Donald Winnicott expanded on the early object relational theories of Klein, Bion and others, and became an important and influential theorist in developing a more relational, social model of psychic development. Winnicott moved away from instinct theory, emphasising the primacy of early environmental (maternal) experience for psychological development. Winnicott was a paediatrician prior to training as a psychoanalyst, and this specialist medical background greatly influenced his understanding that the quality of the mother-infant relationships holds the key for healthy development. He is most known for his notion of the good enough mother and the holding environment, that are related to the development of a true, authentic or false self.
Winnicott (1960) stated that “there is no such thing as an infant” (p. 586), emphasising that we cannot think of an infant as separate from the mother. He viewed the mother and infant as being in a merged stale of oneness, where the infant only exists within an environment of maternal care. The mother is attuned to the infant’s needs, thereby providing the necessary environment for the infant to thrive. This is what Winnicott (1965) referred to as the holding environment - the physical and emotional environment in which the infant is held. The mother is able to do this by falling into a state of ‘primary maternal preoccupation’, in which her subjective stale is partly merged with the mental state of the infant. Winnicott helpfully recognised that a mother cannot be perfect, because she is inevitably her own, flawed person with her own needs. Mothers inevitably grow tired, frustrated and need to be (pre)occupied with other matters: she can never be perfectly available to the infant. Winnicott stressed that what was important was for the mother to provide ‘good enough’ mothering. Frustrations also facilitate healthy development for the infant, who learns that there are limits to their needs and what the environment can provide. As die infant experiences such limits and frustrations, so they become aware of mother as a separate person with her own subjectivity. The level of frustration introduced to the infant should be at an optimal level and not overwhelm the infant with despair. At the other end of the continuum of parenting Ls the mother who Ls not good enough; who is unable to, or does not care to, respond adequately to the infant’s needs. This may include a mother who impinges on die infant’s subjective experience by being an intrusive, frightening, or even threaten- ing and hostile object, or a mother whose needs overshadow the needs of the infant.
Although Winnicott’s notion of the good enough mother provides some degree of sympathy for the challenges facing mothers, his writing places great emphasis on the importance of maternal qualities to understand healthy development, and conversely, to explain the development of psychopathology. However, Winnicott recognised that the mother is not alone with this responsibility. He wrote about the importance of the father - and more broadly the social environment - in providing a supportive environment for the mother. Society has its responsibilities too. Contemporary theorists point out that Winnicott’s emphasis on maternal care and the ‘good enough mother’ should not preclude the father from playing a significant role; indeed, fathers can also provide the sort of ‘maternal’ function and good enough parenting that Winnicott describes.
In this state of merged oneness with the mother, the infant is totally dependent. For a separate subjectivity to develop, the infant must move from this state of infantile dependence on the object to a state of mature dependence, where they have a relationship to the object, yet can survive in its absence. Winnicott (1953) emphasised the importance of what he called ‘transitional objects’ to help the infant move from infantile dependence to mature dependence. A transitional object allows for the fantasised presence of the mother in her absence by standing in for her, thereby allowing the infant to gradually tolerate the disillusionment of mother’s periodic absences. For example, a young child may have a favourite teddy bear or blanket that they cannot do without and feel comforted by when mother is not around. Transitional objects are not just a phenomenon of infant life, they can also be a feature of adulthood. For example, a person feels the presence of a deceased loved one by wearing that person’s favourite jumper or perfume. Transitional objects allow for the painful, gradual separation with the object and represent the start of symbolic thinking and creative processes.