Winnicott

Ego is described by D. W. Winnicott as “that part of the growing human personality that tends, under suitable conditions, to become integrated into a unit.”  The phenomenon of False Self and its companion concept, True Self contribute to our understanding of what those suitable conditions are. First, what is the self? Although the individual self cannot be described only as id or ego, and the mystery of it cannot truly be grasped, we can sense that it exists. The self is expressed quite simply by Winnicott as "'the person who is me'" . It seems, then, that the False Self is the person I pretend is me. We will consider the early childhood origin and development of the False Self as it is formed in relation to the other, what the False Self personality looks like and what the healthy and unhealthy aspects of the False Self are. Finally, we will observe how the True Self appears in the aliveness of creativity and in the connection of personal relationships.

Resumo: O presente artigo é uma revisão bibliográfica que apresenta conceitos importantes da clínica winnicottiana. A interação entre o indivíduo e o ambiente é um dos temas centrais na obra de Winnicott. Os conceitos apresentados neste artigo sustentam esta premissa e apontam caminhos na clínica para um trabalho voltado para o campo da construção de si. Na entrevista aqui apresentada, o psicólogo Daniel Werneck de Vasconcellos comenta sobre o trabalho clínico de orientação winnicottiana que mira na direção da integração do eu, do estabelecimento de relações com a realidade externa e da responsabilização pela própria vida.

Palavras-chaves: conceitos de Winnicott, abordagem clínica winnicottiana, borderlines

Abstract: This article is a bibliographical review that presents important concepts of the Winnicottian clinic. The interaction between the individual and the environment is one of the central issues in Winnicott's work. The concepts presented in this article support this premise and point out ways in the clinic for a work focused on the field of self-construction. The interviewed psychologist, Daniel Werneck de Vasconcellos comments on the clinical work of Winnicottian orientation that aims at the integration of the self, the establishment of relations with external reality and the responsibility for own life.

Cet article introduit quatre textes de D.W. Winnicott restés jusqu’alors inédits en français : « Jeu dans la situation analytique » (1954), « Le destin de l’objet transitionnel » (1959), « Notes sur le jeu » (non daté) et, enfin, « Le jeu du squiggle » (1964-1968). Après une présentation de la démarche qui a mené à la traduction, chaque texte est brièvement présenté avec une mise en contexte de leur émergence au regard de l’oeuvre de Winnicott.

Summary
This article introduces four texts written by D.W. Winnicott unpublished until now in French: “Play in the analytic situation” (1954), “The Fate of the transitional object” (1959), “Notes on play” (undated) and finally, “the squiggle game” (1964-1968). After a presentation of the process that led to the translation, each text is briefly presented in order to set the context of their emergence in relation to Winnicott’s work.

so clearly shows in his dissertation, between the 8 th and 14 th centuries there were illuminating phenomenological distinctions that were considered essential to understand the great perfection practice of awareness, becoming aware of awareness. These distinctions were primarily made by the Nyingma masters of meditation. The most basic distinction is between the mind of dualistic experience (sems) and the primordial awareness of naturalistic non-dualistic experience or primordial knowingness (ye shes) or (semde). This ye shes is non dualistic knowingness. Unfortunately, many Buddhist texts describe dualism as deluded and non-dualism as non-deluded. This language of delusion is highly prejudiced and is nihilistic in tone and devalues the oneness of the two truths (conventional and absolute reality). They devalue the indivisibility of appearance and awareness and moreover, challenge the validity of the foundational human experience of oneness and difference or duality within non duality. This negative use of language unhappily challenges the divinity of appearance and invalidates the human experience of the Nirmanakaya dimension which is ordinary life. The differentiation and distinction of mind from awareness prevents the bewildering confusion of mind and awareness resulting in the negation of either the experience of non-duality or the experience of duality. Much of the understanding about the difference between mind and awareness was presented in the unfolding of the seventeen Atiyoga tantras that brought forth the heart essence tradition (sying thig). These teachings and instructions are part of the instructional teachings of Dzogchen. These teachings are instructional in the forms of skillful means or praxis for bringing the experience of awareness of awareness into completion. This completion is experiencing the fullness of experience of personal awareness within the vast infinite and multidimensional field of awareness. The essential method is to experience directly and completely primordial knowingness as well as the manifestations of this primordial knowingness such as mind, innermost subjectivity and external phenomenal appearance. Mind, subjectivity and all appearance are the manifestation of primordial knowingness itself. Primordial awareness is the primordial and abiding pervasive condition. Our experience of non-conceptual knowingness or non-conceptual perception opens us to the direct understanding and direct non-conceptual experience that everything and anything is the manifestation of primordial or ground awareness. Primordial awareness is radiance openness or radiant emptiness. Primordial awareness is not simply emptiness alone but the oneness of openness and radiance spaciousness as light. The incompleteness of emptiness alone is recognized by the 14 th century Nyingma master Longchenpa. Awareness is the union of spaciousness and radiance.

