D. W. Winnicott, Julian of Norwich, and the Good-Enough Mother/Mystic

This article examines the theological resonances in D. W. Winnicott’s theory of motherhood and infant development, bringing to light possible inheritances from the medieval mystical tradition. Considered against Winnicott’s own Wesleyan upbringing and later conversion to Anglicanism, a close reading of his personal writings reveals a personal identification with the Christ-figure and evidence of medievalism in his work that has not been previously recognized. The discussion then compares Winnicott’s paradigm of the “good-enough mother” with the language of maternal “enoughness” in the Revelations of fourteenth-century theologian, Julian of Norwich. This comparison uncovers a shared preoccupation with maternal love and sustained devotional practice, and what I call Julian’s “ordinary-language theology” is put forward as a potential precedent for what Adam Phillips has termed Winnicott’s “ordinary-language psychoanalysis

Art · Mysticism · Psychoanalysis · Theology · Medieval Literature and History · Philosophy · Psychology · Reformation and Early Modern Christianity

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