Winnicott | Donald Woods

Donald Woods Winnicott was born in Plymouth in 1896. He entered the University of Cambridge in 1914, where he studied biology and later medicine, and then completed his medical studies at St Bartholomew's Hospital. In 1923, he married his first wife, Alice Taylor, and in the same year became a physician at the Paddington Green Children's Hospital in London. Around this time, he also entered analysis with James Strachey; this analysis was to last until 1933, after which Winnicott began an analysis with Joan Riviere. In 1927, he was accepted for training by the British Psychoanalytical Society, qualifying as an adult analyst in 1934 and as a child analyst in 1935.

During the Second World War, Winnicott worked with disturbed evacuee children. His experience as a psychiatric consultant to the Government Evacuation Scheme provided an impetus towards new thinking about the significance of the mother's role. During the war years, he collaborated with Clare Britton, a psychiatric social worker, and they married in 1951.

After the war, Winnicott was physician in charge of the Child Department of the Institute of Psychoanalysis for 25 years and served two terms as president of the British Psychoanalytical Society. He was also a member of UNESCO and WHO study groups and lectured widely and wrote as well as having a private practice. He continued to work at the Paddington Green Children's Hospital into the 1960s and was still working and teaching when he died in 1971.

Paediatrician and Psychoanalyst

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Revised 2024-04-04

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Revised by Ewan O'Neill