ABSTRACT
This chapter examines Winnicott’s proposals for Freud’s theory of primary narcissism and the effect of the reintroduction of the object into this theory. Then, using clinical examples from my practice, I examine the functions of the mothering environment in the construction of the human subject and, first of all, the “mirror” function of the mother and more generally of the subjects participating in this construction. I then extend Winnicott’s conceptions in order to link this function to his proposals concerning the “create-found” process and all the exchanges of affects, the language of affects and the way in which the baby’s “duplicate” mother manages both to evoke the baby’s experiences and at the same time to reflect on her “mirror” function, in order to avoid confusion between the baby and herself. These developments lead us to return to Freud’s enigmatic formula concerning “the shadow of the object that falls on the self” and then to open the analysis of the processes of differentiation of the baby from the other-subject object.
