Holding Environment: Is this "good enough?"

 

I saw this picture of me holding my son when he was about one year old (2004). Reminded me of Mark Epstein's references to D.W. Winnicott's emphasis on the "good enough" parent, one who meets the child with an attuned holding environment from which the child emerges as an intact human being.

"An infant who is held well enough is quite a different thing for one who has not been held well enough...The reason why this special property of infant care must be mentioned...is that in the early stages of emotional development, before the senses have been organised, before there is something that could be called an autonomous ego, very severe anxieties are experienced.  In fact, the word 'anxiety' is of no use, the order of infant distress at this stage being of the same order as that which lies behind panic, an panic is already a defense against the agony that makes people commit suicide rather than remember. I have meant to use strong language here. You see two infants: one has been held (in my extended sense of the word) well enough, and there is nothing to prevent a rapid emotional growth, according to inborn tendencies. The other has not the experience of being held well and growth has had to be distorted and delayed, and some degree of primitive agony has to be carried on into life and living. Let it be said that in the common experience of good-enough holding the [parent] has been able to supply an auxiliary ego-function, so that the infant has had an ego from the early start, a very feeble, personal ego, but one boosted by the sensitive adaptation of the [parent] and by [the parent's] ability to identify with [the] infant in relation to basic needs. The infant who has not had this experience has either needed to develop premature ego functioning, or else there has developed a muddle." (Winnicott, cited in Epstein, 2013, pp. 29-30--Trauma of Everyday Life) 

May my holding be good enough.