Creatività e il nebuloso in Winnicott, Renata De Benedetti Gaddini

The suggesting way in which many of Winnicott writings are presented, though appreciated by some, is seen by many nebulous and even disconcerting. These readers, in their approach to Winnicott, express perplexities and even criticism, finding him undefined, at time contradictory and not clear enough. This paper's author points out that undefined and suggestive writing has been a characteristic description of Psychoanalysis at its beginning. The first psychoanalytic descriptions used metaphores at large, and o nly later the language became defined, since metaphores are not science. Rather than a fault, the 'nebulous' of his writing appears to the Author as a secret aspect of his creativity through wich Winnicott offers to the reader the opportunity of being creative, spontaneous and free, like only in playing and in the intermediate space of living an individual can be. Creativity is universal, in Winnicott's view. His neboulosity and his being undefined are seen by the Author as facilitating the reader's creativity and the "spontaneous gesture". A word or a "squiggle" with no meaning may be seen as an incentive to response, a sign, an idea, a "spontaneous gesture". His squiggle, a sign with no intrinsic meaning, may acquire a meaning in the reader,as it does to the participant to the game. The same is true for a word offered to acquire any meaning on the part of the reader or listener. They both have no specific demand, they both introduce in a casual way a situation of causality. It is the casual, which does not imply a specific response, which facilitates creativity and promotes development.