The anatomy of riddance

Abstract

This paper considers the meaning, reference and clinical relevance of Winnicott's concept of ‘riddance’. Taking its starting point from the infant's behaviour in letting go the spatula, as described in his paper, ‘The observation of infants in a set situation’, it explores his explanation of riddance activity in the context of Freud's earlier description of his own grandchild's losing and letting go of objects, in ‘Beyond the pleasure principle’. Particular attention is paid to Klein's influence on Winnicott's formulations about riddance activity. It is argued that this had the effect of lessening the distinctiveness of his own initial explanation of the phenomena. Discussion of the paper is set against the background of Winnicott's contemporaneous treatment of Klein's son Eric and the ideological differences prevalent within the British Institute of Psycho-Analysis at the time. The subsequent eclipse of the riddance concept in Winnicott's writings and the possible reasons for this are discussed, as well as its eventual re-emergence in the later guise of the ‘use of the object’. The clinical relevance for psychotherapy as well as the conceptual utility of the concept of riddance is underscored, and illustrated with reference to Winnicott's treatment of the child patient known as The Piggle.

Dans cet article, l'auteur explore le sens, le cadre référentiel et la pertinence clinique du concept de “se débarrasser d'un objet” que nous devons à D. W. Winnicott. Son point de départ étant le comportement du jeune enfant qui laisse tomber la spatule – séquence décrite par D. W. Winnicott dans son texte “L'observation des jeunes enfants dans une situation établie” –, l'auteur étudie l'explication que donne D. W. Winnicott de l'acte de “se débarrasser” de quelque chose dans le contexte de l'observation qu'avait auparavant faite Freud à propos de son propre petit-fils qui perd et laisse partir des objets (cf. “Au-delà du principe de plaisir”). Prêtant une attention toute particulière à l'influence qu'a pu avoir M. Klein sur les formulations de D. W. Winnicott à propos de cette acte de “se débarrasser”, l'auteur affirme que cette influence a eu pour conséquence l'atténuation du caractère spécifique de l'explication qu'avait initialement donnée D. W. Winnicott de ce phénomène. L'auteur explore ce texte en tenant compte de deux éléments qui en constituent la toile de fond: d'une part, le traitement entrepris par D. W. Winnicott à cette même période d'Eric, le fils de M. Klein, et, d'autre part, les divergences idéologiques que connaissait à cette époque l'Institut Britannique de Psychanalyse. En relevant le fait que, par la suite, D. W. Winnicott ne fait guère référence au concept de “se débarrasser”, l'auteur en explore les raisons éventuelles et met en évidence ce que l'on pourrait considérer comme sa réapparition ultérieure sous la forme de “l'utilisation de l'objet”. La pertinence clinique de ce concept dans le cadre psychothérapeutique ainsi que son utilité conceptuelle sont soulignées et illustrées en référence au traitement entrepris par D. W. Winnicott de l'enfant que l'on connaît sous le nom de “la petite Piggle”.

Mots-clés: Winnicott, Klein, “se débarrasser”, jeu de la spatule, phase terminale en psychothérapie de l'enfant, “la petite Piggle”

Riassunto: Questo articolo prende in considerazione il significato, il riferimento e l'importanza clinica del concetto di Winnicott di ‘liberazione’. Partendo dal momento in cui il bambino piccolo lascia andare il rocchetto, come viene descritto nel suo articolo ‘L'osservazione dei bambini piccoli in una data situazione’, l'articolo esplora la sua spiegazione dell'attività di liberazione nel contesto della prima descrizione di Freud del perdere e lasciare andare gli oggetti da parte del suo nipotino, nell'articolo ‘Al di là del principio di piacere’. Un'attenzione particolare viene data all'influenza della Klein sulle formulazioni di Winnicott sull'attività della liberazione. Si sostiene che questa ebbe l'effetto di diminuire la particolarità della sua spiegazione iniziale del fenomeno. La discussione dell'articolo avviene sullo sfondo del trattamento contemporaneo da parte di Winnicott del figlio della Klein, Eric e delle differenze ideologiche prevalenti all'interno dell'Istituto di Psicoanalisi Inglese a quel tempo. Viene discussa l'eclissi successiva del concetto di liberazione negli scritti di Winnicott e le sue possibili spiegazioni, come pure il suo eventuale ri-emergere pi[ugrave] tardi sotto le sembianze dell’ ‘uso dell'oggetto’. Si sottolinea l'importanza clinica per la psicoterapia come pure l'utilità concettuale del concetto di liberazione, illustrata dal trattamento di Winnicott della piccola paziente conosciuta con il nome The Piggle.

