TRADUÇÃO

Meeting of the New York Psychoanalytic Society

November, 12, 1968, The use of an object. D. W. Winnicott, FRCP

Reunião da Sociedade Psicanalítica de Nova Iorque de 12 de novembro de 1968

(D. W. Winnicott, membro da Faculdade Real de Médicos "O uso de um objeto"¹)

David Milrod, M. D.

The central thesis of Dr Winnicott's paper is the proposition that the use of an object constitutes a more advanced and sophisticated stage of development than does relating to an object. It is a paper wich continues the author's long-standing interest in the individual's capacity to find and then use the "external" world with its own independence and autonomy. Object-relating, to Winnicott, implies cathectic changes investing the object with meaning; and via projection and identification the subject is depleted to the extend that something of the subject is found in the object. It can be described in terms of the subject as an isolate. If the object is to be used, it must be part of a shared reality and not "a bundle of projections". In exploring the use of an object, the analyst must therefore concern himself with the nature of the object as a reality and not as a projection. According to Winnicott, object usage can be described only in terms of the object's independent existence. The clinical paradigm would refer "relating" to a baby who in fact is feeding at the breast, but psychically is feeding on the projected self; whereas, "usage" would have the baby feeding on (using) milk from a woman's breast.

The capacity to use the object is not inborn, and depends on a facilitating environment to mature. At first there is object-relating, says Winnicott, and in the end there is use. In between lies the area of a most important change, whereby the subject finally accepts the object's position outside the sphere of his omnipotent control, as a separated external entity, and not as a projected one. Winnicott emphasized that this change, leading to acceptance of the object as an external reality, meant that the subject destroys the object. Thus, following, "subject relates to object" comes "subject destroys object". What may follow is "subject survives the destructions by subject", which leads to the subjects saying in effect: "You have value for me, because of your survival of my destruction of you. While I am loving you I am all the time destroying you in (unconscious) fantasy". In Winnicott's opinion fantasy is born here. At this point, the individual can use the object that survived, but the object is placed now outside the subject's omnipotent control. The subject can live a life in the world, but only by paying the price of on-going destruction (in unconscious fantasy) of the cathected object. Projection, at this point, assists in the subject's noticing what is there, but ceases to be the reason why the object is there. Central to Dr. Winnicott's thesis is the fact that the subjective object is not destroyed in fantasy, but objectively perceived object is. In order for the subject to have an experience, the object must survive. In analysis this means that the analyst, the analytic technique and the analytic setting must survive the pacient's destructive attacks - an activity which represents the patient's attempt to place the analyst outside his omnipotent control. Failing this effort to place the analyst out in the external world, the patient experiences only a kind of self-analysis. Positive changes in this area depend on the analyst's survival of the attacks rather than on interpretation.

The developmental phase involving the survival of the object is one in which the mother takes the baby through his first experiences of his attack on an object which nevertheless survives, an important part of what the mother does for the baby, according to the author. There are great variations in the ways in which babies are seen through this phase - much wider variations than quantitative estimates of inborn aggression. The author pointed out that there is no anger in the destruction of the object to which he refers, but joy at its survival. Also he stressed that the term "use" of an object did not mean exploitation of the object. There are areas of individual development which depend only on the individual. In this paper he focused on an area of individual development in which the survival or non-survival of the object, or a change in the object to a retaliatory object affects the development of the individual. The child runs a risk in his aggressive impulse toward the object - that of destroying the object or of turning the object towards retaliation. But, if successful, his aggression is rewarded in the object's continuing to be there, and "the world has begun". Illustrative case material was made available to discussants, but was not presented at the meeting.

Dr. Edith Jacobson questioned what Dr. Winnicott meant by "the use of an object" and his distinctions between relating to an object and use of an object. Dr Winnicott's description of object-relating involves projections and identifications depleting the subject in a process that results in something of the subject being found in the object. Dr Jacobson differed with this view sharply, stating that to her such a person is unable to relate on an advanced narcissistic libidinal level, or even to identify normally. Such a person forms narcissistic object relationships and narcissistic identifications. He fails in reality testing in his perception of the object's own reality. Dr Jacobson suggested that this difference might well be one of terminology, as most analysts in New York would describe "relating" on a more advance level in terms of accepting the object's independent existence. She also raised question about the destruction of the object in fantasy, between the stage of relating to, and the using the object. Essentially, Dr. Jacobson could not understand Dr. Winnicott's meaning of "destructive attack" and "survival"; and she described as an extreme statement his summary comment - that "the object is always being destroyed", a destruction which becomes the unconscious back-cloth for love of a real object. Dr. Jacobson's evaluation of the case material made available to her was that it was not convincing. She agreed that aggression has positive aspects, but felt that Dr. Winnicott overlooked those psychotic persons who are extremely destructive and whose patient therapists survive the destructive impulses without the positive results he describes.

