D.W. Winnicott and Political Theory

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xvii

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2. Introduction

   • Matthew H. Bowker, Amy Buzby

   Pages 1-34

3. The Subject’s Creation: Aggression, Isolation, and Destruction

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 35-35

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   2. Being and Encountering: Movement and Aggression in Winnicott

      • Jeremy Elkins

      Pages 37-67

   3. The Isolation of the True Self and the Problem of Impingement: Implications of Winnicott’s Theory for Social Connection and Political Engagement

      • David P. Levine

      Pages 69-85

   4. The Psychoanalytic Winnicott We Need Now: On the Way to a Real Ecological Thought

      • Melissa A. Orlie

      Pages 87-109

4. The Subject Faced with Deprivation and Disaster

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 111-111

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   2. Playing ‘Riot’: Identity in Refuge—Absent Child Narratives in the 2013 Hindu–Muslim Riots in Muzaffarnagar, India

      • Zehra Mehdi

      Pages 113-136

   3. Safety in Danger and Privacy in Privation: Ambivalent Fantasies of Natural States Invoked in Reaction to Loss

      • Matthew H. Bowker

      Pages 137-162

   4. “Out Like a Lion”: Melancholia with Euripides and Winnicott

      • Bonnie Honig

      Pages 163-183

   5. Forgiveness and Transitional Experience

      • C. Fred Alford

      Pages 185-201

5. Revitalizing the Subject of Political Theory

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 203-203

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   2. In Transition, But to Where?: Winnicott, Integration, and Democratic Associations

      • David W. McIvor

      Pages 205-227

   3. Vanquishing the False Self: Winnicott, Critical Theory, and the Restoration of the Spontaneous Gesture

      • Amy Buzby

      Pages 229-246

   4. Adults in the Playground: Winnicott and Arendt on Politics and Playfulness

      • John LeJeune

      Pages 247-268

6. Intersubjectivity, Justice, and Equality

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 269-269

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   2. D.W. Winnicott, Ethics, and Race: Psychoanalytic Thought and Racial Equality in the United States

      • Alex Zamalin

      Pages 271-290

   3. Winnicott at Work: Potential Space and the Facilitating Organization

      • Michael A. Diamond

      Pages 291-310

   4. Winnicott and the History of Welfare State Thought in Britain

      • Gal Gerson

      Pages 311-332

   5. Vulnerability, Dependence, Sovereignty, and Ego-Distortion Theory: Psychoanalyzing Political Behaviors in the Developing World

      • Robert C. Chalwell

      Pages 333-356

In this volume, the work of British psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott is set in conversation with some of today’s most talented psychodynamically-sensitive political thinkers. The editors and contributors demonstrate that Winnicott’s thought contains underappreciated political insights, discoverable in his reflections on the nature of the maturational process, and useful in working through difficult impasses confronting contemporary political theorists. Specifically, Winnicott’s psychoanalytic theory and practice offer a framework by which the political subject, destabilized and disrupted in much postmodern and contemporary thinking, may be recentered. Each chapter in this volume, in its own way, grapples with this central theme: the potential for authentic subjectivity and inter-subjectivity to arise within a nexus of autonomy and dependence, aggression and civility, destructiveness and care. This volume is unique in its contribution to the growing field of object-relations-oriented political and social theory. It will be of interest to political scientists, psychologists, and scholars of related subjects in the humanities and social sciences.

• Political Theory
• Psychoanalysis
• D.W. Winnicott
• Object Relations
• Psychosocial Studies
• Politics
• Critical Theory
• Social Theory
• Democracy
• children
• father
• political science
• political theory
• politics
• school
• childhood studies

“True scholarship must encompass the rediscovery of sorely neglected sources of valuable knowledge. Bowker and Buzby and their likewise excellent contributors do us a great service in bringing Winnicott's profound psychoanalytic wisdom back into the fray of political theory, front and un-decentered. I couldn't recommend this stimulating and provocative volume too highly.” (Kurt Jacobsen, University of Chicago, USA and author of "Freud's Foes" and "Pacification and Its Discontents”)

“The shared premise of this book is illustrated with admirable deftness, theoretical sophistication, and lucidity across a wide spectrum of themes. The result is a volume which, in its totality, is much more than the sum of its parts. Anyone interested in the potential of free, humane subjectivity, and in the critique of anti-humanism, will find it deeply rewarding.” (David N. Smith, Professor and Chair of Sociology, University of Kansas, USA)

“This book is a fine volume of uncommon depthand reach. A clinician rather than a political thinker, Winnicott’s work nevertheless emerges as a significant resource for our understanding of political agency and what a good society might be. Readers already persuaded of that fact will find their thinking taken in new and surprising directions.  Those unfamiliar with Winnicott’s ideas will find many reasons to take seriously his relevance to political thought and to matters of pressing political concern.” (Peter Redman, Editor of “Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society”)

• Medaille College, Buffalo, USA

  Matthew H. Bowker

• Arkansas State University, Jonesboro, USA

  Amy Buzby

Matthew H. Bowker is Clinical Assistant Professor of Humanities at Medaille College, USA. He is the author of several books in the field of psycho-politics, including: A Dangerous Place to Be (Forthcoming), Ideologies of Experience (2016), and Rethinking the Politics of Absurdity (2014).


Amy Buzby is Associate Professor of Political Science at Arkansas State University, USA. She obtained her PhD in political science from Rutgers University, USA. Her published works include Subterranean Politics and Freud’s Legacy (2013) and Communicative Action (2010).

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