Table Of ContentThe Spontaneous
Gesture ~
SELECTED LETTERS OF
D. W WINNICOTT
EDITED BY
F. Robert Rodman
HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
AND LONDON, ENGLAND
1987
Winnicotttext Copyright© 1987by theWinnicottTrust.
Editorial matterCopyright© 1987by F.RobertRodman.
Allrights reserved
Printedinthe UnitedStatesofAmerica
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
This book isprintedon acid-free paper, anditsbindingmaterials
havebeen chosen forstrengthand durability.
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Winnicott, D. W.(DonaldWoods), 1896-1971.
Thespontaneousgesture.
Includes index.
I. Winnicott, D. W.(DonaldWoods), 1896-1971
Correspondence. 2. Psychoanalysts-GreatBritain
Correspondence. 3. Psychoanalysis. 4. Child psychiatry.
I. Rodman, F.Robert(FrancisRobert).
II.Title. [DNLM: I. PersonalityDevelopment
correspondence. 2. PsychoanalyticTheory
correspondence.wz IOOW776s)
RC509.WS6 1987 616.89'17'0924 86-18483
ISBN 0-674-83336-8 (alk.paper)
For Sarah, mydaughter
and inmemory ofmymother, Sarah Frieda Rodman
Contents
Preface IX
Acknowledgments
Xl
Introduction XIII
Letters I- 126 I
Winnicott's Correspondents 199
Index 205
Illustrations
Followingpage88
All illustrations courtesy oftheWinnicott Trust
Winnicott around 1935
At a conference in 1963
With Anna Freud at the banquet to mark the completion ofthe
Standard Edition ofthe Works ofFreud, 1966
A sketch by Winnicott ofamother and child
In the studio ofOscar Nemon
Winnicott in 1970
A portrait by Lotte Meitner-Graf, published in the BritishJournal
ofMedical Psychology in 1971 with Winnicott's obituary
Preface
I HAD NO WAY of knowing that publication of the letters of
D. W Winnicott was being planned when, in 1979, I wrote to Dr.
Winnicott's widow, Mrs. Clare Winnicott, and asked whether I
might edit them. I had just reread his response to a paper I had
sent him in 1969. In its length and openness, his letter was more
than a reply; it was a gift. It seemed likely that many other corre
spondents had been so favored. Winnicott's work, and, Isuppose,
Winnicott himself: had always seemed highly accessible to me,
from my first reading ofhim as a medical student. And so the act
of mailing him a paper without asking in advance whether he
would mind was as typical ofhow Ifelt abouthim aswas the letter
Isent ten years later to Mrs. Winnicott, something outofthe blue
that might be acceptable anyway. It was.
I went to her home in Lower Belgrave Street in May of 1980
to meet with her and with Ray Shepherd, a psychoanalyst and
a member of the Winnicott Publications Committee, and Peter
Tizard, Winnicott's old friend and distinguished fellow pediatri
cian. After dinner, Mrs. Winnicott showed me to the comfortable
basement room where the letters were kept. They had been or
ganizedin aseries ofring binders from 1958 onward, one per year,
with all the correspondence alphabetized. There were also several
boxes full of unsorted letters and miscellaneous documents. I
scanned this material and became convinced that a great deal ofit
would be ofinterest to a wide readership of psychoanalysts and
others ofdiverse background.
The following year I arranged to have the material copied. But
it was not until 1984 thatI could continuethe necessary work, and
by then Mrs. Winnicott had succumbed to the illness that she had
x Preface
struggled against for many years. She had considered at length
what to do with the Winnicott documents, and had decided to
send the originals to the library ofthe New York Hospital-Cornell
Medical Center for safekeeping and future scholarship, with du
plicates to be available in England at the Wellcome Institute for the
History ofMedicine. Long before, she had made careful arrange
ments for the editing and publishing of her husband's work
through a board ofeditors consisting ofherself, Madeleine Davis,
and Ray Shepherd. After her death, Christopher Bollas became
the third member. Later another trove ofletters was discovered,
and from it a large number were added to the earlier collection.
In all, about 825 letters written by Winnicott survive. For this
book I have chosen only those with a direct bearing on his work
and theories. Letters before 1949 are sparse. He probably lacked
secretarial help before then. In those times as well he passed
through a personal upheaval, which included his father's death,
divorce from his first wife, and, in 1951, remarriage. Records may
have been lost or discarded. A move to new living and working
quarters in Chester Square marked the beginning of that final
score ofyears in which his genius was widely recognized. Perhaps
at that point he began to realize that a more complete record of
his correspondence would one day be of interest, to himself at
least and possibly to others.
The letters in this book are, with two exceptions, taken from
typed, unsigned copies that Winnicott kept. Letter I, to his sister,
is from a photocopy ofthe handwritten letter, and for letter 118,
to me, Ihave the typed original. Completeletters appear wherever
possible. Deletions have been made primarily to protect confi
dences, and for the same reason capital letters have been substi
tuted for a few names. Deletions are indicated by ellipsis dots and
emendations by square brackets. A few simple errors in spelling
and punctuation have been corrected without note.