Dr Samuel Ritvo also noted the different usage of the term object-relating in the author's paper. Dr. Winnicott limits relating to the subject as an isolate, and so it encompasses intrapsychic phenomena, projection and introjection. By contrast, to Dr. Winnicott object use involves the nature of the real object. Dr. Ritvo did not agree that analyst do not consider the environment in their work, although it may be easier to omit external reality; rather, they are guided by the complementary interaction of the subject and his external environment. Dr. Ritvo believed that the steps outlined by the author towards the acceptance of the object outside the self dealt with functional capacity of the ego to tolerate the qualities of delay and lack of gratification, and their accompanying anxiety reaction. But Dr. Ritvo could not understand the statement that acceptance of the object outside the subject's omnipotent control meant the destruction of the object. Dr. Ritvo suggested that Dr. Winnicott's concept that there is no real experience with the object, until the object survives destruction, may coincide with our understanding that the budding ego cathects the object with aggression when it experiences non-pleasure, and this, in turn, fosters differentiation of self from non-self. The formation of permanent object relationships is based on the capacity to tolerate frustration, a capacity which depends on the neutralization of aggression. The ability to neutralize aggression in turn can depend heavily on the facilitating environment. Dr. Ritvo thought that we could better understand the author's meaning of the object survival of the destruction, if we made these links.

Dr. Bernard D. Fine drew attention to Dr. Winnicott's affinity for utilizing a seeming paradox, usually relating to an interphase in early development, for productive and critical contributions. It was so far his work on transitional objects, and it is so in this paper. But Dr. Fine found it unclear and not at all proven that in the process of development from what Dr. Winnicott calls object-relating to object use that the subject destroys the object. He noted as well the absence of any reference to the significance of the libidinal components in helping toward the survival of the object. The libidinal tie exists before and after the separation from the object and it is involved in the feeling of "basic trust" in the object - considerations which are obviously important in an object's survival of destructive impulses and fantasies. It is an everyday analytic experience, according to Dr. Fine that the storm of a fantasied destruction of the analyst is traversed safely, due to the positive libidinal tie and basic trust in the analyst. Dr. Fine agreed that the analyst must be seen as outside the self by the patient, but the analysand's survival depends on more factors than those cited by Dr. Winnicott, such as the affective component, the libidinal relationship, and the process of ego maturation and development. According to Dr. Fine, the change from subjective awareness and omnipotent control over the object to an external and realistic conception of the object depends on the interaction of three major factors: the drives (aggressive and libidinal); the facilitating environment (mother); and maturation of the ego. Dr. Winnicott, he felt, left out the libidinal and ego components. Ambivalence, fusion-defusion, neutralization-deneutralization, and fantasies of merging with the love object are also crucial to understanding the development of this interphase. Dr. Fine called attention to the fact that Hartmann, Kris and Lowenstein, Anna Freud and Mahler have all in different ways stressed the role of the maturing ego in developing a predominance of pleasure in separate functioning. In this, Dr. Winnicott idea of destruction of the object upon separation from it is a great modification which in Dr. Fine opinion is not substantiated. Dr. Fine objected to employing the common term of general speech, "use" to designate a specific scientific psychoanalytic process. He felt that the sharp distinction draw between object relating and object use belonged more accurately to a sub-phase in the on-going development of object relationship.

Dr. Otto Sperling presented a brief clinical vignette of a man married several years, but with little sexual interest in his wife. One day she returned from the city several hours later than was expected, and he received her with rage and accusations. They slept separately that night, and in the morning he had coitus with her. Dr. Sperling suggested that this follows the sequence the author outlined, in that his patient's projection of infidelity destroyed the wife, and next morning her husband made use of her in coitus. However, he questioned whether this was explanatory, and suggested that the man's unconscious homosexual fantasies and his defense against them were more to the point as an explanation.

In a charming and whimsical fashion, Dr. Winnicott responded, saying that this concept was torn to pieces and that he would be happy to give it up. He had been trying to say something but had not succeeded, he felt. There are patients, not ordinary patients, for whom arriving at a point where they can use him as an analyst is more important than his interpretations to them. For these patients the trouble in the transference is that "they never take the risk of something and they protect the analyst from something". The crucial change occurs, when they are able to take the risk and the analyst survives. It produces in the process a new phenomenon in the patient's life. What is it the analyst is protect from, he wondered? It is not merely anger, but is destructive. On this note he ended, leaving no doubt that his interest in his topic had been revitalized and that we would be hearing from him further about it.

Source: Archives & Special Collections, A. A. Brill Library, NYPSI Permission to cite or quote from is required