Winnicott was continually innovating, inventing, and proposing unexpected solutions in his analytical work whenever he noticed that clinical experience "didn't stick to the theory". This approach can make his work seem rather diffuse, with concepts that are sometimes confusing and needing to be clarified. Laura Dethiville has taken on the task of re-evaluating and explaining the principal rudiments of his theories, such as the transitional object, the self, the false self, the importance of environment, and dissociation. She also reveals how Winnicott showed himself to be a forerunner in the care of symptomatic illness in our society, including his innovative treatment of loss of identity, anorexia or bulimia, delinquency, psychosomatic illness, and school disorders. In this book the author has succeeded in avoiding psychoanalytic jargon and, although initially aimed at psychoanalysts, it is also accessible for educators, child carers, paediatricians, and to all those interested in early childhood, the constitution of the psyche, and the constitution of the interpersonal link.

Paediatric psychoanalyst Donald W. Winnicott is widely recognized as a remarkable clinician. Deprivation, regression, play, antisocial tendencies and "the use of the object" are part of the many clinical conceptions he conceived, and here Laura Dethiville explains each in a clear and precise way, highlighting Winnicott’s originality and enduring relevance. The Clinic of Donald W. Winnicott offers all readers a glimpse of what Winnicott brings to the understanding of the human being, and will appeal to students new to his work, as well as practitioners looking for a concise overview of his work.

Winnicott is concerned with the springs of imaginative living and of cultural experience in every sense, with whatever determines an individual's capacity to live creatively and to find life worth living.

Thinking About Children collects thirty-one papers, of which twenty-eight have never previously been published. As might be expected, they range widely in tone and content from concise clinical observations to more general meditations including the landmark paper "Towards an objective study of human nature". Of particular interest are sections on autism and psychosomatics, where the author's thinking can be seen to foreshadow more recent developments, such as Frances Tustin's work on autism. Together with a substantial introduction by the editors, this book indispensable for those acquainted with the author's work, and an ideal introduction for those who have not yet encountered the extraordinary clarity and depth of his thought.

First published in 1990. The ideas of Donald Winnicott are scattered through numerous clinical papers and short, popular expositions. He made only one attempt to write and overview of his ideas, and this is it. It remained unfinished at his death in 1971. It is an ambitious work. The chapters offer his perspective on most of the main issues in psychoanalytic theory - for example, psychosomatics; the Oedipus complex; infantile sexuality; the unconscious; the depressive position; manic defence; transitional objects; aggression. Winnicott has here made a major synthetic effort, one which is regarded as the best of his posthumous works. D. W. Winnicott can be said to be the most influential native-born British psychoanalyst and - with Klein and Fairbairn - the founder of the object relations perspective. His writings are among the most moving and evocative int he whole literature of psychoanalysis.