This study examined D.W. Winnicott's construct object usage and related transformational metaphors from a cognitive-linguistic perspective. The paper The Use of an Object was positioned historically among extant theoretical models and employed to investigate the semantic evolution of key Winnicottian concepts.

Biographical accounts revealed core developmental themes which elucidated the conceptual foundations of Winnicott's ontology and offered alternatives ways to understand the nature and function of his ideas. Overall the findings were congruent with the epistemological stance of "experientialism" (Lakoff & Johnson, 1999), which is neither objectivist nor subjectivist and corresponds to the notion of psychoanalysis as hovering in the area between positivistic science and hermeneutics (Ricoeur, 1970).

Implications for professional development included how the clinician-learner similarly draws on embodied-metaphorical processes within the context of history and personal development.