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In a late paper, Winnicott (1963) reaches the conclusion that the center of the self is, in and of itself, a center of noncommunication. A lifelong investigation of object relations culminates in a statement for the right of a state of noncommunication. For Winnicott, the noncommunicating aspect of the personality is the result of the very early relationship between the baby and its facilitating environment. He summarizes his theory of development as follows:
Relating to objects is a complex phenomenon and the development of a capacity to relate to objects is by no means a matter simply of the maturational process. As always,maturation requires (in psychology)and depends on the quality of the facilitating environment. Where neither privation nor deprivation dominates the scene and where, therefore, the facilitating environment can be taken for granted… there gradually develops in the individual a change in the nature of the object. The objectbeing at first a subjective phenomenon becomes an object objectively perceived. This process takes time, and months and even years must pass before privations and deprivations can be accommodated by the individual without distortion of essential processes that are object-relating. (Winnicott, 1963, pp. 179-180, emphasis in original)
The developmental line is from a state of “subjective-object” to an “objectively perceived object.” The area of “subjective-object” is the area where the baby lacks any awareness of differentiation between itself and the environment. The maternal care is experienced, therefore, not as originating from an other-than-me object, but simply as occurrences within the infant's subjective area of experience. At these early stages of development the capacity to differentiate between subjective and objective experiences is