This bold and witty, yet scholarly biography is the first to trace the full life and work of this highly influential and brilliant pediatrician-turned-analyst. This insightful story probes the roots in Winnicott's personal life of his influential concepts, such as the "holding environment" so crucial to psychotherapy and the "transitional object" known to every parent as the "security blanket." His astonishing career involved many of the great figures in psychoanalysis and psychology, not just Melanie Klein and Anna Freud, but the whole eccentric Bloomsbury scene including the Stracheys, R. D. Laing, and the controversial Pakistani prince and analyst, Masud Khan. For anyone interested not only in psychology and psychoanalysis but also in human nature and the great figures who have explored it, this book will be passionately absorbing.

About the Author
F. Robert Rodman, M.D., a leading psychoanalyst, is the author of Not Dying ("A superbly intelligent, courageous testament"- San Francisco Examiner) and Keeping Hope Alive, as well as the editor of a much-admired volume of Winnicott's letters, The Spontaneous Gesture. He lives and practices in Beverly Hills, California.

Reviews
"As balanced and insightful a portrait of Winnicott's ideas as we are likely to have." - Martha Nussbaum in The New Republic; 'Spacious, biographically rich, and without ideological blinkers...Rodman's work has not only recreated in documentary detail the life of one of the most creative people in the history of psychoanalysis, but also helped bring us up-to-date on the tale of what has been happening in Britain'. Psychoanalysis and History; 'As balanced and insightful a portrait of Winnicott's ideas as we are likely to have'. The New Republic; 'A comprehensive and revealing picture'. Journal of Social Work Education; Here is the story of an important English child psychoanalyst whose writings are a much needed breath of fresh air for all who work with, and try to understand children. Dr. Rodman writes with an exacting and deserved eloquence, knowing, as he does, why D.W. Winnicott's life work has mattered, and continues to matter, so much to so many. This book is a worthy companion to us readers, ever so needy, still, of Winnicott's inwardness, his moral presence'. Robert Coles, Harvard University"



Book Information
ISBN 9780738209647
Author F. Robert Rodman
Format Paperback
Page Count 496
Imprint Da Capo Press Inc
Publisher Hachette Books
Weight(grams) 668g
Dimensions(mm) 157mm * 232mm * 29mm