D.W. Winnicott’s Debt to and Divergence from Melanie Klein: A Psychoanalytic Genealogy

Abstract:This is a two-part paper. Its first part examines Winnicott’s early phase work vis-à-vis that of his mentor, Melanie Klein, by whom he was significantly influenced. It focuses on two of his pivotal papers, one from 1941, when he was at the end of a period of intensive tutelage with her, the other in 1945, when he announced new conceptions that constituted decisive breaks from several of her core understandings and inaugurated his mature theory development. His 1945 contribution nevertheless implied continued endorsement of her important concept of the depressive position, which he continued to affirm throughout his career.Its second part assays the development of his conceptions relative to hers, particularly after 1945, regarding areas such as infantile development, pathogenesis, diagnosis, and therapeutics. It then explores his alignments with and departures from her depressive position views. Finally, it examines his revision of her depressive position formulations. It does this particularly in relation to his proposition that infants dissociate from one another their experience of themselves and of their mother conditioned either by having interacted with her in ruthlessly intense states directed to her or when having been tenderly nurtured by her.