Transitional Objects and Transitional Phenomena
Transitional objects are a small child's 'special' objects, for example a particular blanket or teddy bear, which become important to and almost inseparable from the infant. Transitional phenomena exist between the inner subjective world and the capacity to perceive objectively, and are the root of creative living. Sometimes described as Winnicott's most important contribution, the concepts arise from his study of the infant's developing capacity to discover and adapt to reality, first addressed in 1945.
Transitional objects have their origin in that phase of early development when the infant reaches the stage of distinguishing inner and outer reality. Being both 'me' and 'not-me', they facilitate the transition from the omnipotence of the tiny baby for whom external objects have not yet separated out, to the capacity to relate to 'objectively perceived' objects. The transitional object may be seen as contributing to the infant's autonomy, for it is under his control, in a way that his mother is not, and he can dictate how it is used. It can be thrown away and retrieved allowing the infant to exercise an agency in relation to it which he is powerless to exercise in relation to adults in his world. Transitional space, also referred to as the intermediate area, or third area, is the space that develops between the inner and outer worlds, and is contributed to by both. Winnicott states that creativity has its origins here.
Describing common patterns of infancy in which a very young baby finds a thumb to suck, and may stroke his own face, gather a piece of material to suck or stroke, Winnicott assumed the existence of fantasy and used the term 'transitional' for these phenomena. Later both the activity and the object may become necessary when the baby is going to sleep, or is anxious. Babies may discover a particular object, or a sound, or piece of behaviour, and this becomes important and recognised to be so, since it represents a needed continuity of experience. It becomes the first 'not-me' possession, symbolic of a part-object, but neither the baby nor that object.
Winnicott listed the special qualities of the relationship with the object, which must survive; must, from the baby's point of view, come from neither without nor within; and will lose its significance, neither forgotten or mourned, when a wider cultural field has come into being. In early infancy the *'good-enough mother' allows the baby the illusion of unity and omnipotence, in which the infant 'creates' the breast.
Subsequent disillusion necessary to permit awareness of outside reality must be given to the infant in such a way that the infant's creativity survives the passage to the recognition of objective reality.
Winnicott compared this with the therapeutic situation, where the worlds of the patient and analyst overlap, echoing *Freud's concept of the analytic playground.Winnicott takes this thinking further in his 1971 'The Use of an Object and Relating Through Identification', in which he charts a further stage of change from that of 'object-relating', when the object, while separate, is felt to be still under the omnipotent control of the infant, to that of 'object-usage', when the object is allowed reality and autonomy. Related subjects include: *fetishistic objects; Milner's concept of illusion of unity within a framework; *Tustin's autistic object; *Kohut's *selfobject; Bollas' transformational object; *Fairbairn's thinking on the transitional stage/quasi-independence.
- Winnicott, D.W. [1951] (1953) 'Transitional objects and transitional phenomena'. International Journal of Psycho-Analysis 34. Also in Collected Papers, Through Paediatrics to Psychoanalysis. London: Tavistock, 1958.
- Winnicott, D. W. [1945] (1958) 'Primitive emotional development' in Collected Papers, Through Paediatrics to Psychoanalysis. London: Tavistock.
- Winnicott, D. W. (1971) 'The use of an object and relating through identifications' in Playing and Reality. London: Tavistock.
J. Joh.