Playing and Reality Revisited

'Since Winnicotts initial formulation of the hypothesis on transitional objects and transitional phenomena - written in a deceptively simple style - attempts to unravel their theoretical complexity have at times overlooked the depth of his clinical insights. On the other hand, the poetical elan of his writing has led some critics to the mistaken idea that the radical transformative impact of his work in psychoanalytical clinical thinking implied a rupture with the fundamentals of Freudian metapsychology. The different points of view gathered in this important book avoid the dual risk of these Scylla and Charybdis. They provide the theoretically inclined reader with valuable working hypotheses to inquire into the metapsychological density of Winnicott's ideas, and the seasoned clinician with a renewed experience of the poetic potentialities of the psychoanalytic encounter.'- Max Hernandez, Member and Training Analyst of the Peruvian Psychoanalytic Society, member of the British Psychoanalytical Society, and former Vice-President of the International Psychoanalytical Association