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Playing and Reality
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What are the origins of creativity and how can we develop it - whether within ourselves or in others? Not only does Playing and Reality address these questions, it also tackles many more that surround the fundamental issue of the individual self and its relationship with the outside world. In this landmark book of twentieth-century psychology, Winnicott shows the reader ho
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Paperback, 214 pages
Published
August 1st 2005
by Routledge
(first published 1971)
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Sep 03, 2007
Geoffrey Rhodes
is currently reading it
Fantastic. You really only need to read the first third of this book to get it, but for me, the basic ideas he is putting forward here are really life changing. He is proposing a fundamental addition to the nature of our perception of reality (inside, outside, and playspace between), that I think is particularly fascintating for the artist, the compulsive, and the romantic.

"It is only in being creative that the individual discovers the self."
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"The writing is clear and unfussy, blessedly free of psychobabble", said no one ever about this book.
Winnicott is a big name in psychoanalysis-oriented child psychology, together with Melanie Klein and John Bowlby. What they all have in common is the taking for granted that the relationship between the mother and the infant is what accounts for everything that goes wrong with the child, psychologically speaking. As far as I can tell, their works are marked by a near total disregard for genetics ...more
Winnicott is a big name in psychoanalysis-oriented child psychology, together with Melanie Klein and John Bowlby. What they all have in common is the taking for granted that the relationship between the mother and the infant is what accounts for everything that goes wrong with the child, psychologically speaking. As far as I can tell, their works are marked by a near total disregard for genetics ...more

Psychotherapist Dr Judith Edwards has chosen to discuss Playing and Reality by Donald Winnicott on FiveBooks as one of the top five on her subject - Child Psychotherapy, saying that:
"...Winnicott was the people’s psychoanalyst, seeing mother and child as developing together within their relationship. Winnicott’s Playing and Reality, not published till after his death, is a fine and illuminating collection of his major thinking, important not only because of the work with children (just pick any ...more
"...Winnicott was the people’s psychoanalyst, seeing mother and child as developing together within their relationship. Winnicott’s Playing and Reality, not published till after his death, is a fine and illuminating collection of his major thinking, important not only because of the work with children (just pick any ...more

There were parts of this that resonated with me. There were parts that felt a bit false, or strange. But that's alright. Psychology isn't, and shouldn't be, clockwork. It's nebulous; it's imaginative. Winnicott understood that.
Because the ideas were presented in all their malleability, they weren't ever threatening to me. I remain free to form my own ideas, so I can fully appreciate his.
Some favorite quotes:
"The thing about playing is always the precariousness of the interplay of personal psychi ...more
Because the ideas were presented in all their malleability, they weren't ever threatening to me. I remain free to form my own ideas, so I can fully appreciate his.
Some favorite quotes:
"The thing about playing is always the precariousness of the interplay of personal psychi ...more

Mar 29, 2014
Marty Babits
rated it
it was amazing
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
psychotherapy
This is one of the most important books on the subject of psychotherapy I've read. Winnicott is a poet. He writes in images and often with a lot of jargon that is thick and hard-going. However, when he makes a discovery, and he makes quite a few, it's like he's journeyed to the center of the Earth and come back to reveal what the foundation beneath the foundation of reality is all about. As a therapist who has been practicing over twenty-five years, he is probably my greatest inspiration. His pe
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Jan 08, 2008
Lily
rated it
it was amazing
Recommends it for:
parents. Definitely.
Recommended to Lily by:
Prof at Hampshire
Shelves:
have-read-and-loved
One of the best books of ALL TIME. This mean is an endearing genius about humans. Wish i could hug him!

Skimmed and picked around more than read (...read more heavily in some parts than others, is the fairest to say).
But considered a milestone work in children's (...and really people in general) psychology by one of my favorite psychologists: Mr. D.W. Winnicott.
He - along with Carl Rogers, Aaron Beck, and Carl Jung - have had as much of an influence on my own psychological predilections, philosophy, and musings as anyone.
While this book is about many aspects of development (primarily on the import ...more
But considered a milestone work in children's (...and really people in general) psychology by one of my favorite psychologists: Mr. D.W. Winnicott.
He - along with Carl Rogers, Aaron Beck, and Carl Jung - have had as much of an influence on my own psychological predilections, philosophy, and musings as anyone.
While this book is about many aspects of development (primarily on the import ...more

