Winnicott's "Anni Horribiles": The Biographical Roots of "Hate in the Counter-Transference"

Donald Winnicott's 1949 paper "Hate in the Counter-transference" has come to occupy an important place in the psychoanalytic literature, both as a feisty critique of mid-twentieth-century biological psychiatry and as a brave statement about the burdens of working psychotherapeutically with very ill patients. Hitherto, scholars have devoted little attention to this classic work, and have not explored the biographical and cultural contexts in which Winnicott developed this crucial clinical concept. In this reexamination of "Hate in the Counter-transference," the author provides new archival material, including unpublished correspondence as well as data from interviews with Winnicott's former patients, colleagues, and family members, that sheds light on Winnicott's life and work during the 1930s and 1940s. The author hopes that by situating Winnicott's pathbreaking essay in a historical framework, contemporary readers will develop a fuller appreciation of Winnicott's contribution.