ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the terms ‘transitional object’ and ‘transitional phenomena’ for designation of the intermediate area of experience, between the thumb and the teddy bear, between the oral erotism and true object relationship, between primary creative activity and projection of what has already been introjected, between primary unawareness of indebtedness and the acknowledgement of indebtedness. The infant can employ a transitional object when the internal object is alive and real and good enough. The transitional phenomena are allowable to the infant because of the parents’ intuitive recognition of the strain inherent in objective perception. The transitional objects and transitional phenomena belong to the realm of illusion which is at the basis of initiation of experience. The mother, at the beginning, by an almost 100 per cent adaptation affords the infant the opportunity for the illusion that her breast is part of the infant.
