Donald W. Winnicott and the History of the Present: Understanding the Man and his Work

In November 2015, The Winnicott Trust held a major conference in London to celebrate the forthcoming publication of the Collected Works of D. W. Winnicott. Most of the papers given then now constitute the chapters in this book. It not only reflects the ongoing contemporary relevance of Winnicott’s work, clinical and theoretical, but these chapters demonstrate the aliveness of Winnicott’s contribution as present day practitioners and academics use his ideas in their own way. The chapters range from accounts of the early developmental processes and relationships (Roussillon, Murray), the psychoanalytic setting (Bolognini, Bonaminio, Fabozzi, Joyce, Hopkins) creativity and the arts (Wright, Robinson), Winnicott in the outside world (Kahr, Karpf), to the challenge to the psychoanalytic paradigm that Winnicott’s ideas constitute (Loparic).