Acknowledgments
I AM DEEPLY GRATEFUL to the late Mrs. Clare Winnicott, who
entrusted me with the task of editing these letters. Her warm,
witty, and intelligent presence is sorely missed.
Madeleine Davis took up this project where Mrs. Winnicott left
offand has been a helpful and stimulating guide throughout. Her
wide knowledge and, more than that, her grasp ofthe true value
of Winnicott's work and life are enormous. She has given me
much information and good advice. Ray Shepherd has been a
sourceofquiet encouragement from the very beginning. Through
his inquiries at the archives ofthe British Psychoanalytic Society,
I have been able to identify the dates and titles of most of the
papers to which Winnicott responds in these letters.
Arthur Rosenthal, director of Harvard University Press, re
sponded with enthusiasm to the proposal to publish the letters.
He had been well acquainted with Winnicott and his writings as
publisher ofhis Collected Papers at Basic Books,
My good friend Lance Lee gave me the benefit ofhis incisive
understanding ofWinnicott's work, and, as usual, sage comments
on writing, this time on the organization ofthe Introduction.
My wife and children tolerated alengthy absorption with Win
nicott, the hours in front ofthe word processor, and the moods
that accompany the preparation of a book. I love them for that
and for everything else.
Introduction
D. W. WINNICOTT was one ofthe major figures in British psy
choanalysis in the generation following Freud. His writings were
primarily concerned with the nature of relationships, beginning
with that of mother and infant, which he described with great
subtlety. As a member of the British Middle Group, he stood
apart from the clusters around Melanie Klein and Anna Freud,
lending heart to those ofa similarly independent bent and, at the
same time, forming a tenuous bridge between the two rival fac
tions. The many psychoanalytic books and papers that make ref
erence to his work attest both to the enduring value ofhis ideas
and to their capacity to enrich and facilitate the thinking ofothers.
Because his writings retain freshness and the capacity to stimulate
unexpected inference, his influence has continued to grow with
the years.
Donald Woods Winnicott was born in 1896 in Plymouth,
Devon, a stronghold of the nonconformist Wesleyan tradition.
His father, asuccessful and much-admired merchant and mayorof
the town, was knighted for civic work. Donald was the youngest
ofthree, with two elder sisters, and apparently had ahappy child
hood. At fourteen, he left home for the Leys School in Cam
bridge, where the following year, while being treated for abroken
collarbone, he decided to become adoctor. Much taken with Dar
win's ideas, he studied biology atJesus College, Cambridge, and
then medicine at St. Bartholomew's Hospital in London. In med
ical school, he converted to the Anglican Church." Also while a
I. Personal communication, ClareWinnicott.
Introduction
XIV
medical student, he found himselfunable to recall his dreams and,
whilelooking for abook that might help him, came across a work
on Freud by aSwiss parson named Oskar Pfister. This introduced
Winnicott to psychoanalytic writings."
Winnicott served as Surgeon-Probationer on a destroyer for a
time during the First World War. He resumed the study ofmedi
cine and qualified in 1920. In 1923 he married.
Also in 1923, he became physician to the Paddington Green
Children's Hospital, a posthe helduntil 1963. His Wednesday clin
ics, which gradually evolved from 'traditional pediatrics to child
psychiatry, were part ofthe continuity ofhis medical experience,
which amounted eventually to about 60,000 cases. In 1923 as well
he startedaten-year analysis withJames Strachey. This decadewas
aperiodofgreat change for the British Psycho-Analytical Society.
In 1926, Melanie Klein moved from Berlin to London, brought
by Ern-estJones for the immediate purpose ofanalyzing his wife
and two children. A conflict between Klein and Anna Freud in
matters oftheory and the technique ofchild analysis had begun in
earnest and was to be one ofthe principal topics ofconversation
for many years to come. In 1933, the discussions ofscientific mat
ters in the British Society were much affected by the vituperative
attacks on Melanie Klein by Edward Glover and his analysand
Melitta Schmideberg, Klein's daughter, who accused her mother
of"trying to force feelings into me."
In 1935, Winnicott began six years of supervision with Mrs.
Klein. He wanted to be analyzed by her, but this would have made
it impossible for him to do what she wished: to analyze her son
under her supervision. He refused this arrangement, but did be
come her son's analyst from 1935 to 1939.3 In the late 1930S, Win
nicott undertook a second analysis withJoan Riviere.
Freud arrived in London on June 6, 1938, at a time when the
membership ofthe British Society was fully one-third ofCentral
European origin. After Freud's death in September of 1939, and
with the war raging, the British Society fell into divisive quarrel-
2. "APersonal View: 10, Donald Winnicott." St. Mary'sHospital Gazette 67, no. 5
(July-August 1961).
3. Phyllis Grosskurth, MelanieKlein: Her World andHer Work (New York: Knopf
1986).
