From their website:
“The Squiggle Foundation’s aims are:
• To study the work of Dr. Donald Woods Winnicott (1896-1971) .
• To spread his ideas to a wide audience and put them into everyday use in today’s world.
The word “squiggle” comes from a method Winnicott used to facilitate communication
with a child.
He would take turns with the child to make a small squiggle mark on a sheet
of paper and each would then extend the other’s squiggle into a simple drawing of
personal significance. Playing with a scribble drawing was one way in which Winnicott led
the child to a better sense of self.
His writings revolve around three main issues:
• The mother-infant relationship.
• Transitional phenomena, most clearly recognised in a child’s
intense possessive feelings for a special blanket or toy.
• The importance of play and primary creativity.
D.W.W., as he was popularly known, was a paediatrician
and ‘psychoanalyst who built on Freud’s discoveries of
how the mind works. His main emphasis was on the
genuine flourishing of the ‘person’ and the nurturing by the ‘other’ of a ‘sense of self’. Winnicott once said
his concern was with ‘living persons, whole living and
loving’. His therapeutic aim was to enable his patients to live in a creative and authentic way.”
