Winnicott’s foundation for the basic concepts of Freud’s metapsychology?

Abstract

In a recent paper, Fulgencio shows how Winnicott rejected the basic speculative concepts of Freud’s metapsychology – Trieb, psychical apparatus and libido – and replaced them with non‐speculative concepts that promoted a factual theorization. In this paper, the author examines some of Winnicott’s concepts and attempts to demonstrate how, rather than replacing Freud’s concepts, he provides a factual foundation for the metapsychology in the double dependence of the infant in care. Freud never actually disregards the necessity of early mothering but he takes it for granted. By differentiating between ego needs and id needs, ego‐relatedness and id‐relatedness, object‐mother and environment‐mother, Winnicott attempts to theorize what Freud takes for granted: the function of the holding environment as a framework for id‐experiences and the function of object‐presenting as a condition of reality‐testing. Furthermore, by differentiating between pure male and pure female elements, he is also able to construct a highly speculative theorization in order to distinguish two basic principles: doing and being. Although the death drive is clearly rejected, this rejection follows from his theorization of double dependence. Consequently, the author suggests that Winnicott did not discard metapsychological concepts but theorized the conditions for using both these and the intrapsychic topography.

Key words:

• double dependence
• foundation
• metapsychology

1. Translated by Sophie Leighton.

1. Translated by Sophie Leighton.

Notes

1. Translated by Sophie Leighton.

2. The circumspection with which this hypothesis was greeted by psychoanalysts is still a matter of debate. In France, to my knowledge, it is essentially Amado who has directly tackled its ontological dimension. I was therefore very interested to discover, from Fulgencio, the works by Loparic and the Research Group in Philosophy and Psychotherapeutic Practices in São Paulo.