Parole chiave: Winnicott, Klein, liberazione, gioco del rocchetto, fase finale in psicoterapia infantile, The Piggle

Dieser Artikel betrachtet die Bedeutung, Referenz und klinische Relevanz von Winnicotts Konzept von ‘riddance’ (was Loswerden). Ausgehend vom Verhalten des Babys, wenn es den Spatel loslässt, wie es in seinem Artikel “Die Beobachtung von Babies in einer feststehenden Situation” beschrieben wird, exploriert er seine Erklärungen der Aktivität des Loswerdens im Zusammenhang von Freuds früherer Beschreibung seines eigenen Enkels, wie er Objekte verlor und losliess, in ‘Jenseits des Lustprinzips’. Es wird besondere Aufmerksamkeit auf Kleins Einfluss auf die Formulierungen von Winnicott über die Aktivität des Loswerdens gelenkt. Es wird argumentiert, dass dies zu einer Verminderung der Besonderheit seiner eigenen anfänglichen Erklärung dieses Phänomen führte. Die Diskussion des Artikels wird vor dem Hintergrund von Winnicotts gleichzeitiger Behandlung von Eric, Kleins Sohn, und der ideologischen Unterschiede, die innerhalb des Britischen Instituts der Psychoanalyse zu dieser Zeit herrschten, betrachtet. Das darauffolgende Verschwinden des Konzepts des Loswerdens in Winnicotts Schriften und mögliche Gründe dafür werden diskutiert wie auch sein Wiedererstehen im späteren Gewand des ‘Gebrauchs des Objekts’. Die klinische Relevanz für Psychotherapie wie auch die konzeptuelle Nützlichkeit des Konzepts von Loswerden wird unterstrichen und mit Bezug auf Winnicotts Behandlung eines Kinderpatientens, bekannt als ‘The Piggle” illustriert.

Keywords: Winnicott, Klein, Loswerden, das Spiel mit dem Spatel, Endphase in Kindertherapie, The Piggle

Keywords:

• Winnicott
• Klein
• riddance
• spatula game
• ending phase in child psychotherapy
• The Piggle

Notes

1 Winnicott, typically, never offers a definition of riddance, only a description of what he calls riddance behaviour. Given that the term riddance frequently occurs in common speech in the phrase ‘good riddance’, replete with either triumphalist or dismissive connotations, it seems important to recognise that Winnicott's own use of the term conveys nothing intrinsically pejorative. He seems to mean by the word simply the act, or the fact, of letting go; one might say, ‘voluntarily letting go’ were it not that his subjects were infants to whom the concept of ‘voluntariness’ does not apply, at least not in a fully developed sense. Doubtless Winnicott chose the term ‘riddance’ rather than, say, ‘rejection’ precisely because it was free from psychologically loaded associations, rather as he preferred the words ‘ruthless’ and ‘ruth’ to ‘paranoid-schizoid’ and ‘depressive’ anxiety.

2 Some observations had already appeared in his paper ‘Appetite and Emotional Disorder’ (Winnicott, 1936), based on a talk to psychologists to which Milner may have been referring when she described how she heard him giving ‘a public lecture’ on the topic ‘in the late thirties’ and the strong impression it created (Milner, 1978: 119).

3 The title of the paper as presented at the Institute of Psychoanalysis on 23 April 1941 was ‘Observations on asthma in an infant and its relation to anxiety’ (cf. International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, XXII: 181, Bulletin Reports, 1941) – a rather different theme and focus from that of the paper as published 6 months later. An asthma case, that of 7-month-old Margaret, does feature in the published version, but only ‘incidentally’ (Winnicott, 1941: 52), and certainly not with the prominence presumably given it in the original lecture. Here is further evidence of the substantial revisions undertaken by Winnicott under the aegis of Klein.

4 Rodman (2003: 394, no. 21) claims that Klein did attend the lecture, on what authority he does not state. She is not listed among those attending the lecture in the attendance book kept by the Institute of Psychoanalysis (personal communication from the Archivist, the British Psychoanalytic Society, June 2006). Klein indicated in a letter to Winnicott dated 24 March 1941 (Rodman, 2003: 120) her intention of spending a few days of the week after Easter working in London (using Winnicott's consulting rooms). Winnicott's lecture was given on Wednesday, 23 April, 10 days after Easter. Klein began her analysis of Richard, the eventual subject of Narrative of a Child Analysis (Klein 1961) in Pitlochry, Scotland the following Monday, 28 April, the parents having taken rooms in a hotel in the town for the duration of his analysis (Grosskurth, 1986: 267). This makes it unlikely that she would still have been in London just 4 days before the treatment started. Besides, all the internal evidence of the exchange of letters with Winnicott prior to its eventual publication 6 months later points towards her not having heard it delivered. As Rodman proves to be somewhat unreliable on several other details relating to this period (see, for example, the following footnote), I am convinced that his claim is erroneous.

5 A certain amount of confusion surrounds this letter and its provenance – was it sent by Klein to Isaacs, or Isaacs to Klein? According to King and Steiner (1991: xxiv), Klein was the author of this comment; according to Rodman (2003: 113) Isaacs was. A careful search of the Melanie Klein Archive at the Wellcome Trust has failed to reveal the letter in question, but I am assured by the Archivist of the British Psychoanalytic Society that the letter was on display at the Institute within recent memory, and was definitely in Klein's hand (personal communication).

6 The date given for the publication of this paper ‘On observing the behaviour of young infants’– 1952 – is deceptive. It appears as such posthumously in the third volume of Klein's collected works (Klein, 1975), but without mention of the fact that it had already been published as a chapter in the joint work she had published that year along with Heimann and Isaacs with the title Developments in Psychoanalysis (Klein et al., 1952). The latter book was itself a compilation of the papers prepared almost a decade earlier as the Kleinian contribution to the Controversial Discussions taking place at the Institute of Psychoanalysis between 1942 and 1944. In fact, Klein's paper is substantially her 1944 contribution to that debate, minus some of the polemic she had earlier incorporated into the text. This can be verified by comparing the text with that given in King and Steiner (1991: 752–97).