ABSTRACT
In a comparative psychoanalytic perspective, the narcissism Winnicott associates with relations with subjective objects is associated with the pathology of the “false self,” with Heidegger's inauthentic existence, and with the Lacanian Imaginary ego, while relations with objective objects are associated with the “true self,” Heidegger's authentic being-in-the-world, and Lacan's Symbolic subject. Winnicott's obscure discussion of the role of destruction in the development of object relations is clarified in light of his posthumous writings. His notion of a permanently incommunicado core of the self is traced to an unresolved schizoid element in his character.
