Vital Sparks and the Form of Things Unknown

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Acknowledgments

A version of this article appears in the book Donald Winnicott Today edited by Jan Abram published by Routledge.

Notes

¹A wonderful rendering of this process is provided by the Nobel prize winning Polish poet, Wislawa Szymborska.in her poem “Autotomy.” Szymborska describes how the holothurian, a sea slug, when attacked, divides itself into unlinked parts. In the middle of the holothurian's body, writes, Szymborska, “a chasm opens and its edges immediately become alien to each other.” The holothurian manages “to die as much as necessary” so as “to grow again from a salvaged remnant” (Szymborska, 1983: 115–116).

²It is beyond the scope of this article to discuss the ways in which the emerging interpersonal/relational tradition diverges from Winnicott's formulations.