Winnicott and Lacan: a Missed Encounter?

Abstract

Winnicott was able to say that Lacan’s paper on the mirror stage “had certainly influenced” him, while Lacan argued that he found his object a in Winnicott’s transitional object. By following the development of their personal relations, as well as of their theoretical discussions, it is possible to argue that this was a missed encounter—yet a happily missed one, since the misunderstandings of their theoretical exchanges allowed each of them to clarify concepts otherwise difficult to discern.

• Hallucination
• Lacan
• object a
• transitional object
• analyst’s position
• reality
• self
• mirror stage
• Winnicott