Donald Winnicott’s work with children is characterized by an openness and the nonconformity mentioned in an earlier post. This allowed him to be curious and interested in what children experienced and wanted to share with him. Rather than a set way of seeing child development he allowed himself to be surprised.

In one paper he contrasts two brothers. The younger brother he calls Y and describes his typical use of a transitional object. After being breast fed for four months and weaned without difficulty, Y sucked his thumb in the early weeks. After being weaned:

‘.. he adopted the end of the blanket where the stitching finished. He was pleased if a little bit of the wool stuck out at the corner and with this, he would tickle his nose. This very early on became his “Baa” … From the time when he was about a year old, he was able to substitute for the end of the blanket a soft green jersey with a red tie.’

This became an object that soothed the little boy, and helped him fall easily asleep. Sucking the material he lost anxiety.

Y’s older brother X had in contrast, to fight his way to maturity. It was a time when the mother was quite anxious and felt lonely. X was fed for longer and never sucked his thumb or finger so after being weaned with difficulty he had ‘nothing to fall back on’. Instead, it was the actual person of the mother he needed as he had such a strong attachment to her. From one year he adopted a rabbit which he would cuddle and this affection later transferred to real rabbits. Winnicott saw this toy rabbit as a comforter, but not as a transitional object: ‘…it was never, as a true transitional object would have been, more important than the mother, an almost inseparable part of the infant.’

X’s anxieties led to asthma and this was only gradually managed. Winnicott comments that as an adult, it was important to X to find work away from the town where he grew up, but his attachment to his mother ‘is still very powerful’, and it was difficult to form other  relationships. In contrast Y is busy with his own children, who are also keen on thumb-sucking!

For Winnicott, this transitional area of experiencing is central to spirituality and faith. The idea of the representation of God as a transitional object involves creating and finding God, and this continues throughout life, as it involves our connection to our sense of self and of the meaning and purpose of existence and ultimate destiny. Unlike the eventually discarded blanket or teddy, Meissner writes that this,

‘God-representation, whether dormant or active, remains available for continuing psychic integration … the process is an authentic dialogue insofar as the God-representation transcends the subjective realm.’

In the same way religious symbols become vehicles for the expression of meaning and values that transcend their physical characteristics. The meaning and significance of for example the crucifix is achieved only through being received into the transitional realm of experience of each believer, who brings their own creativity attached to their belief and faith into their perception and experience of the cross.