The Collected Works of D. W. Winnicott

Donald Woods Winnicott (1896-1971) was one of Britain's leading psychoanalysts and pediatricians. The author of some of the most enduring theories of the child and of child analysis, he coined terms such as the "good enough mother" and the "transitional object" (known to most as the security blanket). Winnicott's work is still used today by child and family therapists, social workers, teachers, and psychologists, and his papers and clinical observations are routinely studied by trainees in psychiatry and clinical psychology. Beyond the expected audiences of psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists, Winnicott also wrote for parents, teachers, social workers, childcare specialists, pediatricians, psychologists, art and play therapists, and others in the field of child development.

Now, for the first time, virtually all of Winnicott's writings are presented chronologically in 12 volumes, edited and annotated by leading Winnicott scholars. The Collected Works of D. W. Winnicott brings together letters, clinical case reports, child consultations, psychoanalytic articles, and papers, including previously unpublished works on topics of continuing interest to contemporary readers (such as delinquency, antisocial behavior, corporal punishment, and child care). The Collected Works begins with an authoritative General Introduction by editors Lesley Caldwell and Helen Taylor Robinson, while each of the volumes features an original introduction examining that volume's major themes and written by an international Winnicott scholar and psychoanalyst. Throughout The Collected Works, editorial annotations provide historical context and background information of scholarly and clinical value. The final volume contains new and illuminating appendices, comprehensive bibliographies of Winnicott's publications and letters, documentation of his lectures and broadcasts, and a selection of his drawings.

This extraordinary publication will be an essential resource for Winnicott admirers the world over and those interested in the history and origins of the fields of child development and psychoanalysis.

Donald Woods Winnicott (1896-1971) was one of Britain's foremost pediatricians and psychoanalysts. He studied at the Leys School and at Jesus College, both in Cambridge, before training as a physician at St. Bartholomew's Hospital in London. He worked at Queen's Hospital and Paddington Green Children's Hospital and in private practice with adults and children from the 1930s until his death. During the Second World War, he made BBC broadcasts to parents and worked with his second wife, Clare, in the Oxfordshire Evacuation Scheme. After the war, they contributed to the government planning of Children's Services.

Winnicott was a child and adult analyst and a training analyst for the British Psychoanalytical Society and its President from 1956 to 1959 and from 1965 to 1968. He was President of the Paediatric Section of the Royal Society of Medicine (1952) and of the Association for Child Psychology and Psychiatry. Winnicott was a clinician committed to the dissemination of psychoanalytic ideas to wider global audiences, and he addressed a large variety of groups of professionals in his many talks, lectures, and publications.

Lesley Caldwell is a member of the British Psychoanalytic Association in private practice in London. She is an Honorary Professor in the Psychoanalysis Unit and Honorary Senior Research Associate in the Italian Department at University College, London. As Chair of the Squiggle Foundation (2000-2003) and editor of the Winnicott Studies Monograph Series (2000-2008), she published four edited collections on D. W. Winnicott. She has been an editor for the Winnicott Trust since 2002 and was the Chair of Trustees from 2008-2012. With Angela Joyce, she published Reading Winnicott (2011). She has a continuing interest in psychoanalysis and the arts and has also written on film and the city of Rome.

Helen Taylor Robinson is a Fellow of the Institute of Psychoanalysis, London, and was a clinical psychoanalyst with adults and children until her retirement. She was an Editor and Trustee of the Winnicott Trust for 17 years and co-edited Thinking about Children with Jennifer Johns and Ray Shepherd. Her special interest is in the relationship of psychoanalysis to the arts, literature, and cinema. She has been Honorary Senior Lecturer at the Psychoanalysis Unit of University College, London. She has contributed to books and journals in the field of psychoanalysis and to the European Psychoanalysis and Film Festival.