The Spontaneous Gesture

Selected Letters of D.W. Winnicott

F. Robert Rodman, Donald W. Winnicott

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9780367328887
• eBook ISBN:
  9780429922312
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Mental Health in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

The collected letters of Donald Winnicott, a central figure in British psychoanalysis in the first post-Freud generation. They provide a vivid picture of Winnicott's ideas and personality. Winnicott's writings have become more and more influential over the years. His letters, published here, command immediate attention. Together with an insightful introduction by F. Robert Rodman, who sketches Winnicott's life and traces the development of his ideas, they provide a vivid picture of the thought and personality of a man who has taught us much about our deepest selves.

1 To Violet Winnicott

62 Oxford Terrace
Paddington W2
November 15, 1919

My dear Violet,¹

Psychotherapy progresses. Do not trouble to read further as (at your invitation) I am going to explain a little about it.

First a few definitions. Therapy means treatment. Psychotherapy means the treatment of disorders of the mind apart from those depending on disease of the brain. The Brain is the mass of grey and white matter which lies hidden in the skull, whereas the mind is that part of a person which stores memories, thinks and wills (if it does will at all). The brain is unlike the mind as a nerve is unlike the impulse that travels down it.

Suggestion is the active principle of almost all medicine; it is that by which a doctor ensures that a medicine will act. It is the influence of a man's personality and way of putting things over the progress of the patient. Everyone knows how effective and necessary suggestion is in affecting a cure. Hypnotism is a method of giving a concentrated dose of suggestion.

Now then we come to Psychoanalysis. This long word denotes a method developed by Freud by which mind disorders can be cured without the aid of Hypnosis, and with a lasting result as opposed to the temporary cure sometimes produced under Hypnosis. Psychoanalysis is superior to hypnosis and must supersede it, but it is only very slow in being taken up by English physicians because it requires hard work and prolonged study (also great sympathy) none of which are needed for Hypnosis. Only yesterday I saw a man suffering from shell shock put under Hypnosis by the man who looks after mental diseases at Bart's. This man could never do Psychoanalysis because it needs patience and sympathy and other properties which he does not possess.

The discharged soldier was helped a little, perhaps, by the Hypnosis, but he will not be cured because Hypnosis only treats one or two of the symptoms: whereas Psychoanalysis cuts right at the root of the matter.

May I explain to you a little about this method which Freud has so cleverly devised for the cure of mind disorders? I am putting this all extremely simply. If there is anything which is not completely simple for anyone to understand I want you to tell me because I am now practising so that one day I shall be able to help introduce the subject to English people so that who runs may read.

The subject is such an enormous one that I must ask you to assume some astoundingly controversial axioms. For instance we will take it for granted that there is a division of the Mind into the conscious and a subconscious, and that in the latter are stored all impressions received since birth (and possibly before). We can have a diagram

in which a man's mind is represented as a pyramid in subconsciousness with just the tip above the border line. For memory we devise all manner of weird methods for diving into the subconscious. Between one thought and the next there is always some connection or other whether it be a logical connection of ideas, a pun on two words or some other link which turns consciousness into an uninterrupted sequence of events.

I must turn right away now to the instincts. No matter how many there are, but anyhow these are natural directions in which the something which we call the life force must travel outwards.

Again I must go across and state baldly that an idea or an abnormal tendency, so long as it is in the conscious mind or completely understood by the conscious mind, can definitely be controlled by the will in a human being who is not out of mind. But it is equally true that an instinct repressed along abnormal paths is liable to be shoved down deep into the subconscious and there act as a foreign body: this "foreign body" may remain in the subconscious for a whole lifetime and completely control the life of the individual who has no control over this curious tendency since it is not known to him even to exist.

In short Psychoanalysis is a method by which, simply by making one back step after another the patient is led to trace back his dreams and obsessions to their origin which has often been harboured since infancy or childhood. The patient is amazed to find his curious behavior explained and the cause brought up into consciousness. He is then able to bring his own will into the battle and his will is given a fair chance.

Hypnosis you see depends on a patient borrowing will from the physician. Psychoanalysis only gives a man a fair chance to bring his own will against the situation in question. And as a persons will is always sufficient against a realised tendency (as a rough rule) there is great hope for the future.

