ABSTRACT
Winnicott observed that transitional objects become gradually decathected and meaningless in the face of prolonged separation from mother. Bowlby found that the relationship to transitional objects reflected the relationship to the carer. Infants in their first or second year bond to an inanimate object which they can control. The transitional object supports the intra-psychic process involved in the shocking loss of omnipotence. Indeed, ecopsychotherapy should be regarded as a branch of transpersonal therapy and can assist clients with temporary melting of boundaries against the natural world. The nature of desire and its shadow, boredom, is teased out with the help of philosophy, fiction, neuroscience, body psychotherapy, and Gestalt therapy. This chapter suggests that it is the completion of a contact-withdrawal cycle—a gestalt—that generates satisfaction. Incomplete gestalts lead to boredom or addiction, or in the long term to a kind of depression.
