Winnicott, Balint, and the Independent Tradition

This article compares and contrasts two main aspects of the work of Winnicott and Balint: their theories of infantile development and their theoretical and clinical work on the use of regression as a therapeutic agent. The relationship of their thinking to aspects of the British Independent Group's theories and clinical work is noted vis-à-vis the basic acceptance of classical theory and technique, acknowledgment and use of some of Klein's contributions, the influence of trauma and the external environment on psychic development and psychopathology, the importance of holding and the setting, and the reintegration of previously split off and lost parts of the self.