The relationships between trauma and antisocial tendency in Winnicottian theory

Abstract

With an important emphasis on the relationship between the mother (environment) and her baby, Winnicott developed a complex theory of emotional development and of the antisocial tendency. His vision of psychopathology refers to environmental failures at stages when the subject has not yet acquired the capacity to deal with them. For the author, adaptation failures are defined as traumas and can manifest themselves through various dynamics, including by the antisocial tendency. Based on some of the main aspects of the theory of emotional development, this article aims to associate the theory of antisocial tendency with the English psychoanalyst's definitions of trauma, and to relate the results obtained with the institutional work of the psychologist with juvenile offenders.