Commencing The Piggle:

Before I began my MA, I determined to pre-read as much as possible. I know how slow a reader I am and I avoided English as a subject throughout my undergraduate degree because I knew I wouldn't be able to keep up. So I was pretty nervous about the MA. I was informed that there were no set texts and that the reading list evolved according to interest and demand during the course. This made me even more nervous, so I simply chose as many titles as I could afford and could find from the reading guide. One of these was The Piggle by D W Winnicott. I was extremely excited by the idea that psychoanalysis could be part of the study of children's literature. Ironically, I ran out of time to read it before the commencement of the MA and we never looked at it during the course. However, it has sat there and intrigued me ever since, so I have decided to read it anyway.

This will be an interesting experience for me, because it will encourage me to re-examine the issues I had with critical thinking, which ultimately led me to withdraw from a PhD with the most fearsomely intelligent and yet helpful supervisor I could ever hope to learn from. When I first began to understand the approach to the MA, I was hugely excited. Suddenly, everything was open to me. I need not choose whether my interest in censorship belonged in the realm of sociology, theology, cultural studies, literature, history or somewhere else entirely. Every text was available to my study. I was overwhelmed by the sense of infinity offered by critical thinking - at first I was afraid that I would never get to grip with the sheer lack of limitations and the endless possibilities created by critically examining texts.

Ultimately, however, I became disillusioned, and I do not yet know why. I do know that the more I read, the more I felt that critical approaches were just that - critical. There seemed to be an enormous dominance of negativity and rejection of beliefs. Challenging assumptions is exciting, but in the end, once everything is crushed and nothing is built, I found that infinity was looking remarkably like a circle from which I could not escape. Quite a narrow circle at that, if such is possible. From the limitless, I felt suddenly limited and claustrophobic.

The biggest question for me revolved around how I could use what I had learned of critical thinking and fight the limitations I appeared to have evolved for myself. Sadly, I was not equal to the challenge - at least at that time. I was dreadfully frustrated, feeling that if I had only sufficient intelligence and creativity of perspective, I would find a way through. Ultimately, I was more afraid of simply fulfilling the requirements of the PhD and giving my supervisor what she wanted than I was of withdrawing. The PhD would be a very empty achievement for me if it became simply a product designed according to specifications and not a personal journey.

And so, to The Piggle. Karin explained to me that Winnicott's analysis was an example of never allowing assumptions to rule a relationship - in his work with the young child, even his previous encounters did not dictate his attitude towards and beliefs about her. Each time he met her afresh and negotiated with her the rules of their current relationship, as it existed at that minute. This is an example of true critical thinking applied to living - a world in which people continually examine, challenge and if necessary discard their own mindsets and assumptions; meeting each person and each situation as existing and needing to be negotiated now, regardless of any history. This shows true respect and also opens the door to seeing the world (to borrow from Anais Nin) as it is and not merely as we are.

What will I think of it now? I want to write my thoughts down first, before they become influenced by my reading. Will it take me a step towards infinity, will I be again frustrated by circularity, or has my brain atrophied so far since its last attempts at critical thinking that I will not be able to even recognise what it has to offer? I want to know.

Early thoughts on The Piggle:

The first thing that struck me about The Piggle was the quality of the letters written by the mother to Winnicott. She describes her daughter, not in terms of behaviour disturbances that disrupt the household, but in terms of her perception of her child's quality of life. Waking frequently at night screaming doesn't bring questions of "how do we get her to sleep through the night?" but rather brings about analysis of this kind:

Often she seems vivid and spontaneous and fully alive, but we thought we should ask for your help at this time, lest she should settle down and harden herself against her distress as the only way of coping with it.

I wonder if, as a mother with two small children, I would be able to retain such a wonderful level of empathy and focus on the needs of my child rather than on the needs of the household as a whole?

