A review by levitybooks
Playing and Reality by D.W. Winnicott
3.0
GoodReads reviewers, I am disappointed in you. Are none of you going to question this book?
-Who even believes this?
-racial hatred in the USA is more based on mothering than skin colour? How does he know more black mothers breastfeed?
-maybe, but not obviously
-maybe, but many others have suggested otherwise.
-Did he read Lacan? Being before doing as inspired by Lacan's mirror applied to the mother, and yet, Lacan would argue doing and being done to make being...
-He sometimes doesn't seem to respect his patients that well
-Matriarchal extreme claim dubious, subject seemed off-topic anyhow.
-tries to summarize the motivation for all suicides in a parentheses, even the founders of sociology do better here.
-repeatedly praises himself and his treatment. Some of his patients that he uses as case studies of effective treatment failed therapy and died early, and in the afterword he says they could not be helped?
- Did he read Foucault? He uses an indivdual's 'unit status' to support a claim by Foucault's view on society? Damn.
I don't mean to be rude, but I am flabbergasted at the uncritical acceptance of this book by GoodReads reviewers.
The theory on play is theoretically appealing, but his evidence and precision are lacking. Yes, it seems interesting that a baby might learn that it can act in the world by making a breast for feeding appear as if by its imagination, so that it exists in a space between me and not-me.
But suggesting that psychiatric illness arises from mothers being good-enough or not-good-enough, or whether a woman breastfeeds or not, should not just be accepted just 'on a whim'. That is a dangerous thing to say, as it places a lot of potentially undue blame on mothers with psychologically abnormal children, and to affirm so strongly without strong evidence is negligent. It makes me wonder why feminists reject Freud instead of this guy who was defining the good and bad ways of the breast, bisexuality and mothering?
"There is nothing new either inside or outside psychoanalysis in the idea that men and women have a 'predisposition towards bisexuality'." (p.72)
-Who even believes this?
"Incalculable is the envy of the white bottle-fed population of the black people who are mostly, I believe, breast-fed" (p.142)
-racial hatred in the USA is more based on mothering than skin colour? How does he know more black mothers breastfeed?
"The structure of society is built up and maintained by its members who are psychiatrically healthy" (p.139)
-maybe, but not obviously
"...when a child is playing the masturbatory element is essentially lacking" (p.39)
-maybe, but many others have suggested otherwise.
"After being - doing and being done to. But first, being." (p.85)
-Did he read Lacan? Being before doing as inspired by Lacan's mirror applied to the mother, and yet, Lacan would argue doing and being done to make being...
"but she found she needed a session of indefinite length... We soon settled down to a session of three hours, later reduced to two hours. (p.57)"
-He sometimes doesn't seem to respect his patients that well
"...at the patriarchal extreme of society sexual intercourse is rape, and at the matriarchal extreme the man with a split-off female element who must satisfy many women is at a premium even if in doing so he annihilates himself." (p.78)
-Matriarchal extreme claim dubious, subject seemed off-topic anyhow.
"suicide (a pathological acceptance of responsibility for all the evil that is, or that can be thought of.)" (p.148)"
-tries to summarize the motivation for all suicides in a parentheses, even the founders of sociology do better here.
"This patient thought that she was quite simply acquiring the portrait of this man who had done so much for her (and I have)." (p.116)
-repeatedly praises himself and his treatment. Some of his patients that he uses as case studies of effective treatment failed therapy and died early, and in the afterword he says they could not be helped?
"say a thousand years ago, only a very few people lived creatively (cf. Foucaulty, 1966)... there was only very exceptionally a man or woman who achieved unit status in personal development" (p.116)
- Did he read Foucault? He uses an indivdual's 'unit status' to support a claim by Foucault's view on society? Damn.
I don't mean to be rude, but I am flabbergasted at the uncritical acceptance of this book by GoodReads reviewers.
The theory on play is theoretically appealing, but his evidence and precision are lacking. Yes, it seems interesting that a baby might learn that it can act in the world by making a breast for feeding appear as if by its imagination, so that it exists in a space between me and not-me.
But suggesting that psychiatric illness arises from mothers being good-enough or not-good-enough, or whether a woman breastfeeds or not, should not just be accepted just 'on a whim'. That is a dangerous thing to say, as it places a lot of potentially undue blame on mothers with psychologically abnormal children, and to affirm so strongly without strong evidence is negligent. It makes me wonder why feminists reject Freud instead of this guy who was defining the good and bad ways of the breast, bisexuality and mothering?