um self verdadeiro, espontâneo e autêntico

[Sema Dural · Rating 2 out of 5]

“ Yüzyıllar boyunca yürekli insanların fiziksel olarak kısıtlandıkları durumlarda özgürlük duygusu, hatta pekişmiş özgürlük duygusu edindikleri iyi bilinir. Şu dizeleri başka bir yerde aktarmıştım. ‘Taş duvarlar cezaevi yapmaz, demir parmaklıklar da kafes.’ “

Çeviriyi beğenmedim. Birebir çeviri yapmak uğruna metnin anlaşılması zorlaşmış. Eksik ya da fazla kelimeleri düşünerek tekrar tekrar okumaya, anlamaya çalıştığım yerler oldu.

[Jamie Peoples · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not sure my star rating does it justice. One of the must-read Winnicott texts, it is revealing of both the author, their practice and how it is shaped by their worldview along with not only interesting theoretical ideas and practice but a philosophical treatise at times on the nature of maturity and freedom told with great empathy.

[Mike Billing · Rating 3 out of 5]

Winnicott explored some really interesting ideas throughout this collection of talks, articles and papers. I liked how each chapter was generally self-contained whilst being connected to its neighbours, offering a loose narrative throughout the anthology. Personally, I struggled to properly engage with the book due to a combination of old-fashioned style and lack of subject knowledge.

[Max Downey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Llegue a la mitad. Bien woke para la época y si bien es bastante ortodoxo como psicoanalista, tiene insights sobre el ser humano, especialmente en desarrollo, que exceden su disciplina. Pero es un compilado de charlas y se vuelve repetitivo muy rapido.

[Amanda Hertzberg · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lot of the writing in this book undoubtedly feels old-fashioned and fundamentally heteronormative.
However, I think there are a lot of useful psychoanalytic concepts that arise in this book, such as;
- the reality concept.
- the splitting of the mother from something subjective to something objective.
- disloyalty in the home as an exercise of health

He has outdated ideas on the british monarchy, on gender and on other things. He ponders in this book on whether there could ever be a society in which there are mostly female leaders.
The book is very abstract and uses examples that are hard to reach but it is truly a work of its time. As such, it is a valuable piece of work but not a pleasant read.

[Ryan Croke · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's somewhat hit or miss; many essays are fantastic but some are more philosophical. What a great mind he had.

[Ayşegül Alkış · Rating 5 out of 5]

Winnicott harika bir kuramcı ama çeviri sıkıntıları var

[Ilias · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad. It was enjoyable.The first 2 parts were very interesting for me, but the 3rd was a little bit slow and boring for me personally.

[Luke Matys · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent break from fiction. Definitely different to consume at points, but the sections on the self and family are incredibly insightful.

[Yente Austerlitz · Rating 4 out of 5]

The vast and nuanced conversation on a variety of topics with simplicity and brilliance. Stating truth without the "fear of freedom" while facing the depth of the fears of them all 💥

[Larissa Tollstadius · Rating 4 out of 5]

O livro constitui-se de várias palestras. Pelas notas do autor, pode-se deduzir que Winnicott escrevia a maior parte de suas palestras. Apenas um dos textos é uma transcrição de uma palestra preservada em áudio.

O autor era um palestrante frequente e falou para plateias diversas: professores de matemática, médicos, assistentes sociais, religiosos. Sempre com a preocupação de mostrar como seus estudos poderiam contribuir para as várias práticas profissionais.

Antes que seja tarde, vale dizer que o foco de estudo de Winnicott é a relação entre a mãe e o bebê nas primeiras semanas de vida e como isso repercute na saúde mental do indivíduo adulto. Seria um ponto bem específico de estudo, mas o psicanalista avança fronteiras e se dedica a pensar outros temas como democracia e feminismo.

No momento que cruza os limites da sua profissão devemos ler com mais cuidado suas teorias. Algumas coisas são interessantíssimas, como o medo endêmico da mulher poderia explicar a opressão feminina. Para Winnicott todo ser humano para existe, seja homem ou mulher, deve isso a uma mulher. Essa dependência inicial pode causar um trauma (mais frequente nos homens) e um medo de mulher na vida adulta.

Porém é importante notar, que Winnicott é um inglês, que atuou como psicanalista em meados do século XX. Talvez suas colocações sócio-políticas sejam agressivas para progressistas latino-americanos do século XXI. Acredito que seja importante lermos suas contribuições com respeito, tentando extrair suas contribuições positivas, e cautela, compreendendo as limitações impostas pelo seu contexto cultural.

[Micah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Probably a good introduction to Winnicott; public lectures he gave throughout his career, but mostly towards the end, in the 1960s. He has a very graceful way of expressing himself and is a pleasure to read. He covers all kinds of themes, but often comes back to the idea that psychoanalysis doesn't focus just on the individual psyche, but because of its developmental perspective, must consider the environment - i.e., the mother or whatever acts as mother, which leads on to the family and society. If health, maturity and integration are to be reached - and Winnicott is too smart to think this is a simple matter of passing through stages and coming to an end - the mother must be "good enough," adapt to needs, including the need for independence, and survive the primitive love that destroys the object. The "result" is a whole that accepts and contains conflict, paradox, and the ability to be depressed. In some essays, Winnicott draws parallels between this and society - sometimes with fairly conservative, if humane, results. But his emphasis on play and creativity would be recognizable to any anti-work anti-capitalist, only he enriches these concepts by placing them in that mysterious "transitional area" that he likes to return to, between subject and object, sleep and wakefulness, dream and reality etc. His take on the youth rebellions of the 60s is interesting - a matter of life and death, as he says.

[Murilo Costa · Rating 4 out of 5]

"o viver criativo envolve, até o último detalhe dessa experiência, um dilema filosófico - isso porque, quando estamos sãos, realmente só criamos aquilo que descobrimos. até mesmo nas artes não podemos ser criativos "do nada", a menos que sejamos solistas numa clínica psiquiátrica ou no hospício de nosso próprio autismo. ser criativo em arte ou em filosofia depende muito do estudo de tudo o que já existe, e o estudo do contexto é essencial para entender e apreciar qualquer artista. só que a abordagem criativa faz com que o artista se sinta real e importante, mesmo quando o que ele fez seja um fracasso do ponto de vista do público, ainda que este continue a ser uma parte tão necessária de seu equipamento quanto seus talentos, seu treinamento e suas ferramentas."

[Kawin Kornthong · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book can be insightful for those who are already familiar with Winnicott's ideas. It can be incomprehensible for new comers though, so I would encourage people to learn basic psychoanalytic ideas ("atleast" Freud and Klein), especially those about object relations.

This book is very enjoyable once you know what he's talking about.

[Thiago · Rating 4 out of 5]

O livro é uma coleção de palestras do autor sobre saúde e sanidade, família e sociedade. O que mais me marcou foi o conceito de "segurar" que ele apresenta no início e revisita ao longo de todo o livro.

[Mina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Des réflexions psychanalytiques sur de grands sujets de société. L'application du concept d'inconscient a différents niveaux. Passionnant novateur et plutôt rigolo par rapport au sujet. C'est brillant intéressant et enrichissant - je recommande !

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

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[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

For my PhD class, of course!