This article suggests a dialogue between the psychoanalytic theories of Sandor Ferenczi and Donald Winnicott concerning the role of the object in the psyche, both in its constitutive and traumatic dimensions. The converging contributions of the authors to the psychoanalytic concept of trauma and its vicissitudes in the psyche will be discussed. Following a tradition of valuing the environment, the trauma comes to be thought of as a failure in the relationship between the subject and the other.
Trauma; Psyche constitution; Role of the object