Metapsychology and the Object and Transitional Phenomena

Abstract

A dialogue is suggested between Freud and Winnicott, based on the fertility of intertextual or dialogic relationships, by making comparisons and confrontations to avoid a reduction. This results in the possibility of rede fining symbolization for
psychoanalysis: act and action in a “being” with the other, duplicating the interplay of wish and defenses (psychic conflict) while working on the real (childhood’s helplessness), the real-izative side of subjectivation. C.S. Peirce’s notions on symbolization are used to support this proposal, which reveáis the importance of iconic and indicative instances in the psychic structuring
process. Winnicott’s gerund is analyzed as proposed as a key notion, as Freud’s Grundbegrieffe. The gerund shows further the above real-izative side of symbolization. The paradox is also approached in the same sense, and its temporal implications are considered which, together with the gerund, refer to a real-izable meaning. The paradox aptly shows how difficult it is to apprehend the true, whereby the paradox may be associated to Freud’s unconscious. Emphasis is placed on the importance of factual aspects which allow an enlargement of the psychoanalytic signifícant notion to gestures, acts (play), and words. The Moebius band is suggested as a topological fiction to consider Winnicott’s transitionality “experience” zone, where psychic structuring takes place, allowing the burst of the outside/inside categories. This also proves to be a topological way of referring to the paradox.
The importance of the other gains its role in psychic work; the strength of the image, alienation, and transitivism, and the emergence of the illusion (paradoxical creation) are described with a view to analyzing the ps ychic inscription instance.
The notions of narcissism, unity illusion, ideas and identification are also dealt with. The ideality function, present in the illusion-disillusiorj pair, opens the way to identifications. The essential importance of the work of substitution and the work of the negative, within the scope of defenses, is stressed in this structuring work. By way of precise reflection, an analysis is made of specificaction of experience and satisfaction (S. Freud: Project...), which gives origin to judgments and thoughts in the
articulation of defenses, emphasizing the importance of disavowal and repression. As regards defenses, two o Winnicott’s ideas are taken, the good-enough mother and weaning both allowing to consider the symbolic maternal function of frustration
A distinction is made between disillusion and frustration, which an respectively associated to disavowal and repression.
These elements lead to the work out of losses and contribute to a higher consistence of the notion of mourning.
Finally, the transitional object is considered, for purposes of analyzing semeiotic times in symbolization, as associated to metaphor and metonymy. Winnicott’s association between transitional and fetish gave origin to some comments on the transit from disavowal of the absence (of the other) to disavowal of castration (lack of penis in the mother). Both are a part of an enriched theorization on Freud’s disavowal, by causing it to operate in the structuring process