ABSTRACT

Anna Freud wrote to D. W. Winnicott that his “transitional object” concept had taken the world by storm. In examining the Melanie Klein–Winnicott dialectic on psychic space, the chapter demonstrates through clinical and literary examples how what is implicit in Klein on space interacts with what is explicit in Winnicott on space. It summarizes certain trends in Jennifer’s treatment that allowed her to progress towards an expansive and rich internal world that was evidence of the evolution of both psychic and transitional space. In Winnicottian terms, Louise began to allow transitional space for her own self-reflection and free association. Louise increasingly entered and sustained a depressive position self-integration process. The chapter shows how a psychic dialectic between Melanie Klein’s view of psychic integration and Winnicott’s view of the transitional object role of the psychoanalyst allowed this woman to grow in terms of the psychic dynamics of space.