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perspective creates major differences between Freud and Winnicott; while for Freud, the anaclitic leaning of sexuality on basic needs turn the object of need (the breast) into the object of desire – for Winnicott it is different. Winnicott thinks that the mother’s role is to prevent the infant’s needs from turning too early into desires. Actually, the mother stands as a ‘mediator’ between the inner world (with its drives and needs) and outer reality (which she is supposed to represent for the baby) (Winnicott, 1967a,b). This function of the mother is especially needed for drive regulation since, as Winnicott stresses, for the small child, drive demands may be initially traumatic and might be experienced like foreign forces or “things”, something coming from the ‘outside’ (“like thunder”) – unless they are mediated by the (“good enough”) mother and are “held” within a caring relationship (Winnicott, 1960). In this way two parallel relations between infant and mother are established; first, there is id-relatedness. This comprises the child´s ruthless cravings, wants of instinctual character, be they of hunger or lust. The object of these strivings is the “object-mother,” a figure who owns the supplies the infant is craving for. Second, there is ego-relatedness. This comprises the relation between the child´s “coming- into-being” ego (the ensuing, potential, individual) and the caring mother. The child´s ego needs are responded to by the “environmental mother.” The infant is vulnerable and fundamentally dependent on the mother´s holding and sensitive responses to the infant´s “spontaneous gestures.” In her role as a caring person, the environmental mother is not responding to the child´s drives but supplies an environment in which the child´s total development is facilitated. The object-mother is thus the counterpart of the drives while the environmental mother is the counterpart of the ego needs (Winnicott, 1960). Within the holding, ego-related, relationship, the drives may stepwise become owned by the infant. Part of the drives are turned into “muscle erotism,” the child´s ruthless use of all his capacities (including those that may, from the outside, look destructive). Winnicott is offering a new way to see aggression. It is no longer a derivate of the “death drive” (as in the Kleinian perspective) and not even necessarily destructive – but also, and even mostly so, a developmental force. It may be mobilized in the service of creation, mastery and life. Seen in this light, attacking the object has a crucial role in giving birth to the subject and the object alike. If (and only if) the object survives the ruthless attacks – attacks that may be seen as drive derivatives – it becomes constituted as an “objective object” (it is no more only a ‘bundle of projections’, a ‘subjective object’). In this sense Winnicott puts the object in a position not only to be a means for drive-discharge, but also a factor which has the capability to change the subject and the way drives are experienced and represented. In parallel to the constitution of the object (through its survival of the infant´s destructive attack), the subject becomes also capable to differentiate subjectivity from objectivity (Winnicott, 1969). One of the developing subject´s gains is the ensuing possibility to use the drives, to “have” them as life-enhancing potentials – besides using the object as an external source for contributions from outside the subject’s omnipotence. This is, however, an end result conditioned by a long development process which is facilitated by an adaptive carer – the environmental mother – who needs to be internalized in order for this to happen (Girard, 2010).
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