GoodReads reviewers, I am disappointed in you. Are none of you going to question this book?
-Who even believes this?
-racial hatred in the USA is more based on mothering than skin colour? How does he know more black mothers bre ...more
"There is nothing new either inside or outside psychoanalysis in the idea that men and women have a 'predisposition towards bisexuality'." (p.72)
-Who even believes this?
"Incalculable is the envy of the white bottle-fed population of the black people who are mostly, I believe, breast-fed" (p.142)
-racial hatred in the USA is more based on mothering than skin colour? How does he know more black mothers bre ...more

A major theme in this book is how we experience the field that exists between outer (objective) reality and our inner (subjective) understanding. Winnicott terms this the "intermediate area of experiencing". Transitional phenomenon, an infant's choosing of an object or action that soothes, is the way an infant explores this area, and becomes increasingly comfortable losing his/her sense of omnipotence. During this stage, Winnicott also stresses the importance of "a good enough mother", that is a
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This book explains what mom's do wrong to cause their kids to end up disordered--I mean--gay and transgendered. It was written in the 70's. So... it was hard for me to take any of it very seriously and I am very confused why the average rating on this book is above 4 stars. And let's say that I entertained the idea that maybe being gay is a disorder caused by bad mothering--even then, this book... is simply not well-written. And for the few interesting theories it proposes, it's 90% subjectivist
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I didn’t get much out of this read, mostly because the book is more focused on therapy than I initially assumed it'd be when I decided to read it. Because it’s been referenced by several creative thinkers, I wanted to read the book, thinking it’d have a thorough philosophical discussion of Winnicott’s fascinating ideas around this liminal space that he argues humans need to occasionally inhabit to maintain their mental health – a space that is somewhere between being utterly self-centred and the
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I love this book, especially "The Use of an Object" and "The Location of Cultural Experience." So good.
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Jun 08, 2016
James
added it
"...cultural experiences are in direct continuity with play, the play of those who have not yet heard of games."
...more

Jan 25, 2018
Justin
added it
While you can probably get parenting advice out of this, it doesn't appear to be have written with this purpose making it rather difficult to do so
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Donald Woods Winnicott was one of the most influential personalities in the British psychoanalytical field, developing several theories that are still referred to even today. He died in 1971 after a 50-year long career as a paediatrician and psychoanalyst and after having treated more than 20.000 children.
Playing and Reality was his last book; it is a collection of essays, very readable, not too academic, that offer an overview of his theories regarding human development and behavior. The focus ...more
Playing and Reality was his last book; it is a collection of essays, very readable, not too academic, that offer an overview of his theories regarding human development and behavior. The focus ...more

An important work from the psychoanalytical school of object relations, beginning with the oft-cited essay on the transitional object.
Winnicott’s “true self” plays a central role in this work, yet remains relatively undefined. Winnicott seems to advocate socially recognized creativity as constituting the true self, similar to what Freud recommends in sublimative practice, but the interpersonal relation that Winnicott stresses here as fundamental seems to belie the insistence on the possibility o ...more
Winnicott’s “true self” plays a central role in this work, yet remains relatively undefined. Winnicott seems to advocate socially recognized creativity as constituting the true self, similar to what Freud recommends in sublimative practice, but the interpersonal relation that Winnicott stresses here as fundamental seems to belie the insistence on the possibility o ...more

"The searching can come only from desultory formless functioning, or perhaps from rudimentary playing, as if in a neutral zone. . . . This if reflected back, but only if reflected back, becomes part of the organized individual personality, and eventually this in summation makes the individual to be, to be found."
A series of excursions building on the idea of the transitional area, between being and doing, female and male, subject and object, projection and perception, unity and separation. The p ...more
A series of excursions building on the idea of the transitional area, between being and doing, female and male, subject and object, projection and perception, unity and separation. The p ...more

I read most of this in a workshop on attachment. It was very helpful having a group with whom to process this text as Winnicott's writing is quite obtuse. He seems to be sharing about 30% of what he's thinking about and the reader has to infer the rest. Some interesting ideas about how attachment works.
...more

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“It is in playing and only in playing that the individual child or adult is able to be creative and to use the whole personality, and it is only in being creative that the individual discovers the self.”
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“The child is alone only in the presence of someone.”
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