RESUMEN
La función de espejo del rostro materno se constituye en un nudo cardinal de la red conceptual de Winnicott, donde confluyen varios hilos muy destacables  de su urdimbre teórica. Entre ellos los que corresponden a la dependencia, el desarrollo, la paradoja, lo transicional y el self.
SUMMARY
In the mirroring function of the mother, which constitutes a cardinal theoretical concept in Winnicott´s work, many of his most outstanding ideas

A partir de Donald Winnicott, l’auteur propose de penser la capacité d’illusion comme étant à la base de tout lien entre un individu et son environnement. Cette capacité n’est pas innée et s’acquiert, habituellement, à un stade précoce du développement ouvrant aux phénomènes transitionnels. Mais cette capacité à utiliser l’illusion dépend des capacités de la mère à elle-même utiliser l’illusion. Il s’agirait donc de penser dans un premier temps une transmission, de la mère à l’enfant, de cette capacité. Dans un second temps, l’auteur propose l’exposé d’un cas clinique mettant en lumière les défaillances possibles de cette transmission, leurs effets et la façon dont on peut remettre au travail l’illusion et la capacité à jouer dans un cadre psychothérapeutique.

British psychoanalyst D. W. Winnicott (1896-1971) developed an original theory involving controversial ideas such as the destruction of the patient and the merger of the subjective and objective worlds into a whole. He argued that C. G. Jung suffered from a severe pathology, which affected his theoretical outlook. This article argues to the contrary: Winnicott’s own theory displays a narcissistic kind of structure. His dream appears to be an unconscious reaction against an unsupportable conscious attitude. Winnicott is much concerned with how to defend against patients and their invasive pathology. It functions as a system of defence for the psychologically weak therapist; an attitude that is harmful to patients. The article contributes to the understanding of narcissism.

Keywords: narcissism, negative mother complex, potential space, relational field, suicide-cult, purity, unit personality.

In this short essay I propose to conceptualise the Winnicottian notion of 'healing regression' and project its possible existential sense from the perspective of structural temporality of 'care' as ontological category.

Resumen
En este breve ensayo me propongo conceptualizar la noción winnicottiana de 'regresión curativa' y proyectar su posible sentido existencial desde la perspectiva de la temporeidad estructural del 'cuidado' como categoría ontológica.

Este trabajo intentará vincular los postulados de Winnicott y Piaget a partir de ciertas preguntas-guía: ¿Qué funciones cumple el «jugar» en tanto práctica especifica del niño a lo largo de su desarrollo? ¿Qué relaciones pueden establecerse entre «el jugar» y «el pensar»? Si para Piaget la acción del sujeto sobre el objeto era estructuradora de los primeros esquemas de conocimiento –los esquemas de acción basados en la dinámica de la asimilación, la acomodación y la adaptación del sujeto por sobre el objeto-, y si para Winnicott el juego es considerado como una «práctica central del bebé y del niño» y, más precisamente, como «una operación capital de la existencia psíquica en su emerger», siendo «lo que la pone en movimiento» al ser una forma originaria de subjetivación (Rodulfo; 2013: 179); cómo pensar, entonces, la estructuración de los esquemas de conocimiento y la conformación de la subjetividad a partir del juego; cómo lo conciben uno y otro autor.

The existing body of psychoanalytic literature relating to the process of
making visual art does not include formal studies of first-hand reports from
contemporary artists. This thesis addresses that gap through the creation
of a new series of artworks and through a qualitative study of artists’
accounts of the states of mind they experience as they work. It aims to
provide new evidence relating to the artist’s creative process and to
question the extent to which psychoanalytic theory in the Winnicottian
tradition can account for artists’ experiences.
My methodology was two-fold: I kept a written record of my own states of
mind as I created six video, installation and animation artworks; I also
conducted thirty in-depth interviews with professional fine artists. The
testimony of the artists and myself was interrogated using psychoanalytic
theory from the Winnicottian and British Object Relations tradition.
Winnicottian theory was chosen because it offers a particular
understanding of the inter-relationship between inner and outer worlds
and the thesis considers the artist’s process in these terms.
Drawing on Winnicottian theory, the thesis presents the artist’s process as
a series of interconnected and overlapping stages in which there is a
movement between the artist’s inner world, the outer world of shared
‘reality’ and the spaces between. The research reveals aspects of artists’
experiences that are not fully accounted for by the existing literature. To
address these gaps, the thesis proposes the introduction of several new
terms: ‘pre-sense’ for an as-yet undefined first intimation of the possibility
of a new artwork relating to a particular aspect of the outside world;
‘internal frame’ for a space within the artist’s mind, specific to a particular
medium, which the artist ‘enters’ when starting work; and ‘extended self’
and ‘observer self’ for two co-existent self-states that constitute the artist’s
working state of mind.

