Concept
Holding environment
The whole of the physical and emotional care through which a mother, in the earliest stage of life, shields her infant from impingements: she holds the baby physically and also keeps its experience in mind over time. Winnicott described a holding phase of development and saw the analytic setting as offering a comparably reliable environment, especially to patients who regress to dependence.
- Introduced by
- Donald Winnicott
- Key works
- 3
- Related
- Good-enough mother
introduced by
- Donald Winnicott 1960 Describes the holding phase of infancy and the maternal care that holds the infant before mother and baby can live as two separate people.
developed by
- Thomas H. Ogden 2004 Ogden distinguished Winnicott's holding from Bion's containing. On his reading, holding is the ontological work of sustaining the patient's continuity of being over time, while containing is the work of processing experience.
derives from
- Good-enough mother Holding names the environmental provision that the good-enough mother gives in the earliest phase, before the infant can tell itself apart from her.