I shall probably be accused of blasphemy if I say that Christ was a leading psychotherapist, (I don't know why, but Violet is fond of saying that what I say is blasphemy, when there is no connexion whatever between what I have said and the term.) It is no less true that extreme acts and religious rituals and obsessions are an exact counterpart of these mind disorders, and by psychotherapy, many fanatics or extremists in religion can be brought (if treated early) to a real understanding of religion with its use in setting a high ethical standard. Thus they are brought from being a nuisance to the community and a centre of religious contagion to normal, useful and social members, in a position from which to develop along their own individual lines.

So now you know a little about a very vast subject which has the great charm of being really useful. It remains for me to put what I am learning to the test. Even if I do not take up any subject which allows of psychotherapy in my work, the knowledge will always be useful as a hobby.

I have an O.L.² called Alcock staying here for the weekend. He is up in order to see his fiancee. He is a friend of the Edes³ and was a prisoner for a long while in Germany and Holland.

Don't forget the Beethoven to Ona, the tie pin or rather collar pin for myself and the glasses from Lascelles.

I hope this letter has not bored you. I have enjoyed trying to say a few facts about my hobby since it is always good to crystallise one's thoughts a little.

With much love
Your affec.
Donald

1. Winnicott wrote this long letter to his sister when he was a medical student. The first few pages have been omitted here.

2. Old Lcysian (former pupil of the Leys School).

3. H. S. Ede was Winnicott's best friend at school, and out of this a friendship between the families developed.

2 To Mrs. Neville Chamberlain

November 10th 1938

Dear Mrs. Chamberlain,

I feel the Prime Minister is too busy to answer questions, but I do want to know two things. Would you try to answer this as many of us are urgently in need of answers that we cannot get.

In fact, does the Prime Minister really believe that less good management by someone representing the majority vote of citizens is preferable to better management by someone who keeps power by suppression of free thought?

The second is, why does the Prime Minister never mention the Jews. Does he secretly despise them? When in England we say WE, we include Jews who are people like ourselves. I am not asking him to be pro-Jew, but I want to know definitely whether he is or is not secretly anti-Jew ... at present we seem to be secretly sharing German's anti-Jew insanity, and this is not where we want our leaders to lead us.

Yours sincerely,

3 To Kate Friedlander

8th January 1940

Dear Dr. Friedlander:

I was very tired last Thursday evening and partly because of this and partly because your paper suggested several different themes I did not say some things I should have liked to have said on the main point brought forward.

Your observation on the way ordinary people reacted to the war by expressing opinions without being willing to discuss them is certainly valid. I am not quite sure whether you attempted to explain the mechanism of this, but one of your questions was quite simply asking whether others have noted what you have noted. I have.

You would, I suppose, agree there is nothing new in the fact that people hold opinions which they must put forward and which they cannot discuss. You mean that the war became one of these themes that are used compulsively, and that, at the time of greatest stress, people who usually can discuss opinions became temporarily unable or unwilling to do so.

I think it is very interesting to try to find out more about the reason for this change.

The uncertainty must itself contribute largely to the individual's need to employ magic, as Dr. Payne said (following Dr. Kris's introduction to the idea of magic). This leads to the question, why is uncertainty alarming? This in turn leads to the idea of control. The greater the uncertainty the greater the need for control, and one method of control is by ideas and statement of words; even evil, when it is predicted is better than the prospect of uncontrolled possibilities.

One would find some individuals who must control in this way, and others who are much less under such a compulsion. A way of classifying these would be to speak of those who need to control (magically) the political situation as those who use the political situation to represent a chunk of their own inner world (or unconscious fantasy) for which they cannot bear full responsibility. This is half way between depression and elation, between carrying the sins of the whole world, and denying responsibility for anything.

In the course of the discussion I said that these people could not brook discussion because they had, in fear of uncertainty and ignorance, made the last possible consultation, they had consulted God. Beyond that is threat of depression or madness, that is, mechanical control or chaos. I put it in this way to introduce the idea that the normal person has "people" inside him, in the fantasy that he localises (unconsciously) inside himself, and that when anxiety is not great these people are human and open to argument; when anxiety is great, however, their magical qualities increase, and they become Gods.

This method of stating things involves this concept of the inner world, the fantasy which is located, in the individual's unconscious fantasy, and which is related to intake, retention and excretion experiences. This in my opinion is the part of the psycho-analytic theory which I do not find represented in the Viennese Group's way of looking at things, and I believe this special bit of theory will come up again and again for discussion until we each understand exactly where the other stands.

