The "good enough" thesis
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Authors
Caplan, Hart
Issue Date
2020-04-01
Type
Thesis
Language
en
Keywords
Martin Heidegger , temporality , D.W. Winnicott , daseinanalysis , gelassenheit , existential psychotherapy , grief and loss , brief therapy
Alternative Title
Abstract
In the early 1950s, the British Psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott coined the phrase "good enough mother" in an effort to describe the fundamentally productive middle ground between bad mothering and the will towards perfect mothering. Good enough parenting—to bring Winnicott into the 21st century—is appropriate precisely because it recognizes that the disappointments and disillusionment of the child are not only productive but essential in the development of the child's sense of self, relationship with parents, and relationship to the world. This thesis is a representation of the good-enoughness of my experience as a Master of Counselling student—i.e. as student, author, and Counsellor. In it I explore the themes of temporality, death, existentialism, and the meditative in both a presentist and historical mode of inquiry. With particular emphasis on the intellectual legacy of Martin Heidegger, I propose an orientation towards the development of what I call "the making of the nature of the Being of the counsellor."