Donald Woods Winnicott was born on April 7, 1896 in Plymouth, England. His father was the mayor of Plymouth and Winnicott was raised in a family of wealth. His mother suffered from depression during Winnicott’s youth, and his recollections of his childhood are filled with memories of trying to lift the darkness in his home. It was because of this early experience with mental illness that Winnicott later gravitated toward helping other people troubled with psychological problems. Winnicott attended a preparatory school in Cambridge and began to attend Jesus College in pursuit of a medical degree, but was drafted into the Royal Navy in World War I. He then attended St. Bartholomew’s Hospital Medical College, and graduated in 1923. He started his professional career working as a medical doctor at the Paddington Green Children’s Hospital. He remained with the hospital for 40 years working as a pediatric psychoanalyst.

Winnicott was part of the British Psychoanalytical Society’s independent group of thinkers that were neither Kleinians nor Freudians, but rather held beliefs somewhere in the middle. Winnicott worked with evacuee’s during WWII, and went on to maintain a private practice for several years. In 1951, Winnicott married for the second time, to Claire Britton, with whom he stayed until his death in 1971. Britton worked with Winnicott during WWII, and later published much of his work after he died.

Winnicott developed several theories and concepts that helped shape the way in which psychoanalysis is practiced today. The idea of “holding” was generated by Winnicott, and directly paralleled the nurturing and caring behavior a mother engages in with her child. Through this process of holding, a trusting and safe bond is developed. Winnicott believed that this “holding environment” was critical to the therapeutic environment and could be created through the therapist’s direct engagement with a client. By providing a nurturing, caring, and unconditional space, a client could feel safe and secure, just as an infant does in his mother’s arms. Winnicott also believed that individuals with anti-social behaviors had been deprived a holding environment during their childhoods and were desperately seeking a sense of security.

The idea of “being” was central to many of Winnicott’s theories. He believed that people outgrew the natural tendency of just “being” as they aged. This state was replaced in adulthood with doing, which gave an individual a false sense of importance and meaning. He thought that play was an important path by which clients could gain awareness into their authentic emotional selves. He encouraged play through creative outlets, such as sport, art, or movement. Winnicott saw the therapist as a vessel through which clients could learn to rediscover their uninhibited child within and reunite contact with their true sense of being.


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Derived from http://www.goodtherapy.org/famous-psychologists/donald-winnicott.html. Last Update (April 13. 2012)