I cannot say how much I value the discussions in the smaller groups such as Anna Freud's and also my group, where so many points are raised. My regret is that last Thursday I was confused by the number of points you raised, and unable at the time to let you know I appreciated your main point.

Yours very sincerely,

4 To the Editor, British Medical Journal

22nd December, 1945

Sir,

It is now two years ago that you published two letters from me and many letters from others, on the subject of the new physical methods of treatment of mental disorder, especially electrically induced fits. In these two years a very large number of people have been treated by induced fits; to some harm has been done and some have been "cured." The fact remains, in my opinion, that these forms of therapy have disadvantages, the most serious of which is that false theories of mental disorder are built up round wrong interpretations of the mechanism of these "cures." The medical profession should be reminded from time to time that these treatments are pure "shot-in-the-dark" affairs, and no theory of their action, even when they seem to work, is accepted even by the psychiatrists.

The great example of this bad result of building on other than scientific foundations is provided by the treatment of mind disorder by operation on the brain. In good faith members of our profession are cutting brains about, dividing the associating fibres between the frontal lobes, devising other ways of using their brilliant team work and surgical technique. Yet enough is already known of mental disorder for it to be said that no mentally ill person can ever be made well by operation on a normal brain. In fact, it must be an important part of every leucotomy treatment to see that if the patient gets well enough to go out and do his shopping and go to the cinema he does not also regain the right to vote, or take an active part in the arrangement of our affairs. He is permanently maimed.

I realize that the correct procedure is for us to speed up research into the psychology of insanity and so to provide a scientific basis for mental hospital work, but in the meantime are we to see our countryside littered with "cured" mental hospital patients with permanently deformed brains? And what happens if these physical therapy methods spread to the treatment of criminals? What guarantee have we that a Bunyan in prison will be allowed to keep his brain intact and his imagination free, or, to take a more ordinary case, that a political prisoner should be allowed to maintain his political convictions and his brain.

A new habeas corpus is needed now, a "habeas cerebrum," and very quickly. At any rate I should be grateful if your journal could once again make it possible for it to be said that there is one doctor who thinks the new physical therapy of mental disorder is sociologically dangerous, and that surgical interference with the brain in mental disorders is absolutely never justified.

I am, etc.
D. W. Winnicott.

5 To Lord Beveridge

15th October, 1946.

Dear Lord Beveridge,

Can you help me out of a difficulty. I am very impressed with the views you hold on our treatment of Germany and for this reason wish to support you strongly. However, as a thinking kind of practising doctor (paediatrician-psychiatrist) I feel that the nationalisation of doctors is destructive of the best in our profession, and one of the chief things that has brought about this is the clause in your famous Report. So from my point of view you are the main cause of a bad thing.

I think your suggestion that the medical profession should be nationalised was made in good faith, and that you were truly ignorant of the harm your suggestion must do. It was true ignorance that allowed you to make medical practice subservient to politics instead of to science, but ignorance cannot absolve you of my hatred.¹

How can I reconcile my admiration of your new work on behalf of our democratic value, and my hatred of you because of your irresponsible suggestions in respect of doctors?

If you can find time to answer this letter please do not assume that I talk lightly and without true knowledge of medical practice. As a psycho-analyst I have been able to deepen and widen my own considerable experience by intimate knowledge of the feelings of others.

The public cannot of course be expected to understand these things, and very few understand what they stand to lose by the turning of doctors into civil servants; but in your position you cannot be absolved, and I must at any rate be honest with myself and express to you yourself the hate that rises naturally in me, alongside my other feelings for you and your work.

Yours truly,
D. W. Winnicott, F.R.C.P.

1. Winnicott's paper "Hate in the Countertransference" was read to the British Psycho-Analytical Society on 5 February 1947. The subject of hate must have been on his mind when this letter was written.

6 To the Editor, the Times

6th November, 1946

Sir,

The National Health Service Bill has been reported in its various stages but for some reason it has scarcely been discussed in your columns; nevertheless it is bound to be far-reaching in its effects. Perhaps, now that it is practically law a letter might be allowed suggesting that a total state medical service can have severe ill-effects.

For instance, one result is that medical practice is now to be subservient not to science but to politics. Whatever gains come from the new scheme these must essentially be out-weighed by the loss of what has been won by the great scientist doctors of our history, and maintained by generations of practitioners in face of continuous public demand for faith-healing and magic.

Already a Minister of Health (without scientific train...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Letters 1-126
• Winnicott's Correspondents
• Index