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D. W. Winnicott

D. W. Winnicott began his professional life as a pediatrician and his experience with children and their parents formed the basis for the psychoanalytic models that he developed later on. Winnicott, whose own model is based on Object Relations Theory, argued that the psyche of each child develops in a particular way through her or his interactions with the child's primary caregiver(s) rather than in any regular, abstract way. When those interactions are healthy, the child turns out to have a well-developed psyche; when they are not, he or she does not.

Winnicott's definition of psychically healthy interactions was based on his idea of the "good-enough mother" whose relationship with her child is based on a "primary maternal preoccupation" (http://www.mythosandlogos.com/Winnicott.html). In other words - and in at least implicit opposition to everything that feminism would argue in the years immediately after his death in 1971, children flourish when their mothers (and not their fathers) create a close psychic space around them that gradually becomes larger and larger as the child becomes older. As the mother withdraws, the child learns independence and this increasing independence (blended with the security that the child receives from the mother's total devotion to the infant) creates a psychologically well-adjusted child. The mother most be just "good enough" (but not too attentive) at every stage to allow the child to be able to rely on her while constantly increasing his or her independence.

http://www.mythosandlogos.com/Winnicott.html

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D. W. Winnicott. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 04:19, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1688230.html