Introducing Child Psychology

All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
Leo Tolstoy

Defenceless as babies are, they have mothers at their command, families to protect the mothers, societies to support the structure of families, and traditions to give a cultural continuity to systems of tending and training.
Erikson

later strong relationships and emotional experiences throughout life contribute to the individual’s psychosocial development.

The third point is evident in the contribution of Donald Winnicott’s ideas to the work of psychotherapists. In their work, therapists seek to re-create the qualities of the early ideal mother-and-infant relationship as a way of healing older children and adults and forming psychological well-being and health. In essence, this ideal relationship offers love and playfulness, something Winnicott referred to as a ‘play space’, in combination with encouragement to be independent and self-aware.