You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Freud’s contribution focused particularly on the analysis of different mental states (neurotic, narcissistic, psychotic). This was based on his exploration of the effect on the vagaries of identity related to how the difference between the sexes and generations is structured in the mind, as well as the changes in the organization of the differences that both unites and separates infantile sexuality from the sexual sphere within their adult counterparts. Winnicott invites us to extend Freud’s ideas by thinking about the impact of the primary construction of the me /not-me distinction in narcissistic states and their adjustments. His contribution is crucial to the analysis of narcissistic states of mind and of pathological forms of the ego’s defence processes when the self has to contend with the risk of trauma in early childhood.
For Winnicott, primary narcissism cannot be conceived of in any solipsistic way. How it develops should be thought of within the context of the primary psychic relationship that is set up with the specific features of any given environment. A kind of primitive illusion, however, tends to obliterate that particular aspect of its construction. Analysing primary narcissism thus implies reintroducing what the primary narcissistic illusion has erased, i.e. the role played by the primary object in its foundation because narcissism involves two and perhaps three people.