D.W. Winnicott and Political Theory

D.W. Winnicott and Political Theory

Author: Matthew H. Bowker

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2017-01-31

Total Pages: 382

ISBN-13: 1137575336

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In this volume, the work of British psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott is set in conversation with some of today’s most talented psychodynamically-sensitive political thinkers. The editors and contributors demonstrate that Winnicott’s thought contains underappreciated political insights, discoverable in his reflections on the nature of the maturational process, and useful in working through difficult impasses confronting contemporary political theorists. Specifically, Winnicott’s psychoanalytic theory and practice offer a framework by which the political subject, destabilized and disrupted in much postmodern and contemporary thinking, may be recentered. Each chapter in this volume, in its own way, grapples with this central theme: the potential for authentic subjectivity and inter-subjectivity to arise within a nexus of autonomy and dependence, aggression and civility, destructiveness and care. This volume is unique in its contribution to the growing field of object-relations-oriented political and social theory. It will be of interest to political scientists, psychologists, and scholars of related subjects in the humanities and social sciences.


Winnicott and Labor’s Eclipse of Life

Winnicott and Labor’s Eclipse of Life

Author: Nathan Gerard

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-09-12

Total Pages: 108

ISBN-13: 1000999831

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Nathan Gerard draws upon the pathbreaking insights of a pediatrician and psychoanalyst D. W. Winnicott to offer a new set of ideas in the novel domain of contemporary work life and its discontents. Locating Winnicott within a broad landscape of critical scholarship that dissects work’s perils, the book positions Winnicott as both a radical critic and creative advocate for building a different kind of work life—one that might make room for the presence of self. By shuffling the discourse on neoliberal subjectivity to reclaim what Winnicott calls “unit status” of the separate self, Gerard differentiates Winnicott from the relational tradition by advocating for Winnicott’s non-relational aspects. Through such analysis, the book reveals how work and home have become two sides of the same impoverished coin, each contributing to a legitimately “bad environment” that perpetuates self-absence and annihilates one’s unique sense of “feeling real” and alive. Winnicott and Labor’s Eclipse of Life will be of interest to readers of Winnicott and psychoanalysis, organization and management studies, and anyone hoping to deepen their engagement with the dynamics of contemporary work life.


Donald Winnicott and the Politics of Care

Donald Winnicott and the Politics of Care

Author: Joanna Kellond

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2022-03-20

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 3030914372

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This book explores the significance of psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott’s ideas for contemporary debates about care. Locating Winnicott in relation to a range of fields, including psychology, philosophy, sociology, critical theory and feminist theory, it examines the implications of his thinking for understanding and transforming the relationship between care and society. Winnicott was unique amongst psychoanalysts for the emphasis he placed on care in the development of subjectivity. The book unpacks Winnicott’s understanding of care and assesses its relevance for conceptions of social responsibility, justice and transformation. In a world where care is in crisis, how might we theorise the conditions necessary for the development of caring subjectivities, and is it possible to infer a relationship between those conditions and progressive social change? This unique book will be of interest to readers in psychosocial studies, politics and anyone concerned with thinking about the relationship between care and social transformation.


Ruthless Winnicott

Ruthless Winnicott

Author: Sally Swartz

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-10-09

Total Pages: 314

ISBN-13: 0429791542

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Ruthless Winnicott is an extended exploration of the role of ruthlessness in psychic development. That survival is of no use unless it is preceded by a ruthless attack is one of D. W. Winnicott’s most resonant paradoxes. The book links this with the search for subjective freedom for those traumatized by colonialism, and in doing so draws on the work of Algerian psychiatrist and revolutionary psychoanalytic thinker Frantz Fanon. Sally Swartz examines essential pieces of Winnicott’s work on ruthlessness as central to the emergence of concern for the Other. She illustrates, with clinical examples, ways in which the ruthless use of the psychoanalytic psychotherapeutic space allows the patient either to enter fully into a process that allows growth, or to defend ruthlessly against the anxieties provoked by psychic change. Ruthless Winnicott also maps decolonial challenges to psychoanalytic theory, and the role of ruthlessness in protest movements demanding radical subjective change. Swartz’s exploration of ruthlessness as both zest and defense in individual development and in protest movements illuminates processes of psychological collision and change. It traces links between individual trauma and collective turbulence, and maps ways in which ruthlessness is essential to subjective change. Ruthless Winnicott will be of great interest to psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists, as well as scholars of colonialism, decolonization and post-colonialism.


