Squiggle Foundation

The Squiggle Foundation’s aims are:

• To study the work of Dr. Donald Woods Winnicott (1896-1971) .

• To spread his ideas to a wide audience and put them into everyday use in today’s world.

His writings revolve around three main issues:

• The mother-infant relationship.

• Transitional phenomena, most clearly recognised in a child’s Squiggle intense possessive feelings for a special blanket or toy.

• The importance of play and primary creativity.

D.W.W., as he was popularly known, was a paediatrician and ‘psychoanalyst who built on Freud’s discoveries of how the mind works. His main emphasis was on the genuine flourishing of the ‘person’ and the nurturing by the ‘other’ of a ‘sense of self’. Winnicott once said his concern was with ‘living persons, whole living and loving’. His therapeutic aim was to enable his patients to live in a creative and authentic way.