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(p. 35) The Deprived Mother 

(p. 35) The Deprived Mother
Chapter:
(p. 35) The Deprived Mother
Author(s):

Donald W. Winnicott

DOI:
10.1093/med:psych/9780190271343.003.0004
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date: 19 January 2021

In this essay, Winnicott tries to show that when a child is taken from parents the very strongest feelings are aroused. Those concerned with the problems of the evacuation of children must see the mothers’ problems as well as those of the foster-mothers if they are to understand what they are doing. Winnicott contends that to look after children may be hard and exacting work and can feel like a war job. But to be deprived of one’s children is a poor kind of war work, one that appeals to hardly any mother or father and one that can only be tolerated if its unhappy side is duly appreciated. For this reason, it is necessary really to make the effort to find out what it feels like to be a mother stranded without her child.

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