ABSTRACT
The field of mental health is in a state of transition, a fact that makes Donald Woods Winnicott's works even more relevant. Winnicott was the first to introduce the concepts of the transitional object and transitional space, which helped pave the pathway from the world of the intrapsychic to that of object relationships. Clearly, the concepts of the transitional space and transitional phenomena are vital for psychotherapists understanding of patients whose psycho-pathology is based on structural defects, who are most frequently encountered in clinical practice. Such concepts explain the course of emotional development, especially how the child enters the external world and how the process of separation and individuation occurs. Defects in the path of emotional development lead to specific symptomatic, characterological, and behavioural aberrations that are found in the majority of the concretely orientated patients so commonly seen by clinicians.
