Appreciating Ogden’s Re-conception of Destruction but with a Developmental Arc: When Is the Big Scary Ape Destructive?

In this manuscript, we engage with Thomas Ogden’s recent reconceptualization of D.W. Winnicott’s seminal description of the movement between object-relating and object-usage. We begin by closely reading Ogden updates to Winnicott’s description of the movement from object-relating, the time in infancy where babies relate primarily along dimensions of a shared reality and sameness to object-usage where they can “use” objects in the external world and so tolerate difference. Ogden highlights how this process necessarily involves the mother’s “real destruction”; the felt and lived experience of her identity as a “good enough mother” being destroyed by the baby’s aggression. Although we find this an incredibly valuable addition to the literature, we believe that Ogden’s reconceptualization does not quite go far enough. Describing this destruction as real maintains problematic confusion surrounding the infant’s agency. Accordingly, we provide a different way of viewing development, which highlights the dynamics of articulation and collapse. This idea allows us to better appreciate and situate destruction within the realm of adolescence. We offer examples from literature and our clinical work to demonstrate this.