ABSTRACT
Donald W. Winnicott's ideas, which were disseminated in France around the 1960s and 1970s, contributed along with Bion's in the aftermath of the Controversies of World War II to the renewal of French psychoanalysis which fully assimilated them. On the French side, Fairbairn's work, which strove to replace the drive theory with that of object relations, could not but shock francophone analytical sensibility, which is very attached to the notion of drives. What Fairbairn and Winnicott had in common was a connection with Freud, whom both recognised as a source of inspiration. Fairbairn possessed an in-depth knowledge of Freud's work to which he constantly referred even while suggesting a revision of some of his essential premises. As early as 1953, Winnicott had appreciated the value of Fairbairn's work on schizoid states and, at the end of his life, recognised what he owed to his predecessor for their understanding.
