ABSTRACT
The private/public aspect of transitionality is often neglected in psychoanalytic discourse even though it is fundamental to the evolution of intersubjectivity as a relationship of mutual recognition and to the lived realization and negotiation of previously unformulated or unconscious conflict and fantasy. As Winnicott's transitionality bridges subjectivity and material constraint, fantasy and reality, it also involves a dialectic between private and public, one that allows for simultaneity of self-exposure and intimate interaction. Ogden describes how the nascent intersubjective dialectic in primary maternal preoccupation evolves further in Winnicott's conception of the mirroring relationship. Again, what Ogden describes as an emergent intersubjective dialectic also signifies nascent dialectics between subjectivity and materiality, private and public. This transformation empowers the patient to dare to expose previously unconscious desire as now there is a location for experiencing desire between fantasy and reality and in a relationship between subjects at the same time.