Se discuten las nuevas Bases Técnicas del Servicio Nacional de Menores (Sename) sobre políticas de adopción en la infancia, desde el pensamiento del psicoanalista Donald Winnicott. Se plantea que la teoría y clínica winnicottianas no se comprenden bien si no se tiene en cuenta su ética, que subraya el deseo e historia del niño y sus padres.Las consecuencias de esta posición son relevantes como instrumento de análisis crítico en tanto permite desentrañar la noción de infancia que fundamenta tales bases técnicas. Adicionalmente, este trabajo revitaliza las concepciones del psicoanalista inglés, al mostrar que su lectura aún puede iluminar nuestra manera de pensar las problemáticas de la infancia, incluso si estas se circunscriben a la realidad chilena actual.

Mind Alone For many years psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy was singularly centered on the unconscious mind and conscious mind. There was only mind and the mind could become aware of its own self and its own representational realm. The self itself was representational and the emphasis on the mind was in the light of analytic thinking and analytic observation. There was an emphasis on objectification of mental phenomena and subjectivity itself. Knowing was knowledge by association, by reflection and mediation by linguistic signifiers. Knowing was neither non-conceptual nor pre-reflective, nor was there a place for direct experiential knowingness. Knowing was associated as mind alone and singular mind functions such as thinking, feeling, sensation, memory and imagination. Transitional Space as Space of Awareness With the presentation of the work of Donald Winnicott there was a shift in the psychoanalytic understanding of knowingness. A similar change in psychoanalytic thinking about knowing was also taking place in the Jungian and archetypal analytic schools. In psychotherapy Winnicott emphasizes a focus on the suspension of mind and in the process of suspension of mind, awareness was freed to focus within awareness, free to focus itself on itself. In the suspension of mind (a Winnicottian form of the phenomenological reduction,) the patient relocates themselves. The patient relocates from being located in mind alone or even located in a particular function of mind alone such as: feeling function or thinking function or sensation function or memory function; the patient enters or relocates themselves into the intermediate area of experience. This intermediate area of experience or this in-between space of experience is also described as the transitional area of experience and relatedness. Sometime this place is also described as the place of potential space. The sense of self shifts from being located in the mind or mental function of the mind into the more embodied sense of spacious awareness or as the place of potential space. Winnicott would described this knowing

Alison Bechdel is both a driver and beneficiary of the welcoming of comics into the mainstream. Indeed, the seemingly simple binary of outside/inside seems perpetually troubled throughout the career of this important comics artist, known for Fun Home, Are You My Mother?, and Dykes to Watch Out For. This volume extends the body of scholarship on her work from a range of interdisciplinary perspectives.

In a definitive collection of original essays edited by Janine Utell, scholars cover the span of Bechdel’s career, placing her groundbreaking early work within the context of her more well-known recent projects. The contributors provide new insights on major themes in Bechdel’s work, such as gender performativity, masculinity, lesbian politics and representation, trauma, life writing, and queer theory.

Situating Bechdel among other comics artists, this book charts possible influences on her work, probes the experimental traits of her comics in their representations of kinship and trauma, combs archival materials to gain insight into Bechdel’s creative process, and analyzes her work in community building and space making through the comics form.

Ultimately, the volume shows that Bechdel’s work consists of performing a series of selves—serializing the self, as it were—each constructed and refracted across and within her chosen artistic modes and genres.

Contributions by Michelle Ann Abate, Leah Anderst, Alissa S. Bourbonnais, Tyler Bradway, Natalja Chestopalova, Margaret Galvan, Judith Kegan Gardiner, Katie Hogan, Jonathan M. Hollister, Yetta Howard, Katherine Kelp-Stebbins, Don L. Latham, Vanessa Lauber, Katherine Parker-Hay, Anne N. Thalheimer, Janine Utell, and Susan R. Van Dyne

In this paper, I study the narrative structure of comics as a means to describe the ways that indeterminate modes of representation can allow the reader to imagine that which in childhood can never be fully expressed. Analyzing a number of panels from Gilbert Hernandez's graphic novel, Marble Season, I describe a conceptual link between the psychoanalytic idea of sublimation (referencing the theories of Freud, Loewald, and Winnicott), and Raymond Williams’ notion of a “structure of feeling.” In particular, I examine the latency stage of childhood as a time where the challenges of individual development involve a struggle to channel into the social world, in potentially productive ways, the internalizations of lost love. I also explore how the gutter, the space between the panels in comics, may function as a zone of sublimatory reconciliation between the self and the object world, and where, in their interactions with the space in the middle, the reader invariably engages with the structure of childhood feeling as a product of their own reading.

