Weaving with the World: Winnicott’s Re-Imagining of Reality

Abstract

For Winnicott, at the root of psychic life is primary creativity from which meaningfulness emerges spontaneously. One non-psychoanalytic source of Winnicott’s view can be found in the work of the English romantic poets Wordsworth and Coleridge. Winnicott discovered in these poets kindred spirits who deepened his appreciation of the delicate area between what is perceived and what conceived. The author suggests one way to read Winnicott’s theory of primary creativity is as a re-imagining of what it means to have contact with reality. For Winnicott, the emphasis is less on conflict between pleasure and reality and more on contrast between two different kinds of relationship with reality as it becomes increasingly external.

• Winnicott
• imagination
• reality
• mothering
• perception
• conception
• creativity
• environment
• pleasure
• paradox