Winnicott's Children

<p><em>Winnicott’s Children</em> focuses on the use we make of the thinking and writing of DW Winnicott; how this has enhanced our understanding of children and the settings where we work and how it has influenced the way in which we do that work. It is a volume by clinicians concerned about how as well as why we engage with particular children in particular ways.</p><p>The book begins with a scholarly and accessible exposition of the place of Winnicott in his time in relation to his contemporaries – Melanie Klein Anna Freud John Bowlby – and the development of his thinking. The dual focus on the earliest experience of the infant and its consequences plus the ‘how’ of engaging with children – as good-enough mothers or good enough therapists – is picked up in the chapters that follow. The role of play is central to a chapter on supervision; struggling through the doldrums can be part of the adolescent’s experience and that of those who engage with him; the role of psychotherapy in a Winnicottian therapeutic community and an inner city secondary school is explored; and a chapter on radio work links us personally with Winnicott and his desire to talk plainly and helpfully to parents.</p><p>There is a richness in the collection of subjects in this book and in the experience of the writers. It will appeal to those who work with children – in child and family mental health settings schools hospitals colleges and social care settings.</p>