Uma palestra sobre a forma como Winnicott situa a filosofia no espaço transicional. Procurei oferecer alguns argumentos e exemplos em suporte a isso, ressaltando, no entanto, que essa localização traz alguns problemas. Procurei indicar quais são. Essa palestra retoma os argumentos em favor de leituras de Winnicott que apresentei, em 2006, no meu livro,  "Ensino de Filosofia e Currículo".

As trust discourse has recently been in the center of public debate and has occupied public attention intensively, the focus of this research is to analyze different implications of trust in current social media environment and try to understand the relation between trust and social media in a wider social context. This research aims to capture some of the newer social trends that have emerged out of this relation, which could help us understand not only why we all of a sudden became so directed towards trust or how we construct social media as social space to contextualize this problem, but also indicate the ways in which social media, with trust as a catalyst, mediate the process of transformation of our social reality. In order to do so, the social web and the concept of trust are analyzed in the framework of different theories, such as Winnicott’s potential space, Habermas’s public sphere and Bourdieu’s habitus.

By becoming aware of awareness we can experience the innermost sense or the felt sense of spaciousness and self-illumination. Within this state of open awareness, the openness of spacious luminous awareness, we can enter the experience of the radiance of light as energy through the sublime, luminous vibrations. The experience of the unfolding of sublime awareness and the corresponding energetic manifestation of the self-arising of primordial awareness is self-liberation. These experiences of the sublime manifestation of luminous energy was described by the 14 th century Dzogchen master Longchenpa in his text Precious Treasury of The Genuine Meaning. This meditative experience often arises spontaneously in Dzogchen meditation practice. This experience of translucent energetic manifestation is also described in Chan Buddhism, Hindu Kashmir Shavism, and Yan Xin Qi Gong. This experience of energetic manifestation can be experienced within subtle forms of respiration. Sometimes the ongoing sense of subtle luminous respiration can be experienced even as there is a profound sense of breathlessness. Breathlessness used here means no breath or minimal breath. This experience of the ongoing sense of respiration without breath is very powerful and empowering. In this experience of vast stillness there is no breath and yet there arises from deep within, a most subtle respiration within the breathlessness. During this respiration of stillness, the body seems to breathe and be breathed by most subtle inner wind. The inner sense of stillness expands and extends throughout the entire body and beyond the body's boundaries. This stillness opens us into the dimension of potential space, the dharmakaya and pure awareness.

O interesse recente pelo estudo dos trabalhos de Winnicott no meio psicanalítico reflete a necessidade de refletir sobre os desafios enfrentados pelos psicanalistas na prática clínica na atualidade. Não é só no fazer clínico, a vida cotidiana, a política, a cultura de uma forma ampla ligam-se diretamente à nossa vida, como analistas e como  pessoas.

O estudo constata, de início, que, diferentemente da psicanálise freudiana para a qual é o complexo de Édipo que instaura o triângulo e a família, em Winnicott é a existência da família que propicia, pela instauração da saúde, a ocorrência da situação edipiana. Em seguida, mostra-se que a existência de uma família e sua pertença a ela só chega ao indivíduo como um fato a ser levado em conta num dado momento do amadurecimento em que já é possível o estabelecimento de relações com pessoas externas e separadas do eu. O estudo assinala, ainda, a importância crucial que Winnicott atribui à família enquanto ampliação do colo materno, o primeiro dos “círculos cada vez mais amplos” que irão aguardar a criança ao longo do amadurecimento na direção da autonomia e da socialização.

In this paper we explore the metaphor of the cocoon as a vehicle for enriching our understanding of organizational life. Deployed in clinical psychoanalysis to convey both intrapsychic experiences and interpersonal dynamics, the cocoon metaphor has yet to be applied to workplace dynamics. We outline the origins of the cocoon metaphor in the arts and in clinical psychoanalysis, noting its connotations as a both a fortified defense and a potentially generative space of growth. Drawing from Modell (1976) we frame the cocoon experience as a relational dynamic within and between individuals. In doing so we position the psychodynamics of organizational cocoons in the paradox described by Winnicott between the wish to be known and remain unknown. We explore how consultants, when they are able to create good enough holding environments, can foster free movement between the poles of this paradox, facilitating both generative retreat from others and movement towards others in the doing of work. We illustrate such facilitation of protective space in work settings with two vignettes presented from our experiences working in and consulting to organizations. We conclude by discussing the broader implications of thinking and working through cocoon phenomena in organizations.

