Donald Winnicott The Man

Reflections and Recollections

Joyce McDougall

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780367324179
• eBook ISBN: 9780429912917
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Mental Health in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

This book presents the Donald Winnicott Memorial Lecture, an annual event designed for a wide audience of professionals and other involved with children. These lectures focus upon a specific topic, arising from Winnicott's life and ideas, in terms of relevance for twenty-first century living.

Lecture

Donald Winnicott The Man: Reflections and Recollections

Joyce McDougall

I must say how very happy and. honoured I feel to have been invited here and to meet with you all tonight. When my London colleagues invited me to present a paper at this commemorative event in honour of Donald Winnicott, I proposed to talk about my memories of him from fifty years; ago: how I came to meet him and the role he played, not only in my psychoanalytic training but, which was so important to me too, in my own analytical research for many, many years to come; I hope to communicate to you tonight the experience of Winnicotts inspirational thought in my own workings and in my own attempt to go further. Meeting him was a quite memorable occasion; tonight I shall try to describe the path to Winnicott, the post-war journey that led me eventually to meet this remarkable man.

To begin at the beginning, my psychoanalytic training began as that of an autodidact student in New Zealand; there was no such thing then as psychoanalytic training in New Zealand, my native country. When I was seventeen years old and a psychology student, I came across a pocketbook of Freud’s called The Psychopathology of Everyday Life. I just devoured this little Penguin book and made a very firm decision: I would not study medicine like the family wished, and like many other members did. When I announced that I was not going to become a medical student but was going to study psychology and psychoanalysis, they all looked at me and said they hoped I was all right! From that time on my dream was to manage by some means or another to get to London in order to undertake a personal psychoanalysis. I also harboured vague daydreams that hopefully, perhaps one day, I might even train to be a child analyst even though such an ambition then seemed like cloud-cuckoo land.

That year, 1938,1 began my university studies in the Arts & Science Faculty in the University of Otago, Dunedin, and that is the Edinburgh of the South, where eventually I met my husband-to-be, Jimmy McDougall. We met in the drama club of the University. We were both chosen to play in a theatre piece for public performance of Emlyn Williams’ Night Must Fall. I was already interested in the world of theatre; not at all as an actress, for my dream was to produce plays. This I was eventually able to do in the University’s drama club, and particularly in the Teachers’ Training College where I was accepted as a student. My husband and I were both firmly decided that one day we must leave New Zealand and get to London, but for professionally different reasons. My dream, of course, was to undertake a personal psychoanalysis and perhaps, perhaps, one day, to train as an analyst; whereas Jimmy McDougall dreamed of going much further in his own field, which was then known as Workers Education and University Extension Courses. However, the outbreak of World War II put a stop to all of that. Instead, I gave birth to a little boy (called Martin) and two and a half years later a little girl (Rowan) arrived. Rowan was born just after Hiroshima, on the day of the end of the war, and I still remember my father sending me a telegram from the South Island saying “Why don’t you call her Victoria Japonica?” to commemorate the event.

We had to wait two and a half more years to undertake this long-awaited voyage to England. I travelled ahead with my children under my arm. In those days the voyage took six weeks by sea, there was no such thing as flying over; my husband waited in New Zealand until he got, like all students and young professors, a chance of working his way, free of charge, on a boat: he was appointed ‘second vegetable cook’. I arrived in London and found a temporary rented lodging for our little family in a basement. It was a little bit like coming over on the boat because there we were down on B-deck all the time and mosdy saw water and fishes. Here too in London we were underneath and just saw people’s feet going by. I wondered if I was off the boat or still on it! The children were happy to be here, and so was I. And then, what did I do? I started to write letters to everyone whose books or articles I had read, asking if there would be any chance of having the privilege of meeting them; it’s the sort of thing, you know, that you only dare to do in your twenties. I received many courteous letters back. Among them was one from Jungian analyst, Dr Robert Moody; another was from Miss Anna Freud; and another was from Dr Donald Woods Winnicott. All these three invited me to come and see them.

My initial meeting with Miss Freud took place in the early’50s; I chose her first because I had so long had this idea of training at the Hampstead Gardens Training Centre and it remained firmly in my mind. Her first question was: “But how did you come to hear about my father?” I was a little astonished but replied that I had read several of his books. I didn’t mention it was in the pocket Penguin edition of The Psychopathology of Everyday Lift as it did not seem fitting, but said: “Oh Miss Freud, I studied psychology as a university student and there were many lectures devoted to Sigmund Freud; to your father, his life and his work.” Miss Freud said: “But nobody at the University here in London talks about my father!” My astonishment continued; how could I imagine that a little Kiwi student would be better informed than her British counterpart? That, however, proved a good thing for I then talked to Miss Freud about my interest in psychoanalysis and my hoping to be accepted, one day perhaps, as a student in training. She said, in a slighdy accusatory voice: “Ah, but do you have any experience of children?” I said that I had this little boy and this little girl and had completed my training at the Teachers Training College in Dunedin, in New Zealand, where we practised teaching children of every age. I was really, as we say, selling my fish’: talking to get myself accepted. Finally Miss Freud explained the steps I had to take in order to register as a student at the Hampstead and gave me a list of training analysts from which to chose my future analyst. She ended: “I can assure you that I think you will be accepted for training when the New Year begins.”

So I now had the list from which to chose my analyst and, in accordance with my temperament, I chose someone from what was then called the Middle Group, because I understood that both Kleinian and Anna Freudian schools were represented and appreciated there. Classes began shortly afterwards. Most of our seminars were held in the library of the Freud residence in Hampstead. We had four evening seminars a week (perhaps it is still the same); what was primarily understood was that you were not supposed to do anything else but work in that sacrificial time. It was most exciting to me. During my two years of study at Hampstead I once caught a glimpse of Martha, Freuds widow. One evening we were having a meeting and sitting around Anna Freud in the library; it was a sort of seminar. Martha opened the door, probably trying to get a book, and saw the eight of us gathered round. She said: “Huh! Analysts!” and banged the door shut. She had had them up to here! Anna continued unperturbed with her lecture just as though nothing had happened.

Having chosen a preparatory school for my son, and found a kindergarten for my little daughter, I set about applying for jobs. I got the post of clinical psychologist at the Maudsley in the Child Psychiatry Department. This was very, very gratifying to me and it allowed me to meet analysts from other schools of thought than that of our teachers at Hampstead. Sometimes, in certain cases, I was able to become a regular student at courses that were being given at the Maudsley. From...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• CONTENTS
• Contributors
• Foreword: On the Memorialisation of Donald Winnicott
• Introduction
• Donald Winnicott the Man: Reflections and Recollections
• Vote of thanks