Recognition in Winnicott’s “The Use of an Object and Relating Through Identifications”
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8332035 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Giuseppe Civitarese (0000-0002-3466-4329, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 74 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 261-300 |
| Publication date | 2025-05-31 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0003-0651 • E-ISSN: 1941-2460 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/00030651251337421 |
| PMID | 40448565 |
| OpenAlex | W4410915111 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 24 |
A seminal text in psychoanalytic literature, “The Use of an Object and Relating Through Identifications,” like the Sphinx, continues to challenge us. At birth, the infant attempts to destroy the object, and if the mother survives this destruction, the child gains a sense of reality. In this essay, Winnicott challenges classical conceptions of aggression, viewing destruction as an expression of love and innate vitality. He critiques idealized views of the mother-child relationship, emphasizes the role of the real object, and anticipates a social theory of subjectivity where creation of meaning is central. He reiterates that destruction is typically only potential. The essay argues that, like negation in Hegel’s dialectic of recognition, destruction—even if partial—must occur and be reciprocal. Only through “alteration of each” (Nancy) can the transition be made from an omnipotent relationship (“relating”) to a more mature one (“use”). Winnicott’s lexical choices—“destruction,” “relating,” and “use”—contribute to the enduring relevance of the essay. Rereading this classic work today highlights the metapsychological significance of recognition as a framework for understanding therapeutic action. Above all, it helps avoid misinterpreting recognition as merely a deliberate or conscious act, or reducing it to a purely descriptive clinical term
Dialectic · Epistemology · Linguistics · Meaning (existential) · Negation · Object (grammar) · Object relations theory · Psychoanalysis · Psychoanalytic theory · Psychotherapist · Subjectivity · Philosophy · Psychoanalysis and Social Critique · Psychoanalysis, Philosophy, and Politics · Psychology · Psychotherapy Techniques and Applications
Being Singular Plural
The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment
Hegel's Ethics of Recognition
Early Theological Writings
The Use of an Object
Psychoanalysis and Colonialism
Revisiting Destruction in “The Use of an Object”
Destruction reconceived
The limits of interpretation. A reading of Bion’s “On Arrogance”
The concept of time in Bion's “A Theory of Thinking”
Symmetry and Asymmetry in the Analytic Process
Intersubjectivity And Analytic Field Theory
The Waning of the Oedipus Complex
We-Community, Ineinandersein and Intersubjectivity in Psychoanalysis
Upgrade to PI.4, or rethinking projective identification from the vertex of the analytic field
Phenomenology of Perception
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |