Donald Winnicott was a psychologist and psychoanalyst who worked predominantly with children and families. His theories about child development were based on the contradictions he observed between the individual self and the environment. He believed that the gradual understanding of what is 'me' and 'not me' began at birth, and that the mother's role was to facilitate this move from dependence to independence. According to Winnicott, a healthy infant might naturally make use of a comforter or 'transitional object' at the beginning of this journey of understanding. This was the precursor to play, which itself allowed a child the space to make sense of the self and the world. Winnicott's work spanned a period from the 1940's to the late 1960's, but his emphasis on the importance of the first months of a baby's life makes him very relevant to practitioners working with babies and toddlers in today's early years settings. A Brief History Winnicott was born in 1896, in Plymouth, to a prosperous and caring family. He attended boarding school, and went on to train as a doctor. But his studies were interrupted during the First World War, when he worked first as a medic, and later joined the Navy. At the end of the war he returned to his medical training and became interested in psychoanalysis after reading a book by Sigmund Freud. During his career as a psychoanalyst and psychologist he would also refer to the work of Anna Freud and Melanie Klein. When the Second World War broke out he worked as a consultant psychiatrist to the evacuee programme. He also gave regular radio broadcasts, intended for mothers, explaining why many of the things they did naturally for their babies were so important. He wrote a number of books, including The Child and the Family (1957) and The Child and the Outside World (1957). He was married twice, and died in 1971. The 'Good Enough' Mother This was the term used by Winnicott to describe what he saw as the best kind of mothering. He wrote that 'the good enough mother' (not necessarily the infant's own mother) is the one who makes active adaptation to the infant's needs; an active adaptation that gradually lessons according to the infants growing ability to account for failure of adaptation and to tolerate the results of frustration' (Playing and Reality, p.10). The perfect mother would not actively adapt. She would be too attentive to her baby's needs and not allow her baby to experience feelings of frustration. As a result her baby would struggle to develop a sense of themselves in the world. Winnicott's theory of the 'good enough' mother and her adaptation to her baby begins with breast feeding. At first the mother feeds her baby whenever he or she seems to need it. In doing so she provides the 'illusion' that her breast is part of the baby, under his or her control. As the baby grows, the mother adapts to her baby's ability to wait a little and does not feed just as soon as the baby demands it. She is now providing 'disillusionment'; the idea that she and the baby are separate from one another (Play and Reality, p.13). Winnicott associated the first major sense of disillusionment with the onset of weaning, and saw this as an important developmental step in a child's life. He believed that 'although frustration must be minimal, it is more or less indispensible, for in order to develop, the child needs to find opposition.' (Clancier and Kalmonovitch, p.16). 'Holding' and the 'Mirror Role' There are other aspects to being a 'good enough' mother. Winnicott used the term 'holding' to describe all the kinds of care a mother gives her baby. It represents psychological and physical care, the holding of a baby in a loving way and nappy changing. Winnicott explained how important it was for a mother to really know her baby, because the kind of 'holding' they needed was unique to them: 'It includes the whole routine of care throughout the day and night, and it is not the same with any two infants because it is a part of the infant and no two infants are alike' (Winnicott in Davis and Wallbridge, p.100). He believed that the mother's 'holding' of her child adapted over time, but did not stop. The concept of the 'Mirror Role' of the mother relates to the way a mother looks at her baby. The mother instinctively has her baby 'in mind as a whole person' (Davis and Wallbridge, p.123). She makes eye contact with the baby as she feeds and cares for him or her and the baby knows that they are seen. It is as though the mother has held a mirror up to the baby to show them that they are there. As Winnicott wrote 'when I look I am seen, so I exist' (in Davis and Wallbridge p.123). 'The World in Small Doses' Winnicott believed that the 'good enough' mother managed the environment for her infant, applauding 'the way you introduce the world in small doses so that the baby is not confused' (The Child and the Family, p.15). The mother creates a stable routine which provides the backdrop for something new to be accepted. As the child grows, its world grows too, and other people and places can be added. Winnicott felt the nursery practitioner had a role to play here, building on what is most familiar to the child with new experiences: 'her duty is to maintain, strengthen and enrich the child's personal relationship with the family, at the same time introducing a wider world of people and opportunities' (The Child and the Outside World, p.19). The 'Ordinary Devoted Mother' This was a phrase coined for some of Winnicott's radio broadcasts, addressed to The Ordinary Devoted Mother and her Baby. Winnicott saw a mother and her baby as a unit. You cannot have one without the other. He once famously said that there was no such thing as a baby. He explained that what he meant by this was 'that if you set out to describe a baby, you will find you are describing a baby and someone. A baby cannot exist alone, but is essentially part of a relationship' (Winnicott in Davis and Wallbridge, p.34). Winnicott advocated consistency in the caring relationship of adult and baby, and supported fathers, adoptive mothers and other carers of infants in their roles. But it was the 'ordinary devoted mother', the birth mother, to whom Winnicott believed the best kind of 'good enough' care came most naturally. Transitional Objects Winnicott became interested in the comforters that babies and toddlers often use. He observed that an infant initially