Holding and Interpretation: Fragment of an Analysis

D.W. Winnicott, a psychoanalyst of extraordinary grace and originality, left a body of work distinguished by fierce independence of mind, profound playfulness and technique, and passionate intelligence. Holding and Interpretation, a verbatim record of his sessions with a psychotic patient, vividly illustrates his enormous contribution to psychoanalytic theory and technique, his skill at “holding” the patient in the analytic session and providing guidance through sensitive interpretation. It is a rare working portrait of one of the true giants of psychoanalysis—“a very vast subject,” as he said, “which has the great charm of being really useful.”