The collected letters of Donald Winnicott, a central figure in British psychoanalysis in the first post-Freud generation. They provide a vivid picture of Winnicott's ideas and personality. Winnicott's writings have become more and more influential over the years. His letters, published here, command immediate attention. Together with an insightful introduction by F. Robert Rodman, who sketches Winnicott's life and traces the development of his ideas, they provide a vivid picture of the thought and personality of a man who has taught us much about our deepest selves.

This bold and witty, yet scholarly biography is the first to trace the full life and work of this highly influential and brilliant pediatrician-turned-analyst. This insightful story probes the roots in Winnicott's personal life of his influential concepts, such as the "holding environment" so crucial to psychotherapy and the "transitional object" known to every parent as the "security blanket." His astonishing career involved many of the great figures in psychoanalysis and psychology, not just Melanie Klein and Anna Freud, but the whole eccentric Bloomsbury scene including the Stracheys, R. D. Laing, and the controversial Pakistani prince and analyst, Masud Khan. For anyone interested not only in psychology and psychoanalysis but also in human nature and the great figures who have explored it, this book will be passionately absorbing.