Broken Bounds: Contemporary Reflections on the Antisocial Tendency

In 2009–2010, The Squiggle Foundation, whose aim is to stimulate interest in the work of Donald Winnicott, organized a series of lectures on the theme of “the antisocial tendency”. These lectures are offered here to the wider public much as they were originally given. The speakers, each one an established figure in child care policy or in the residential and therapeutic management of disaffected youngsters, reflect on society’s changing attitudes towards antisocial behaviour and its manifestations over the past half century. They consider how altered childrearing practices, the greater incidence of family break-up, and the increasing part played by central government in the determination of child care policies, have contributed to a shift towards the more punitive attitudes towards “wayward youth” prevalent today. Brief, pointed, and accessible, these lectures address topics of contemporary social concern by identifying some of the underlying questions to be asked regarding the child, the family, and society in a mass-communication and mass-organized environment.