Motherless Subjects and Mothered Selves

The Implications of Jacques Lacan's and Donald Winnicott's Writings on the Formation of the 'I' for American Studies

Bibliographic Data

ID3852272
AuthorsJustyna Wierzchowska (0000-0003-0078-6018, Institute of English Studies, University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland, corresponding author)
Year2018
Volume16
Issue1-2
Pages1-17
Publication date2018-04-03
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueComparative American Studies An International Journal (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1477-5700 • E-ISSN: 1741-2676
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14775700.2019.1617518
OpenAlexW2946028356
LanguageEN
References cited41

This article contrasts the theories of ego formation put forward in Jacques Lacan's 'The Mirror Stage' and Donald Winnicott's 'The Mirror Role of the Mother,' and discusses their methodological implications for the field of American studies. While Lacan theorises subjectivity as irreparably split and (self-)alienated, Winnicott offers an optimistic version of a self which is sustained in its going-on-being by a nourishing maternal presence. These disparate conceptualisations of the human being produce two powerful frames through which to approach culture. Yet, while Lacan is widely recognised in the American studies scholarship, Winnicott remains virtually unknown. This article aims to enhance the visibility of the British author by outlining the productivity of his ideas for any cultural or literary analysis. By stressing the foundational significance of the primary bond Winnicott's theory intervenes in the recent critiques of neoliberal capitalism which remain halted in a Lacanian-like melancholic mode, masked by a cultural command of perpetual enjoyment. The Winnicottian perspective challenges Lacan's fixation on the unattainable objects of desire, reiterated by the neoliberal myth of self-perfection through consumption, and offers an alternative pattern of human sociality, based on relational, self-reflexive moderation

Aesthetics · Ambivalence · ego and super-ego · Epistemology · Id, ego and super-ego · Psychoanalysis · Scholarship · Self · Sociology · Subjectivity · Contemporary Literature and Criticism · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · Philosophy · Psychoanalysis, Philosophy, and Politics · Psychology