Winnicott, an important figure in the British object relations school. What he calls the holding environment is the environment during the first year or so of life, the period of infancy before the child begins to develop a separate sense of self. Initially, the environment is the womb; later on it is the arms that held you, mother’s lap, perhaps father and other people, the environment of your crib, your bedroom, your house—the whole situation. So “holding environment” here means the totality of the surroundings and the general feel of it through the formative years.
