TY - JOUR T1 - Good enough is good enough! JF - British Journal of General Practice JO - Br J Gen Pract SP - 311 LP - 311 DO - 10.3399/bjgp17X691409 VL - 67 IS - 660 AU - Charlotte Sidebotham Y1 - 2017/07/01 UR - http://bjgp.org/content/67/660/311.abstract N2 - ‘Ring the bells that still can ringForget your perfect offeringThere is a crack in everythingThat’s how the light gets in.’(Leonard Cohen, ‘Anthem’, from the 1992 album The Future)1Forget the perfect offering? As I look up to the dizzying heights of perfection, I wonder if this can possibly be true. Yet, paediatrician Donald Winnicott took the parenting world by storm in the 1950s by introducing the concept of ‘good enough’:2 ‘The good-enough mother … starts off with an almost complete adaptation to her infant’s needs, and as time proceeds she adapts less and less completely, gradually, according to the infant’s growing ability to deal with her failure.’2,3He argued that the good-enough mother was better than the perfect mother. He suggested … ER -