Winnicottian enlargement of the Freudian concept of unconscious

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to examine some developments proposed by Winnicott in the understanding of what the unconscious is, an addition to the Freudian conception of repressed unconscious and that of primary repression. For Freud, this unconscious is related to what he discovered in the treatment of his neurotic patients who find in the repression a defence mechanism par excellence. It will be shown that Winnicott considers other aspects of the unconscious which originate when repression does not exist as a defence mechanism; that Winnicott developed the understanding of what Freud had conceived with his notion of primary repression, by considering events, contents and modes of being which may be characterized as unconscious such as splitting, events which were lived but couldn't be integrated or experienced in the field of autonomy of the self, as well as some acquisitions of modes of being in the world.