My first thoughts about Winnicott's involvement were that he was bringing to bear all his psychiatric training, beliefs and attitudes on his analysis. How, I wondered, did this reflect the kind of abandonment of assumption that I was told existed in this book? Then I noticed the way he played with Gabrielle (The Piggle). My knowledge of children is very limited, but I remember just recently that when I was playing with my niece, she would often correct me if I said the wrong thing. I had to follow the game as she saw it in her head - I couldn't make up my own speeches. I could ad lib, just so long as my speeches didn't contradict her plan. "No, you can't say that!" she would frequently tell me and I would have to ask for guidance. I vividly remember that when I was very young, I would get frustrated if an adult tried to play dolls with me because they would make the dolls sound silly and fake. I wanted them to sound like real people (actually, I still cringe when I hear people reciting or acting The famous five because they sound so horribly fake and like "I'm reading a fairy story to a small child").

Winnicott obviously had a lot more experience with children than I have (there you go, I'm ascribing mindsets and assumptions to him that were positively helpful rather than unhelpful in the scenario!). Yes, he used his knowledge and background to help him make educated guesses, but he continually checked his role in the games he played with Gabrielle - asking her if his planned approach was the right one. At other times he would take a stand and adopt a particular attitude, closely watching her to see whether he was on the right or wrong track.

Here, then, is the wonderful merging of assumption and close attention to the now - the step out of the endless circle. I did always wonder how I could expect to really come to grips with texts from a discipline in which I had no background. Yes, I know that Karin can look at any text in any discipline and pick out the shaky assumptions and premises that are likely to trip up the writer, and that's an enviable and wonderful skill. And yet, somehow, I had managed not to take from my sessions the fact that critical thinking is a wonderful tool, but not in any way a substitute for knowledge and training. It should have been obvious from Karin's explanations, thinking back, but it wasn't. Clearly, at some point, our communications failed to fully engage, which is a great shame. Winnicott needed his firm foundations before he could prepare himself to abandon them - a bit like the maxim that in order to successfully break the rules of art, you first need to know what they are. I wonder at what point in my PhD experience I managed to lose contact with this vital knowledge.

Another delight about this book is the simplicity of language. The ideas are not facile, and yet the language lacks jargon and complexity. One of my bugbears in trying to undertake the PhD was the preponderence of "academic speak" when I really wasn't certain that it ought to be necessary to dig through layers of language in order to reach the ideas beneath.

I am more interested than ever to know what this book has to offer me and where, in the long term, it might take me...

After finishing The Piggle:

The question I started this book with was whether it could help me understand how to use critical analysis in a way that would be open-ended and positive rather than narrow and critical. In the end, I'm not sure it has completely, but it was certainly interesting. It seems to me that the author made lots of assumptions eg Gabrielle described as playing with the intensity belonging to five year olds - this is a clear generalisation about the nature of five year olds. And frustratingly, he just "knew" at one of the sessions that it was time to call the child Gabrielle and not The Piggle. He knew from some, presumably nonverbal, initial communication from her that she was now Gabrielle. He greeted her that way before she could tell him of her change of name. This must have been wonderful for her, but there is no information on how he "knew" or what in Gabrielle revealed this to him.

I think what I found most fascinating was the fact that no issue was ever "solved" but was always "resolved". Dr Winnicott interpreted Gabrielle's play and she either agreed or disagreed with his interpretations. When he correctly interpreted her fears and anxieties, he did absolutely nothing with them. Any "mending" was left entirely to Gabrielle; what was important was the identification, articulation and understanding. Bringing the fears into the open and sharing them was all that was required for resolution.

And I suppose that's what I love most about this book. If I am to take anything from it in terms of critical analysis, it's a belief in the power of deep understanding. Gabrielle thrived on being truly and deeply understood, in having her communications recognised for what they were, articulated and completely accepted in the shared space. Perhaps that is a path for critical analysis - not negative circularity, but the "holding" of someone or something through complete understanding of the message. ( )