Ever since J. Huizinga's historical study "Homo Ludens" was published, cultural theorists searched in vain for a comparable explanation of how individual mental life related to our complex social structures of play. This collection of texts by Winnicott was the first brilliant single-volume salvo that Winnicott spent years of his research and analytic practice on studying and presenting in specialized medical journals. So, "Playing and Reality," J. Huizinga's "Homo Ludens," and M. Bakhtin's newly translated work on the carnival in literature and society "Rabelais and his World" all offer us to explore how we grow up in relation to the important element of 'social or spatial play' and interaction in several aspects of culture and how it is integrated into our lives at the 'deepest' level - to the point where we can't explain 'identification' without it. The perennial question concerning the relation between work and play (our weekly, if not daily, routine) is discussed in depth. The insights of this book have simply never been introduced by anyone else psychoanalyically except throughout Freud's brief pages of 'Fort-Da' (peek a boo), Klein's intent to crack the child's code that underlies the child's pre-semantic lexical items, in short to through the words' investment with "portable worlds" that get packed around just as with the child's other belongings, from space to space. Highly recommended. If you haven't read these books, it's ok, because you're living them "everyday," just as the psychiatrist, ethnologist and historian M. de Certeau felt compelled to entitle his book: "The Practice of Everyday Life." Or as Winnicott might put it, "Playing and Reality." Routledge has done a fine editorial job here of cleaning up the texts from their original poor-quality publication in scattered journals. As the choice of a crisp, clear typeface and a good use of spatial arrangement, there is more of Winnicott's difficult thoughts present, and there is subsequently more play in Winnicott's presentations of mental reality in this collection of perceptive thoughts and strong arguments. Regarding comments from several other reviewers on the use-value of object-relations theory, Derrida was already concerned with joining these two in his preface to his translation of Husserl's 'Geometry' text, and he then in fact does so in his 1967 'Speech and Phenomena'. The next year Deleuze will publish a remarkable book that is often referred to as 'his' Husserl book (Derrida and he were writing at the same time but did not know of each others' projects). Deleuze's Husserl book ('The Logic of Sense') is from the first page to last an extraordinarily forceful book using post-Lacanian psychoanalysis to rethink "the object" of philosophy through object-relations. Neither Deleuze nor Derrida took Lacan seriously, who simply recited Kojeve's misunderstanding of Hegel. That "play" is literally "central" to Derrida's philosophy tells you how important Winnicott and the other authors listed have been in this thought.
I am sorry to be so blunt about this, but previous reviewers Sierra and whomi do not appear to have really grasped Winnicott's work in this book (Sierra really has no clue at all). I have to respond at some length. But better to just read the book.
Winnicott (henceforward DWW) creates--in an enormous leap away from Freud--a vision of the complex and beautiful relationship of the infant and primary caregiver. In fact he speaks of the "mother infant dyad," rather than two separate persons during the first few months of life. From this union, if all goes well, the child gradual emerges and develops a sense of self through a process of disillusionment by the mother, in doses the infant can withstand.
As this occurs, the child symbolizes the lost union with the mother in what DWW calls "transitional objects" and begins, with the comfort of these objects, to begin to play in what DWW calls the "potential space." We might call it the realm of culture, of love, and of religion. Only with successful caregiving does the child have a chance to fully develop as a person, and DWW shows, in loving detail and case histories, how this happens through the devotion of the mother.
This is why DWW's work is vital not merely to psychoanalysts, but to every person on this planet. His work has influenced two generations of therapists, theorists, and educators and, indirectly, every one of us. Further, his work has increasingly been supported by developmental insights gained from attachment theory and other experimental and verifiable studies.
I don't normally write reviews on amazon.com, but I could not let foolish misreadings by other reviewers stand unchallenged. Sierra's attitude is not only condescending, it is lazy. Enough said. As for whomi, I appreciate the thought there, but DWW *does* allow for gradual disillusionment through experience of the external world. If whomi missed it that does not mean it is not there. As for using Derrida to read DWW, I imagine that is useful. Go to it, if you like. But let's not forget that the work of Lacan is inconceivable without DWW, and the work of Derrida inconceivable without Lacan.
DWW indisputably and deservedly stands as one of the most influential psychological thinkers of the 20th century. Further, his use of language is simple and yet always provocative, finding new depth and meaning in the simplest of words.
Please consider reading DWW and judge for yourself.
Franz Metcalf
