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Contemporary psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists who align themselves with Winnicott's thinking all adopt many of the new theoretical concepts that he introduced and his novel conceptualisations of the ways in which the environment and the maternal object impact upon early child development. The true and false self, the transitional object and space, primary maternal preoccupation, the good-enough mother, the use of the object, play, impingement and the illusion of omnipotence are the basic building blocks of almost any Winnicottian framework. These concepts and conceptualizations are commonly applied not only to the understanding of the developmental process, but also to the understanding of the clinical one.
Despite this shared conceptual framework, there are some significant differences in the ways in which Winnicott is read and made use of. In particular, those who rely on Winnicott's work appear to differ in the degree to which they believe his contributions constitute a revision of psychoanalytic thinking and practice. It would seem that these differences become most pronounced when it comes to Winnicott's contributions to analytic practice with adults.
At one end of the spectrum, many regard Winnicott as a particularly sensitive analyst working within conventional analytic frameworks and developing them; although he elaborates, modifies, corrects and innovates, his theorizing and practice are thought to remain within the mainstream of the analytic thinking of Freud and Klein. From this perspective, Winnicott's contribution to psychoanalysis is relatively limited, and classical analysts can readily make use of his central clinical innovations without giving up their fundamental analytic stance.
In contrast to this view of Winnicott as essentially traditional, we find at the other end of the spectrum those who consider his approach to be radical and revolutionary. In particular, his innovations are thought to lead us to a wholly new approach to the