D.W. Winnicott by Robert Prince, Ph.D., Series Editor Turning points are generally recognizable only in retrospect and so it is with the work of D.W. Winnicott. We have chosen "Mirror-role of Mother and Family in Child Development" by Winnicott because it is highly representative of his distinctive contribution. It is not so much that this particular paper constitutes a turning point in Winnicott's thinking as that the core of Winnicott's thinking constitutes a turning point in what is emphasized within psychoanalytic work. The British analyst Adam Limentani recalled an interview he had with Winnicott when Limentani applied to the London Institute for training. "What kind of analysis do you wish to have?" Winnicott asked him. Limentani, expressing his disgust with political extremism, told Winnicott that he was "hoping for something different," but that he "certainly did not wish for anything not quite Freudian." To this Winnicott replied, "with ill-concealed impatience": "But we are all Freudian," adding after a brief pause, "more or less." The "more or less" quality of Winnicott's allegiance to Freud has been the bone of contention among critics of Winnicott's work. Did Winnicott introduce modifications that made his way of thinking incompatible with Freud? Did he believe himself to be "Freudian" when, in fact, some of his formulations are hard to reconcile with Freud's instinct theory? Winnicott was more an innovator than a curator. He reframed words to arrive at novel concepts, often turning old ones upside-down. He took the well-known psychiatric diagnostic and descriptive term "depersonalization" to fashion his concept of "personalization." "Integration" suggested to him the idea of "unintegration." "Ruthlessness," in Winnicott's hands, was contrasted with a "stage of ruth." Winnicott loved standing classical ideas on their head! Where Freud saw psychoanalysis as a way of freeing people from illusions, Winnicott emphasized the freedom to create and enjoy illusions. Whereas classical technique centered on the value of interpretations, Winnicott pointed to the value of not interpreting. Where classical theory had explored the infantile fear of being alone, Winnicott spoke of the mature capacity to be alone. Regression, rather than being pathological in that it provides a surfeit of infantile gratification, becomes, in Winnicott's hands, a process of healing through a search for missing experiences. Psychosomatic illness was not a withdrawal of interest from the outside world, as classical theory claimed, but an attempt to rediscover one's own body. Within psychoanalysis, Winnicott represented a shift in emphasis from patterns of gratification, frustration, and sublimation to how meaningful and authentic is a person's experience and expression of himself. As he once remarked to Harry Guntrip: "We disagree with Freud. He was for curing symptoms. We are concerned with whole living and loving persons." As a result, Winnicott shifted the focus from the way in which people negotiate the family triangle to how individuals gradually acquire personhood as they separate themselves out from, while remaining connected to, mother's embrace. Put differently: it is the developing person's relationship to the instinct rather than the development of the instinct within the person that most concerned Winnicott. That is why his work constitutes a turning point.