ABSTRACT
87The theory of the transitional object has helped us to think about the infant’s transition from a partly hallucinated wish world to the creative use of actual objects in the service of the child’s desire. This is not simply a matter of cognitive development: we know that the neonate is capable of perceiving features of the actual world. It is a question of the infant’s psychic evolution, which is forged through the illusion (facilitated by the mother) that the actual world is formed according to the infant’s need, and that reality creates itself out of his wishes. This illusion permits the psyche to develop in the way it usually does where, for example, phantasy plays such an important part in this evolution.
