Can Winnicott’s psychoanalysis be the accomplishment of a phenomenologically oriented scientific psychology project?

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to develop the assumption that Winnicott’s work can correspond to a possible realization of the elaboration project of a non-naturalistic scientific psychology, as it is found in phenomenology and modern existentialism philosophical conceptions. After distinguishing the clinical aspects of these philosophical propositions, I try to show that Winnicott, on one hand, rejects the use of naturalistic metapsychological speculations, on the other hand, reformulates the ontological model of psychoanalysis, introducing the notion of being; additionally, he introduced a notion of health and redescribed the theory of socioemotional development of the human being, focusing on dependency relationships. Such changes would place psychoanalysis in a non-naturalistic epistemological framework, in accordance with the philosophical influences above mentioned, changing at the same time the psychoanalytical practice itself, both in its objectives and handling.