"Patterns of psychoanalysis and theory of recognition. Axel Honneth’s intersubjective psyche". An overview of the several scopes and patterns used over time by Axel Honneth in his “theory of recognition” is presented. After a discussion of the use of object relations theory (especially with reference to D.W. Winnicott’s contributions) in Honneth’s 1992 book Struggle for Recognition, the theoretical revision of psychoanalysis in light of his theory of recognition is examined. Finally, Honneth’s suggestion of a new alliance between a renewed “critical theory” and psychoanalysis, which concerns also the dimension of political psychology, is discussed.

Viene offerta una panoramica sui differenti usi e le diverse forme di psicoanalisi utilizzate da Axel Honneth in relazione alla sua “teoria del riconoscimento” nel corso del tempo. Dopo una discussione dell’uso della teoria delle relazioni oggettuali (soprattutto nella concezione di D.W. Winnicott) in Lotta per il riconoscimento, del 1992, si prende in esame la revisione della psicoanalisi operata in termini di teoria del riconoscimento. Infine viene discussa la proposta di una nuova alleanza tra una “teoria critica” rinnovata e la psicoanalisi, che contempla anche il versante della psicologia politica.

摘要

基督徒該不該接受心理學的理論？相關爭議至今仍時有所聞。不過，筆者的立場是，心理學所探討的既是人類心理之種種，最簡單的作法或許便是肯定該學科對人類心理確實作出相關的觀察與分析，但卻不需要毫條件的、盲目的加以接納。至於它是人本或神本，不是筆者關心之所在。
筆者曾閱讀心理學中的母嬰理論，並深得啟發。此外，在信仰經歷和閱讀中，發現母親與嬰兒的互動堪與神人的互動關係作類比，而母嬰理論所作出的描述與分析，可為神人關係之討論作出貢獻。本文的目的，乃是呈現出這種的類比。本文第一部分，乃是介紹母嬰理論中的相關內容，第二部分則作出一個關聯性（correlative）的神人關係的解讀。

關鍵字：心理學、母嬰理論、溫尼格、神人關係、奧古斯丁、布爾格曼

The concept of transitional object inaugurated, in psychoanalysis, the investigation of the symbolic use of objects by the baby, in his/her initial experiences of separation. Other facets of the role played by the materiality and its importance for the emotional development, and also in the clinical setting, are discussed based on concepts such as precursor object, autistic object, comforting object, accessory object, tutor object, testimonial object, and mediation object. Our aim is to present an overview of these studies and data from the observation of the first year of life of a premature baby, using Esther Bick method. The constitution, the loss, or the recovery of the transitional experience – when placed under the perspective of the evolution of the use of inanimate objects – indicate a markedly active role of the premature baby regarding the experience of sustaining the game with its mother and – in her absence –, interacting with tutor objects

Artists are often addressed as experts of creativity – usually by understanding the term creativity in a more traditional theological sense: to create sthg. out of nothing. But there is another type of creativity, that is akin to the psychoanalytic endeavor: It is the process of creating something new and utterly different out of something that already exists. Just as we do in everyday life (e.g. skaters, hackers, or children, before rules are invented) it is part of every psychoanalytic process. By utilizing (but not limiting it to) Winnicott's concept of playing I would like to stress the importance of potentials of being bored and of a reality »under construction«, thus looking beyond omnipotence and subjectivity.

Psychoanalytic writing rarely features on university ethics curricula, so the idea that psychoanalysis has a place in the history of ethics may be a surprise. The aim of the paper is to show that it should not be. The strategy is to sketch in outline an enduring line of inquiry in the history of ethics, namely the Platonic-Aristotelian investigation of the relationship between human nature, human excellence and the human good, and to suggest that psychoanalysis exemplifies it too. But since the suggestion, once made, seems not only true but obviously true, the paper spends some time exploring why the place of psychoanalysis in the history of ethics has so often been overlooked, before developing the outline more fully and offering detailed reasons as to why psychoanalysis fits it. One consequence is that Freudian and (in a sense explained) ‘relational’ variants of psychoanalysis continue the Platonic-Aristotelian line of inquiry in interestingly different ways.