Thinking in the space between Winnicott and Lacan

Bibliographic Data

ID9056544
AuthorsDeborah Anna Luepnitz (University of Pennsylvania Department of PsychiatryOffice address: 4247 Locust Street, Apt #817Philadelphia, PA 19104USA, corresponding author)
Year2009
Volume90
Issue5
Pages957-981
Publication date2009-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe International Journal of Psychoanalysis (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0020-7578 • E-ISSN: 1745-8315
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1745-8315.2009.00156.x
PMID19821847
OpenAlexW1939592854
LanguageEN
Citations received10
References cited34

The author, following André Green, maintains that the two most original psychoanalytic thinkers since Freud were Donald Winnicott and Jacques Lacan. Winnicott, it has been said, introduced the comic tradition into psychoanalysis, while Lacan sustained Freud's tragic/ironic vision. Years of mutual avoidance by their followers (especially of Lacan by Anglophone clinicians) has arguably diminished understanding of the full spectrum of psychoanalytic thought. The author outlines some basic constructs of Winnicott and of Lacan, including: their organizing tropes of selfhood versus subjectivity, their views of the "mirror stage", and their definitions of the aims of treatment. While the ideas of Winnicott and Lacan appear at some points complementary, the goal is not to integrate them into one master discourse, but rather to bring their radically different paradigms into provocative contact. A clinical vignette is offered to demonstrate concepts from Lacan and Winnicott, illustrating what it might mean to think and teach in the potential space between them

Art · Comics · Epistemology · Literature · Psychoanalysis · Psychoanalytic theory · Space (punctuation) · Subject (documents) · Subjectivity · Academic and Historical Perspectives in Psychology · Historical Psychiatry and Medical Practices · Philosophy · Psychology · Psychotherapy Techniques and Applications