ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author approaches the relationship between the work of Donald Winnicott and Jacques Lacan from three angles. First, He discusses the historical record of their actual encounters and interactions. Second, the author argues that Winnicott and Lacan in their own very different ways shared the aim of moving beyond the mechanistic and biological models of the psyche that informed classical psychoanalytic theory to focus on the singularity of each person. Third, Winnicott and Lacan can be seen as representatives of two dialectical poles of psychoanalysis, the impersonal causality of structure and the personal dimension of meaning, that inform clinical practice. Winnicott did refer in many places to the role of instinctual forces as a given of human life, but the entire thrust of his work emphasises the development of the self and the importance of the early emotional environment of the child.
