6-25). Winnicott's clinical experiences in this capacity eventually gave him the raw materials "from which he subsequently built his psychoanalytic theories" (Donald Woods Winnicott 1876-1971-2000).
Winnicott's Influences and Challenges
Winnicott's theories and method were far from unchallenged by his professional peers, however, including several renowned European child psychoanalysts who had first immigrated to London during the war years. Among his chief challengers, and major professional competitors of that period were the likes of Melanie Klein and Anna Freud:
child analyst Melanie Klein, moved to London in 1926 and soon had many followers: Winnicott had further analysis with one of them, Joan Riviere. The Kleinians' belief in the paramount importance, for psychic health, of the first year of a child's life, was shared by Winnicott. But this view diverged somewhat from that of Freud and his daughter Anna (herself a child analyst!) who both came to London in 1938, refugees from the Nazis in Austria. A split within the British Psycho-Analytical
Society was threatened between the orthodox Freudians and the Kleinians; but by the end of World War Two in 1945 a typically British compromise established three more or less amicable groups: the Freudians, the Kleinians and a "Middle" group, to which Winnicott belonged"(Donald Woods Winnicott 1876-1971-2000).
After first moving to London, Melanie Klein was, in the early 1930's, one of Winnicott's original psychoanalytic mentors. Later Winnicott analyzed Klein's son, although he did not do so under her supervision, as she had originally requested that he do (Rodman 1987, p. xiv). Later on in his career, however, Winnicott's professional relationship with his former mentor became frosty. The major source of disagreement between him and Klein had to do with Klein's unwillingness to support Winnicott's view that the "actual mother and her actual behavior" (Rodman, p.xx) were crucial to healthy human development.
While rejecting the principles of peers like Melanie Klein, Winnicott acknowledged that Sigmund Freud had single-handedly created the conditions of possibility for work by all future psychoanalysts, including himself. As Rodman (the Spontaneous Gesture 1987) explains:
The role of external reality was brought into question by discovery that reports of Sexual molestation in childhood usually were the result of Oedipal fantasies rather than actual events. That opened the world of fantasy to careful study and launched
Freud on his great work of demonstrating that a person's instinctual urges and infantile neuroses color and shape the course of life. This point-of-view...[was] regarded as the backbone of psychoanalytic theory...Klein probably represents its apotheosis. By virtually excluding external reality from a formative role in development, her theory achieves the impression that the technique it generates will benefit the patient through shattering insights. Winnicott, firmly rooted in the psychoanalytic tradition but also a practical observer of children and their parents in distress, could bring in external reality as an influence without sacrificing the significance of the child's fantasy life in the process" (p.xx).
Two key differences between Winnicott's approach to psychoanalysis and that of Sigmund Freud himself, however, are (1) the stages of human development on which they mainly focus, and (2) their respective emphases on early instinctual life (in Freud's case) and "relational structure of infant to mother" (in Winnicott's case) (Rodman, the Spontaneous Gesture 1987, p. xxvi). Further, in comparing Melanie Klein's 'internal object', to his own 'transitional object' Winnicott states (Playing and Reality 1950): "The transitional object is not an internal object (which is a mental concept) - it is a possession. Yet it is not (for the infant) an external object either"(p.9),
Moreover, as Rodman (1987) explains, Winnicott focuses on the earliest stages of infancy and childhood, particularly the infant's relationship to its mother, and 'transitional objects' (Winnicott, Playing and Reality 1950, pp. 1-7) as the major keys to all later development, good or bad. Freud, on the other hand, is not nearly as concerned with infancy in and of itself, or with either mother-infant or object relations as indicators of later emotional health. Second, as Rodman (1987) states of Winnicott: "His theory of health is not defined [as is Freud's] by the absence of pathology. He is interested in more than that. He wants to define a healthy life in positive terms"(p.xix).
Winnicott's view of infant-mother, and infant-object relations as pivotal to healthy human development likely sprang from his early clinical work within his initial medical specialty of pediatrics. From there, he became interested...
S., experts estimate the genuine number of incidents of abuse and neglect ranges three times higher than reported. (National Child Abuse Statistics, 2006) in light of these critical contemporary concerns for youth, this researcher chose to document the application of Object Relation, Attachment Theories, and Self-Psychology to clinical practice, specifically focusing on a patient who experienced abuse when a child. Consequently, this researcher contends this clinical case study dissertation proves
dysfunctional behavior that strikes 1 out of 40 or 50 adults and 1 out of 100 children or 2-3% of any population. It can begin at any age, although most commonly in adolescence or early adulthood - from ages 6 to 15 in boys and between 20 and 30 in women -- according to the National Institute for Mental Health. This behavioral affliction is, therefore, more common than schizophrenia
Therapy The object relations theory of the personality developed from the study of the patient-therapist relationship as it relates to the earlier mother-infant dyad. Object relations theory emphasizes the infant's early experiences with its primary caregiver (typically the mother) as the fundamental determinant of the formation of adult personality. The infant's need for attachment is the primary motivating factor in the development of the self. Two schools of Object Relations theorists
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