My Basket 0 item - £0.00

Face to Face with Children: The Life and Work of Clare Winnicott

Editor : Joel Kanter

Customer Reviews

Our customers have given this title an average rating of 5 out of 5 from 1 review(s), add your own review for this title.

Eleanor Patrick on 21/01/2005

(5 out of 5)

1. Review: Eleanor Patrick in the Counseling and Psychotherapy Journal, May 2004

Clare Winnicott (née Britton) was a lead trainer of social workers in the 20th century. Her work connected to childcare and social work shed important light on every aspect of interacting with vulnerable others. This book is a breath of fresh air in a world of regulation and control.

Half the content comprises Kanter?s excellent overview of Clare?s life, using excerpts from her output and interviews with friends, relatives and former colleagues.The rest of the book comprises reprints of a selection of Clare?s articles, conference presentations and letters. These cover her work with evacuees in Oxfordshire and then move on to specific ideas from her work, such as the rescue motive and the development of insight and self-awareness.

Finally, we find her writings about Donald. These focused, personal disclosures have the unexpected effect of ?normalising? Donald and amplifying Clare. The two were in fact equal partners, neither able to operate so well if the other were missing. They ?played? together as adults and provided holding for each other, such that both of their fields of work benefited.

Clare loathed administration and hated conflict, claiming she was most free to function at her best when given a bit of elbow room. She was ?greatly troubled? by many aspects of Klein?s analytic technique and once walked out on her. She explained her absence from bed shortly before she died saying: ?I have been to a party; it is such a waste of ones life spending it in bed; isn?t it?

Kanter?s book is a fitting tribute to the influence dare had on British childcare policy in the 1950s and 60s. My overriding impression is of the relevance of her work today. In most places you can mentally substitute ?counsellor? for ?social worker? and feel the resonance as she speaks about the holding environment and the need to contain.

The book will be of interest to anyone involved in children?s work or related helping relationships: teachers, counsellors working with parents and caregivers, and social workers frustrated with bureaucracy and into dynamic psychology. Perhaps even Donald Winnicott fans!

Eleanor PatrickAssociate Editor, CPJ