Transitional phenomena in the real world.

In this short piece I wish to clarify my thoughts regarding the use of transitional or creative space, and objects, between patient and therapist. Particular speculation will be offered to the nature of illusion (hope) and disillusion (loss), in respect of the patient’s experience and the intrusion of illusory narrative, propagated through cultural phenomena such as news media, literature and institutions such as science and academia.

In his 1953 paper on ‘Transitional Objects and Transitional Phenomena’, Donald Winnicott (1953) offered his observations regarding the infants use of transitional objects (such as teddy bears, dolls, etc) and transitional phenomena (such as an infant’s babblings, soothing noises, rhymes, etc).

It is understood that the mother or caregiver (in being “good enough”) enables, within a graduated process, adaptation to frustrations brought about by her/his failures in providing adequate or mirrored care, actual or transitional material (breast or substitute). That is to say, it becomes crucial that an adult provides consistent care broadly commensurate to the needs and expectations of the infant. Failure to do so, invites frustrations and anxiety intolerable to someone so young.

What I am primarily concerned to consider here are the illusory aspects of his discussion. That is to say when the therapist’s adaptation to a patient’s conception of the outside world is met adequately, and when it is not. When the therapist is as it were, on-point and when he/she misses-the-mark.

In order to reduce the risk of failure in this regard and possible anxieties - either depressive or persecutory - it is crucial that the therapist and patient co-develop a space between them. A creative space that permits contributions from both participants and where thoughts and feelings can be safely explored.

Winnicott notes that, “The transitional object and transitional phenomena start each human being off with what will always be important for them, I.e. a neutral area of experience which will not be challenged.”

This we could consider the psychotherapy office, the layout, the time of the psychotherapy, etc, but equally the development of thinking apparatus that is shared. For example, a language, a pace, an appreciation, a stance, a liking, an agreement, an enjoyment, a ritual, an attitude, a theory, a game, a silence, a laughter, a motion, etc.

He goes on to say, “of the transitional object it can be said that it is a matter of agreement between us and the baby that we will never ask the question. Did you conceive of this or was it presented to you from without? The important point is that no decision on this point is expected. The question is not to be formulated.”

Here he suggests that the facilitatory space between patient and therapist becomes a cultural phenomena born of the encounter/s. It is unique to this relationship and not one forced upon the couple by, expectation, external culture, theory or profession, but one born of a desire for greater understanding (or perhaps more accurately, for truth).

Like the mother, the therapist’s task is to invite illusion from the client. To draw out descriptors of their internal world using this facilitatory space as a canvas. However, assuming the patient’s difficulties in living, the therapist is equally tasked with appreciating his/her own disillusionment as a mechanism to reflect and support that of the patients. This painful process of change and acceptance, Winnicott likened to weaning.

Using his ideas as a framework, how does one wean a patient off illusory phenomena produced “from without”? Winnicott explains. “It is assumed here that the task of reality-acceptance is never completed, that no human being is free from the strain of relating inner and outer reality, and that relief from this strain is provided by an intermediate area of experience which is not challenged (arts, religion, etc). This intermediate area is in direct continuity with the play area of the small child who is “lost” in play.

One could extrapolate, that as one’s environment (horizon) broadens, so should this phenomenological “area”. However it is my speculation that contrary to this idea - and as the person approaches adulthood - this “area” is often challenged by the external culture that the person is located in. While Winnicott likens this space to shared enjoyment of arts and religion he avoids acknowledging the hinterland where speculation meets truth, where sanity meets madness and where illusion meets delusion.

However, perhaps controversially and speculatively in a contemporary context he refers to Wuff’s Paper, who extends this idea to that of fetishes and perversions. He states the importance in his mind that one should accept the infants illusion of the “maternal phallus” as being a playful creative act and not an idea to be taken literally!

Given this paper was written in the 1950s, can we discard a notion of what might be considered delusional then, as being marked by scientific or cultural ignorance? Or, should this example be given the credence it deserves and question how the broader area of cultural phenomena impacts the inner worlds and intimate space of humans and their relationships? Is this a fetish imposed by culture or an illusion that has become a delusion and now a reality?

Thankfully Winnicott places curiosity and installs guardrails by stating that the importance of this phenomenological space is in being preserved as illusory and not a delusion. He questions the links between adult fetish and the infants playful illusions. “The importance lies in the concept of illusion.”

However where would he locate the cultural implications of the maternal phallus and its progressive non-binary stance? That is to say, at what point might one diagnose delusion or madness? He states, “Should an adult make claims on us for our acceptance of the objectivity of his subjective phenomena, we discern or diagnose madness. If, however, the adult can manage to enjoy the personal intermediate area without making claim, then we can acknowledge our own corresponding intermediate areas, and are pleased to find overlapping, that is to say common experience between members of a group in art or religion of philosophy.”

This last point speaks to how in contemporary secular cultural discussions, the lines between what is playful (speculative) and what is considered fact, has in many instances become blurred. How then should a therapist avoid “making claim” and diagnosing madness when confronted by ideology dressed as fact (delusion) and not simply enjoy transitional phenomena, dressed as play (illusion)?

One solution might be to challenge in phantasy Winnicott’s resistance for fetish being linked to early life. A mother plays along with the infants idea that the breast appears as he/she thinks of it. “The mother places the actual breast just there where the infant is ready to create, and at the right moment.”

To the same effect the therapist could temporarily attend to the patient’s illusory idea, supporting any anxiety of doubt and meaning, to ‘let the patient down slowly’, as it were. However this would only occur if what is being offered is considered truth or fact by the patient and not as such by the therapist, thus pitting the patient and therapist against each other in oscillating roles of infant and caregiver.

One could argue that contemporary progressive cultural narratives (what we might regard culture-wars) serve to challenge Winnicott’s transitional objects and phenomena by disrupting our understanding of what is real or not-real, what is fact or fiction, what is an illusion or delusion. Thus, staging the developmental process in becoming very gradually accustomed to the real world, against the real world itself!

References.

Winnicott. D. W. (1953). Transitional Objects and Transitional Phenomena - A Study of the first Not-Me possession. Int. J. Psycho-Anal, 34:89-97.