Holding Environment

This concept is central, as it links my main two areas together. My research interest lies in the possibility of using creative life writing to work towards a more fluid

relationship with life-held narratives, which requires letting go of grounding in familiar identities and entering into an internal space that can feel unfamiliar and disturbing, as unconscious and semiconscious material emerges. Winnicott’s notion of the holding environment offers insight into the importance of creating a contained and safe space (both psychological and physical) for this creative process to take place. The idea of a holding environment is central to the conditions needed for creativity and self-growth to take place, which Winnicott believes to be intrinsically connected with each other. He used the term ‘holding’ to refer to the supportive environment that a therapist creates for a client. He compares this relationship between a mother and her child, where the mother is nurturing and caring which instils the child with a sense of trust and safety. For Winnicott the ‘holding environment’ is essential between mother and child for the child to achieve a ‘healthy development’ (Winnicott, 1965, p.44). He says the ‘infants come in to being differently according to whether the conditions are favourable or unfavourable’ (ibid p.43) . He highlights the ‘importance of personal and environmental influences in the development of the individual’ (ibid, p.37), based on the notions that without a ‘good enough holding’ the various stages of development ‘cannot be attained’ (ibid, p.44). A holding environment allows the child or adult to feel secure and explore the relationship between their inner psychic world and outer realities.

I began to see the necessity of a holding environment as I worked to develop a writing space in the salon, as well as a ‘holding’ space for the writing process for my own doctoral thesis. Drawing from the works of Winnicott I began to recognise the importance of creating a ‘safe enough’ holding space that would facilitate rather than inhibit writer’s explorations of personal memories and experiences. Holding

environments such as the creative life writing group in the salon allows for feelings and emotions to be explored and expressed safely. Celia Hunt says that for creativity to take place we ‘have to find our own particular ways of holding the space for the imagination’ (Hunt & Sampson, 2006, p.70). The holding space therefore enables the writer to enter into an imaginative space.

1.32 ‘Potential Space’

Winnicott calls the space for the imagination the potential space, where inner reality and outer life meet (Winnicott, 1971, p.3). He states that the potential space, also referred to as an intermediate area of experiencing is first established during the early stages of a child’s life, when it starts experiencing itself as separate from the mother, which he refers to as the transitional stage. The child’s experience of being alone and the effectiveness of the potential space vary between individuals and depend on the nurturing and trust that the mother has bestowed on the child. The child is gradually able to be alone because the unconscious has become imbued with the presence of the mother; gained a ‘sense of benign inner presence’ (Hunt and Sampson, 2006, p.79). The sense of the mother’s presence also exists in transitional objects, such as toys, blankets and teddy bears that the child has brought into the potential space. These are objects that have been introduced by the mother and are associated with her: ‘The object represents the infant’s transition from a state of being merged with the mother to a state of being in relation to the mother as something outside and separate’

(Winnicott, 1971, p.19). The transitional objects in the holding environment begin the process of individuation, when the child begins to separate her sense of self from her mother and becomes aware of ‘me’ and ‘not me’ (Winnicott, 1965, p.45).

For Winnicott the benign inner presence is imperative for the child as she enters into a transitional space, a potential space of exploration between her inner and outer worlds. The transitional objects that represent the outer world facilitate the first experience of play (ibid, p.130). The holding space is critical during this transitional stage, if the child does not feel safe, the experience of playing can be frightening and chaotic. Winnicott claims that play starts between mother and child and therefore the playground is a potential space between them (ibid, p.64). For Winnicott the idea of playing is related to the preoccupation of the child which he refers to as being ‘lost in play’: ‘The playing child inhabits an area that cannot be easily left, nor can it easily admit intrusions’ (ibid, p.69). For Winnicott the intermediate area of experiencing and the transitional objects facilitate the child’s first creative act, which becomes the foundation for subsequent acts of creativity in adulthood.

My research interest lies in the exploration of the potential space, the imaginative space where persons’ inner and outer realities come together. Entering an imaginative space can allow writers to let go of their current self–narratives, which may be fixed or limited and engage in a more fluid and multifaceted sense of self. Winnicott’s concept of play is fundamental to the creative life writing workshop: ‘it is only in playing that the child or adult is able to be creative and to use the whole personality, and it is only in being creative that the individual discovers the self’ (ibid, p.73). My research explores how the salon and the creative life writing workshop in different ways serves as holding spaces for the client/writer to enter into a personal exploration of their own life stories. In the context of my research I explore the salon as a

have been brought into the writing group that support the clients/writers to enter a dialogical relationship between their own inner and outer realities.

In the context of my research when I refer to the imaginative space or space for the imagination I draw on Winnicott’s concept of the potential space.