Winnicott’s Letter to Bion: Playing, Dreaming, and Beyond
Part of IPA - International Psychoanalysis Library series - more in this series
Book Details
- Publisher : Routledge
- Published : July 2025
- Cover : Paperback
- Pages : 202
- Category :
Forthcoming - Category 2 :
Psychoanalysis - Catalogue No : 98125
- ISBN 13 : 9781032819211
- ISBN 10 : 1032819219
Also by Steven H. Cooper
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Winnicott’s Letter to Bion presents reflections on a fascinating moment in the history of psychoanalytic thinking.
Donald Winnicott’s letter, sent on October 5, 1967, and conveying thoughts about two of Wilfred Bion’s papers, never received a response. In this book international contributors elaborate on the contents of the letter, overlapping and divergent projects of the two psychoanalysts, and the meaning of Bion’s silence. The chapters consider topics including the historical context of their work, their focuses on play and reverie, and the question of the sensuous.
Winnicott’s Letter to Bion will be of great interest to psychoanalysts in practice and in training, and to historians of psychoanalysis.
Reviews and Endorsements
Clapping with one hand - how do we understand the apparent ignoring by Wilfred Bion of D W Winnicott’s attempts to communicate and even collaborate with him? In this fascinating volume, contemporary psychoanalytic scholars consider this question through the prism of letters from DWW to WB during the years 1951-67. These were unanswered by Bion, even though it was increasingly apparent that, working in the same milieu, albeit divided British Psychoanalytical Society, there was much similarity, even overlap in their areas of interest. From a plethora of perspectives, these papers explore many possible answers in their historical, political and theoretical context, at the same time as illuminating the relationship between these two giants of and within the British Psychoanalysis in the 20th century.
Angela Joyce, Training and Supervising Psychoanalyst, BPAS; Past Chair, The Winnicott Trust
Beyond Playing and Dreaming: Reflections on a Note from Winnicott to Bion is a remarkable collection of papers on the relationship of the thinking of Winnicott and Bion. While Winnicott and Bion were contemporaries, they rarely referred to one another in their published work. In this volume, fifteen leading Winnicott and Bion scholars create their own versions of the dialogue between the two analytic thinkers. The individual papers creatively use as their starting point a letter Winnicott wrote to Bion. The contributions to this volume are unusual in their combination of astute commentary and accessibility. These papers are a pleasure to spend time with and leave the reader with a greater depth of understanding of the work of both Winnicott and Bion.
Thomas Ogden, author, Coming to Life in the Consulting Room: Toward a New Analytic Sensibility and Reclaiming Unlived Life: Experiences in Psychoanalysis
It is exciting to see a group of American and European analysts/scholars tackle the fascinating relationship between D.W. Winnicott and W.R. Bion. As a result of the still burning embers of the Controversial Discussions in post-war London, we have seen precious little of either of these psychoanalytic pioneers’ comments on the other’s work. This road now leads us to the current moment, where two developments are admirably combined in these pages—the deconstruction of how each analyst regarded the work of the other as seen through their correspondence, combined with inferences drawn from their published papers. This approach fosters a deeper appreciation of the particular contribution of each. This is a scholarly collection of papers. Well done!
Joseph Aguayo, Ph.D., Training and Supervising Analyst, Psychoanalytic Center of California and Guest Member, British Psychoanalytical Society, London. Co-author (with R.D. Hinshelwood, S. Dermen and N. Abel-Hirsch), Bion in the Consulting Room: An Implicit Method of Clinical Inquiry
Table of Contents
Series editor’s Foreword
Foreword
1. Nicola Abel-Hirsch, Bion’s Letter
2. Leslie Caldwell, Imagining Engagement
3. Giuseppe Civitarese, Melanie Klein would not allow this: Winnicott’s Shadowboxing in his letter to Bion, October 5, 1967
4. Steven H. Cooper, Winnicott’s Paradox: Being With and Without Memory and Desire
5. Paulo Fabozzi, Winnicott’s Research: Between Parallel Convergences and Uniqueness
6. Jack Foehl, Pluperfect Errands in the Controversial Discussions of Bion
7. Peter Goldberg, ‘On the question of the sensuous in Winnicott/Bion
8. Robert D. Hinshelwood, Winnicott to Bion – Reflections on Winnicott’s Letter
9. Christopher Lovett, On Not Playing with Winnicott: A Not-So-Curious Case of Non-Communication
10. Mauro Manica, An oracle (perhaps a miracle) at the British Psychoanalytical Society: Winnicott’s Letter to Bion of 5 October 1967
11. Elena Molinari, Reading what is not in a book: Dreaming and playing with words
12. Michael Parsons, What Life Itself is About
13. Bruce Reis, Winnicott and Bion: Communicating and Not Communicating
14. Steve Seligman, ‘Holding and Containing: Winnicott, Bion and Klein on Infancy and the Infantile
About the Editor(s)
Steven H. Cooper, is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, and the Columbia Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research, where he is also Clinical Professor of Psychiatry. He has authored five books and coedited two others. He is in practice in New York City.
More titles by Steven H. Cooper
Christopher G. Lovett trained at the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, where he currently serves on the faculty. A former member of the editorial boards of The International Journal of Psychoanalysis and The Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, he maintains a private practice in Newton Centre, Massachusetts.
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