D.W. Winnicott Quotes & Sayings

Now I want to say: 'After being - doing and being done to. But first, being. — D.W. Winnicott

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. — D.W. Winnicott

The most aggressive and therefore the most dangerous words in the languages of the world are to be found in the assertion I AM. — D.W. Winnicott

There is for many a poverty of play and cultural life because, although the person had a place for erudition, there was a relative failure on the part of those who constitute the child's world of persons to introduce cultural elements at the appropriate phases of the person's personality development. — D.W. Winnicott

What is a normal child like? Does he just eat and grow and smile sweetly? No, that is not what he is like. The normal child, if he has confidence in mother and father, pulls out all the stops. In the course of time, he tries out his power to disrupt, to destroy, to frighten, to wear down, to waste, to wangle, and to appropriate ... At the start he absolutely needs to live in a circle of love and strength (with consequent tolerance) if he is not to be too fearful of his own thoughts and of his imaginings to make progress in his emotional development. — D.W. Winnicott

Nevertheless, with reference to the natural process of childbirth one thing can seldom be forgotten, the fact that the human infant has an absurdly big head. — D.W. Winnicott

The child is alone only in the presence of someone. — D.W. Winnicott

Artists are people driven by the tension between the desire to communicate and the desire to hide. — D.W. Winnicott

We are poor indeed if we are only sane. — D.W. Winnicott

Tell me what you fear and I will tell you what has happened to you. — D.W. Winnicott

At the beginning these two things, the real and the imaginative life, are one and the same thing, because the infant at the beginning does not perceive objectively, but lives in a subjective state, being the creator of all. Gradually, in health the infant becomes able to perceive a world that is a not-me world, and to attain this state the infant must be cared for well enough at the time of absolute dependence. — D.W. Winnicott

It is a joy to be hidden, and disaster not to be found. — D.W. Winnicott

It is not possible to be original except on a basis of tradition. — D.W. Winnicott