Concept
Use of an object
Winnicott's distinction between relating to an object, which can stay within the subject's omnipotent control, and using it, which requires that the object be placed outside that control and recognised as real. The step is made when the subject destroys the object in fantasy and the object survives without retaliating; its survival is what makes it external and so usable.
- Introduced by
- Donald Winnicott
- Key works
- 3
introduced by
- Donald Winnicott 1969 First presented in New York in 1968 and published in 1969, it was revised as a chapter of Playing and Reality.
reworked by
- Jessica Benjamin 1990 Benjamin read Winnicott's destruction and survival of the object as the moment the other is recognised as a subject outside one's control, recasting a concept about object use as a step in mutual recognition.