found comfort in sucking their fingers or fists. Then they might begin to favour an object that is not part of themselves or the mother. Winnicott believed that this attachment to a special thing was the beginning of the baby understanding that they were separate from the mother: 'It is not the object itself, of course, that is transitional, it represents the infant's transition from a state of being merged with the mother to a state of being in relation to the mother as something outside and separate' (The Child and the Family, p.132). The role of bridging the gap between mother and baby makes the transitional object especially needed at times of anxiety, of being left without the mother, or when a baby is going to sleep. Winnicott stated the importance of the comforter becoming a part of family life. It is taken everywhere, gets dirty and smelly, and yet parents understand that the smell is part of the comfort, and do not break the spell by washing it. He explained that the transitional object had 'special features' which included the way a baby would treat it roughly as well as with affection; that the object could only be changed by the infant; and that, to the baby, the object has a life of its own (Playing and Reality). As the baby begins to use sounds to refer to things, the transitional object might be given a name. Winnicott suggested that this would most likely be a sound associated with a word that the parent had used for the object. Gradually, a child's world will widen and they begin to play with a greater variety of things. It is at this point that the transitional object's importance begins to fade. Winnicott wrote 'it becomes relegated to limbo...it is not forgotten and it is not mourned. It loses meaning...' (Playing and Reality, p.5). Play Winnicott saw play as the straddling of the real and imaginative worlds of the child. If life began as a journey to understanding the relationship between the real and the not real, then play provided a 'resting place' from the need to sort one from the other: 'It belonged to the potential space between the individual self and the environment' (Davis and Wallbridge, p.61). He believed that children naturally spent most of their time using both reality and imagination in their play, and therefore 'the child of two, three or four is in two worlds at once' (The Child and the Family, p.54). Winnicott understood the usefulness of play in therapy, and saw play as the most natural and healthy state for children. He also wrote that teachers and carers of young children should understand the value of play: 'the teacher needs an intuitive realisation of this if she is to help the child with the painful problems which inevitably exist, of which adults are so often unaware, and she needs training which will help her to develop and use this realisation of the significance of play to the preschool child' (The Child and the Outside World, p. 22). Winnicott believed that the need to connect the worlds of reality and imagination carried on into adulthood through art and religion. Relevance to the EYFS In 1957 Winnicott wrote that 'the nursery school is probably most correctly considered as an extension 'upward' of the family, rather than an extension 'downward' of the primary school' (The Child and the Outside World, p.14). This blossoming outwards of the early years continues to have relevance to today's practice, particularly in settings that provide care for babies and toddlers as well as preschool children. All of Winnicott's work underlines the great importance of the first months of life in a child's development and concentrates on a baby's first relationships, most notably with its mother. In the EYFS we can see the value of early bonding: 'Early relationships strongly influence how children develop and having close relationships with carers is very important' (card 1.1). In nursery settings this is facilitated by the Key Person arrangement. They provide the continuity of care, an understanding of each baby as an individual and the respect of familiar routines that Winnicott embodied in the term 'holding': 'A Key Person develops a genuine bond with children and offers a settled, close relationship' (card 2.4). Included in Personal, Social and Emotional Development we can find other links to Winnicott's theories of 'holding' and the 'mirror role'. Practitioners are reminded that 'babies seek to be looked at and approved of' and 'gain physical, psychological and emotional comfort from 'snuggling in' (EYFS guidance, p.27). Transitional objects, or comforters, are not widely mentioned in the EYFS guidance, although settings are advised to keep them accessible to young children at all times (PSED, p.35). But Winnicott's emphasis on them as something that bridges the gap between mother and baby serves as a reminder to settings of how important they are to babies and toddlers and how they might help with settling a baby into a new environment. Winnicott observed that babies and children journeyed from dependence to independence with the support of 'good enough' care. The EYFS contains a similar understanding that from a secure and dependable base children can grow: 'Babies and children become independent by being able to depend upon adults for reassurance and comfort' (card 2.4). Practitioners provide this stable base and offer opportunities to extend from it just as Winnicott's 'ordinary devoted mother' might offer 'the world in small doses': 'Children benefit from a range of experiences, including those that are predictable, comforting and challenging' (card 3.2). These opportunities are facilitated through play. Winnicott's understanding of play as a physical and emotional place where reality and imagination meet is echoed in the EYFS where children bring real life experiences to the make believe world of play: 'In their play children use the experiences they have and extend them to build up ideas, concepts and skills' (card 4.1). Although early years practitioners are not Winnicott's 'good enough' mothers, they can display many of the qualities he saw in the ordinary mother: those of really knowing a child and being able to adapt to their changing needs, supporting them as they experience all the frustrations and disappointments of life, and providing them with a secure and loving environment from which to grow.
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