Fear of Breakdown

Fear of Breakdown

Author: Noëlle McAfee

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2019-06-04

Total Pages: 234

ISBN-13: 0231549911

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What is behind the upsurge of virulent nationalism and intransigent politics across the globe today? In Fear of Breakdown, Noëlle McAfee uses psychoanalytic theory to explore the subterranean anxieties behind current crises and the ways in which democratic practices can help work through seemingly intractable political conflicts. Working at the intersection of psyche and society, McAfee draws on psychoanalyst D. W. Winnicott’s concept of the fear of breakdown to show how hypernationalism stems from unconscious anxieties over the origins of personal and social identities, giving rise to temptations to reify exclusionary phantasies of national origins. Fear of Breakdown contends that politics needs something that only psychoanalysis has been able to offer: an understanding of how to work through anxieties, ambiguity, fragility, and loss in order to create a more democratic politics. Coupling robust psychoanalytic theory with concrete democratic practice, Fear of Breakdown shows how a politics of working through can help counter a politics of splitting, paranoia, and demonization. McAfee argues for a new approach to deliberative democratic theory, not the usual philosopher-sanctioned process of reason-giving but an affective process of making difficult choices, encountering others, and mourning what cannot be had.


Boundary and Space

Boundary and Space

Author: Madeleine Davis

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-04-17

Total Pages: 175

ISBN-13: 042991153X

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D.W. Winnicott - one of this centuries most important theorists - is the focus of the new edition of this extraordinary volume. Drawing extensively upon Winnicott's own papers and lectures, the main themes of his theory and personal development are revealed. His vast contributions to the understandings of the profound significance of infancy in the total life of human beings is brought to the foreground. And throughout, D.W. Winnicott - noted pediatrician and child analyst, revered teacher and theorist - shines through. Part I, The Background, discusses Winnicott's personal beliefs, and the evolution of his theory of emotional development. In Part II, The Theory of Emotional Development, his main themes are introduced: Basic Assumptions, Early Psychic Functioning, Adapting to Shared Reality, and The Environmental Provision. Part III, Boundary and Space, considers some of the implications of Winnicott's theory of the development for the individual, and for society. Boundary and Space provides for the first systemic presentation of D. W. Winnicott's developmental and clinical methodology.


In Search of the Real

In Search of the Real

Author: Dodi Goldman

Publisher: Jason Aronson

Published: 1993

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 9780876680063

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The originality of Winnicott's thought and his originality as a person as inseparable. This book explores the way in which a search for an experiencing that feels real is evident in both Winnicott's life and work. He believes deeply that individuals possess a unique, innate authenticity. One feels most alive and free when in touch with this core sense of real self.


Winnicott and Labors Eclipse of Life

Winnicott and Labors Eclipse of Life

Author: Nathan Gerard

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2023-09

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781032505398

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Nathan Gerard draws upon the pathbreaking insights of pediatrician and psychoanalyst D. W. Winnicott to offer a new set of ideas in the novel domain of contemporary work life and its discontents. Locating Winnicott within a broad landscape of critical scholarship that dissects work's perils, the book positions Winnicott as both a radical critic and creative advocate for building a different kind of work life--one that might make room for the presence of self. By shuffling the discourse on neoliberal subjectivity to reclaim what Winnicott calls "unit status" of the separate self, Gerard differentiates Winnicott from the relational tradition by advocating for Winnicott's non-relational aspects. Through such analysis, the book reveals how work and home have become two sides of the same impoverished coin, each contributing to a legitimately "bad environment" that perpetuates self-absence and annihilates one's unique sense of "feeling real" and alive. Winnicott and Labor's Eclipse of Life will be of interest to readers of Winnicott and psychoanalysis, organization and management studies, and anyone hoping to deepen their engagement with the dynamics of contemporary work life.


Donald Winnicott Today

Donald Winnicott Today

Author: Jan Abram

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2012-09-10

Total Pages: 514

ISBN-13: 1136254854

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What in Winnicott’s theoretical matrix was truly revolutionary for psychoanalysis? In this book, the editor and contributors provide a rare in-depth analysis of his original work, and highlight the specifics of his contribution to the concept of early psychic development which revolutionised the theory and practice of psychoanalysis. Including re-publications of selected Winnicott papers to set the scene for the themes and explorations in subsequent chapters, the book examines how Winnicott expanded Freud’s work, and how his discourse with Melanie Klein sharpened his thought and clinical innovations. Divided into 3 sections, it covers: Introductory overviews on the evolution of Winnicott’s theoretical matrix Personal perspectives from eminent psychoanalysts on how Winnicott’s originality inspired their own work Further recent examinations and extensions including new findings from the archives Drawing on her own extensive knowledge of Winnicott and the expertise of the distinguished contributors, Jan Abram shows us how Winnicott’s contribution constitutes a major psychoanalytic advance to the concept of subjectivity. As such, it will be an inspiration to experienced psychoanalysts, psychotherapists and all those interested in human nature and emotional development.