Donald Woods Winnicott Quotes

“The mother gazes at the baby in her arms, and the baby gazes at his mother's face and finds himself therein ... provided that the mother is really looking at the unique, small, helpless being and not projecting her own expectations, fears, and plans for the child. In that case, the child would find not himself in his mother's face, but rather the mother's own projections. This child would remain without a mirror, and for the rest of his life would be seeking this mirror in vain.”

— Donald Woods Winnicott

Feeling real is more than existing; it is finding a way to exist as oneself ... and to have a self into which to retreat for relaxation.

— Donald Woods Winnicott

“The fact that grief takes so long to resolve is not a sign of inadequacy, but betokens depth of soul.”

— Donald Woods Winnicott

“I would rather be the child of a mother who has all the inner conflicts of the human being than be mothered by someone for whom all is easy and smooth, who knows all the answers, and is a stranger to doubt.”

— Donald Woods Winnicott

“There is no such thing as a baby, there is a baby and someone.”

— Donald Woods Winnicott

“The capacity to still feel wonder is essential to the creative process.”

— Donald Woods Winnicott

“Creativity consists in maintaining a key aspect of the experience of childhood throughout one's life: the capacity to create and recreate the world. Creativity is the omnipotence of the child's mind.”

— Donald Woods Winnicott

“However, it can't be helped; mothers, if they do their job properly, are the representatives of the hard, demanding world and it is they who gradually introduce reality which is so often the enemy of impulse. There is anger with mother and hatred is somewhere even when there is absolutely no doubt of love that is mixed with adoration.”

— Donald Woods Winnicott

“If mothers are told to do this or that or the other, ... they lose touch with their own ability to act ... Only too easily they feel incompetent. If they must look up everything in a book, they are always too late even when they do the right things, because the right things have to be done immediately. It is only possible to act at exactly the right point when the action is intuitive or by instinct, as we say. The mind can be brought to bear on the problem afterwards.”

— Donald Woods Winnicott

“It is in playing, and perhaps only in playing, that the child is free to be creative.”

— Donald Woods Winnicott

“We fight to exist. Personally, I am not ashamed of fighting to exist. We are doing no very extraordinary thing to fight simply because we do not wish to be enslaved or exterminated.”

— Donald Woods Winnicott

“The precursor of the mirror is the mother's face.”

— Donald Woods Winnicott

“It's only too easy to idealise a mother's job. We know well that every job has its frustrations and its boring routines and its times of being the last thing anyone would choose to do. Well, why shouldn't the care of babies and children be thought of that way too?”

— Donald Woods Winnicott

“I don't mind saying in advance that in my opinion jealousy is normal and healthy. Jealousy arises out of the fact that children love. If they have no capacity to love, then they don't show jealousy.”

— Donald Woods Winnicott

Play like dreams serves the function of self realization.

— Donald Woods Winnicott

“It's a poor thing to be sane!”

— Donald Woods Winnicott

“There is for many a poverty of play.”

— Donald Woods Winnicott

“The scientific approach to the phenomenon of human nature enables us to be ignorant without bieng frightened, and without, therefore, having to invent all sorts of wierd theories to explain away our gaps in knowledge.”

— Donald Woods Winnicott