winnicott’s theory of the maturational processes

WINNICOTTS THEORY OF THEMATURATIONAL PROCESSESWINNICOTTS THEORY OF THEMATURATIONAL PROCESSESElsa Oliveira DiasFirst published in 2016 byKarnac Books Ltd118 Finchley RoadLondon NW3 5HTCopyright 2016 by Elsa Oliveira DiasThe right of Elsa Oliveira Dias to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordancewith 77 and 78 of the Copyright Design and Patents Act 1988.All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,without the prior written permission of the publisher.British Library Cataloguing in Publication DataA C.I.P. for this book is available from the British LibraryISBN-13: 978-1-78220-364-3Typeset by V Publishing Solutions Pvt Ltd., Chennai, IndiaPrinted in Great BIn memory of my motherTo my dearest children Sandra, Claudia, and Paulo Manoel, who made me a mothereach in their own way“ We do need to try to get at a theory of normal growth so as to be able to understand illnessand the various immaturities, since we are now no longer contented unless we can cure andprevent. We do not accept childhood schizophrenia any more than we accept poliomyelitis orthe condition of the spastic child. We try to prevent, and we hope to be able to lead the way tocure wherever there is abnormality, which means suffering for someone”.Winnicott, 1965b, p. 67“Leave man undisturbed from the cradle on! Do not drive him out of the tightly closed bud ofhis being, out of the small hut of his childhood! Do not do too little, and thereby he shall notdispense with you and thus distinguish you from himself; do not do too much, and therebyhe shall not feel your or his power and thus distinguish you from himself; in short, do not letman know until late that there are men, that there is anything else outside of him, for onlythus shall he become a man. But man is a god as soon as he is a man. And when he is a god,he is beautiful”.Hlderlin, Hyperion, p. 106CONTENTSACKNOWLEDGEMENTSABOUT THE AUTHORPREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITIONPREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITIONPREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITIONINTRODUCTIONCHAPTER ONEWinnicott and the debate with related areasCHAPTER TWOBasic concepts of the theory of maturational processesCHAPTER THREEThe primi