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Holding and Containing: On the Specificity of Winnicott’s Object Relations Theory

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About this event

Registration Opens Friday, September 12, 2025

Following on Jan Abram's previous work on Winnicott since 1996, this paper examines the meaning of holding and containing in relation to the specificity of Winnicott’s object relations theory. She suggests that the holding concept, which refers to the psychic receptivity of the ‘environment mother’ while containing, is an aspect of holding that signifies the mother’s ability to psychically survive as the ‘object mother’ during the infant’s very early moments.

While British Object Relations theories most often refer to the psychoanalytic authors influenced by Melanie Klein, in this essay Dr. Abram offers an outline of Winnicott’s contribution to the evolution of the specificity of his object relations theory in the context of his major theoretical achievements: the environment-individual set-up; transitional phenomena; and the use of an object (Abram 2008).

Her aim is to demonstrate how holding and containing as a formulation – especially in the capacity for concern (1963) - grew out of Freud’s observations on the essential role of the mother for the infant’s evolving psyche. While the father’s role is equally important for the infant’s psyche, it is the mother who will facilitate their position in relation to her infant.

Advancing Winnicott’s very late work on ‘the use of an object’ Dr. Abram proposes that psychic survival-of the-object constitutes the crucial psychic event for health at the heart of the parent-infant relationship from the start of life. The evolving intrapsychic subjective surviving object will potentially grow stronger in the context of the analyzing situation in which the analyst is able to sustain psychic survival-of-the-object (Abram 2022).

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Preparatory readings:

The Language of Winnicott (1997, 2nd edition, Classic Book PEP): Jan Abram
Donald Winnicott Today (2013, New Library of psychoanalysis): Jan Abram
The Clinical Paradigms of Melanie Klein and Donald Winnicott: comparisons and dialogues (co-authored with R.D. Hinshelwood, Routledge, 2018).
The Surviving Object: Psychoanalytic clinical essays on psychic survival-of-the-object (New Library of Psychoanalysis, Routledge, 2022)
The Clinical paradigms of Donald Winnicott and Wilfred Bion: Comparisons and dialogues (2023, shortlisted for the Gradiva Award).

Learning Objectives:

At the end of this two-hour course, you will be able to:
1. Distinguish between Winnicott’s internal objects and Klein’s internal objects
2. Distinguish between Bion’s container-contained and Winnicott’s containing

About the Presenter:

Jan Abram is a training and supervising analyst of the British Psychoanalytical Society and in private practice in London. She is Visiting Professor of the Psychoanalysis Unit, University College London and she is the President of the European Psychoanalytic Federation.

REGISTRATION:

Click the Register Now button and select the appropriate registration group.
Registration questions: may be directed to Alicia Wein-Senghas at aspsychotherapy@gmail.com.
Payment questions may be directed to Kathy Schlageter at Kathy@KSchlageterpsyd.com.
Conference inquiries may be directed to Georgia DeGangi, Ph.D. at gdegangi@gmail.com.

Fee Schedule:

VAPS Member $50

Non-Member $55

Student $20

SCHOLARSHIP SLOTS:

VAPS has received a local chapters small grant award from Section IV: Local Chapters, a section of Division 39 of the APA that will fund up to twenty scholarship slots for mental health professionals working in high risk settings. Please contact Georgia DeGangi, Ph.D. at gdegangi@gmail.com for an application to be considered for one of these awards.

Cancellation Policy: No refunds after September 20, 2025

Continuing Education Credits:

2 Continuing education credits are available for Psychologists, Social Workers, Psychoanalysts, Analysts, and Licensed Mental Health Counselors for each of the short workshops if attended in their entirety. Upon participant’s completion of the program evaluation for each workshop, a corresponding certificate of completion will be issued.

VAPS and SPPP (Division 39) are committed to accessibility and nondiscrimination in CE activities and will conduct all activities in conformity with the APA’s Ethical Principles for Psychologists. If participants have special needs, reasonable efforts will be made to accommodate them. Please address questions, concerns, and any complaints to Georgia DeGangi, Ph.D. at gdegangi@gmail.com.

Participants are asked to be aware of the need for privacy and confidentiality throughout the program. If program content becomes stressful, participants are encouraged to take breaks as needed and process these feelings during discussion periods. There is no commercial support for either program or any relationship between the CE sponsor, presenting organization, and presenter that could reasonably be considered a conflict of interest.

Participants will be informed of the utility/validity of the content/approach discussed (including the basis for the statements about validity/utility), as well as the limitations of the approach and most common (and severe) risks, if any, associated with the program’s content.

VAPS a local chapter of the Division of Psychoanalysis (39): Society for Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalytic Psychology (SPPP) of the American Psychological Association (APA).

SPPP (Division 39) is approved by the APA to sponsor continuing education (CE) for psychologists. SPPP (Division 39) maintains responsibility for the program and its content.