Career
| Part of a series of articles on |
| Psychoanalysis |
|---|
| Concepts
Psychosexual development Psychosocial development Unconscious · Preconscious Consciousness Psychic apparatus Id, ego and super-ego Libido · Drive Transference Countertransference Ego defenses · Resistance Projection · Denial |
| Important figures
Alfred Adler · Michael Balint Wilfred Bion · Josef Breuer Nancy Chodorow · Max Eitingon Erik Erikson · Ronald Fairbairn Paul Federn · Otto Fenichel Sándor Ferenczi Anna Freud · Sigmund Freud Erich Fromm · Harry Guntrip Karen Horney · Ernest Jones Carl Jung · Melanie Klein Heinz Kohut · Jacques Lacan Ronald Laing · Margaret Mahler Otto Rank · Sandor Rado Wilhelm Reich · Joan Riviere Isidor Sadger · James Strachey Ernst Simmel · Harry Stack Sullivan Susan Sutherland Isaacs Donald Winnicott |
| Important works
(1899) The Interpretation of Dreams (1901) The Psychopathology of Everyday Life (1905) Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1920) Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1923) The Ego and the Id |
| Schools of thought
Self psychology · Lacanian Jungian · Object relations Interpersonal · Relational Ego psychology |
| Training
Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis British Psychoanalytic Council British Psychoanalytical Society Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research International Psychoanalytical Association |
| Psychology portal |
He completed his medical studies in 1920, and in 1923, the same year as his first marriage (to Alice Taylor), he obtained a post as physician at the Paddington Green Children's Hospital in London, where he was to work as a pediatrician and child psychoanalyst for 40 years. In 1923 he began a ten-year psychoanalysis with James Strachey, and in 1927 he began training as an analytic candidate. His second analysis, beginning in 1936, was with Joan Riviere.
Winnicott rose to prominence just as the followers of Anna Freud were battling those of Melanie Klein for the right to be called Sigmund Freud's true intellectual heirs. Out of the Controversial discussions during World War II, a compromise was established with three more-or-less amicable groups of the psychoanalytic movement: the Freudians, the Kleinians, and the "Middle Group" of the British Psychoanalytical Society (later called the "Independent Group"), to which Winnicott belonged, along with Ronald Fairbairn, Michael Balint, Masud Khan, John Bowlby, Marion Milner, and Margaret Little. Winnicott was trained by Melanie Klein but became increasingly independent in his thinking over the course of his career, ultimately contributing original ideas which emphasized the importance of play in psychological development.
During the Second World War, Winnicott served as consultant psychiatrist to the evacuee programme. During the war he met and worked with Clare Britton, a psychiatric social worker who became his colleague in treating children displaced from their homes by wartime evacuation. He divorced his first wife in 1951 and, in the same year, married Britton. After the war he also saw patients in his private practice. Among contemporaries influenced by Winnicott was R.D. Laing, who wrote to Winnicott in 1958 acknowledging his help.
Except for one book published in 1931 (Clinical Notes on Disorders of Childhood), all of Winnicott's books were published after 1944, including The Ordinary Devoted Mother and Her Baby (1949), The Child and the Family (1957), Playing and Reality (1971), and Holding and Interpretation: Fragment of an Analysis (1986).
Winnicott died in 1971 following the last of a series of heart attacks and was cremated in London. Clare Winnicott oversaw the posthumous publication of several of his works.
Read more about this topic: Donald Winnicott
Famous quotes containing the word career:
“It is a great many years since at the outset of my career I had to think seriously what life had to offer that was worth having. I came to the conclusion that the chief good for me was freedom to learn, think, and say what I pleased, when I pleased. I have acted on that conviction... and though strongly, and perhaps wisely, warned that I should probably come to grief, I am entirely satisfied with the results of the line of action I have adopted.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“I began my editorial career with the presidency of Mr. Adams, and my principal object was to render his administration all the assistance in my power. I flattered myself with the hope of accompanying him through [his] voyage, and of partaking in a trifling degree, of the glory of the enterprise; but he suddenly tacked about, and I could follow him no longer. I therefore waited for the first opportunity to haul down my sails.”
—William Cobbett (1762–1835)