D.W. Winicott, pediatrician-child analyst advocated a return to the holding environment of infancy as a clinical necessity for patients. Jacques Lacan, theoretician of the symbolic field of the Other, taught analysts to stay attuned to the signifier rather than the psychology of the patient.

Winnicott's theory was based on observations of early infant development while Lacan's derived from quasi-mathematical conceptions of the subject. Both Winnicott and Lacan left the mainstream path of psychoanalysis and followed the steps of a perspective on the nature of the human subject, which provided a space for the concept of intersubjectivity.