Today I’m going to share some thoughts on two papers that I found really interesting. One is a chapter on transitional objects by D. W. Winnicott, and the other is This Art of Psychoanalysis: Dreaming Undreamt Dreams and Interrupted Cries by Thomas Ogden.
Winnicott: Transitional Objects & The Good Enough Mother
Both of these works speak to the unconscious and to an intermediate area between internal reality and external life. They also emphasize how this space is relational. If we think about this in terms of therapy, each of us has our own internal reality and our experience of external reality. We also have conscious and unconscious processes within us, and therapy becomes a place where these different layers meet and interact.
Winnicott talks about how, once we’ve developed a sense of inside versus outside, we can say that an individual has an inner world. That inner world can be rich or impoverished. It can be peaceful, or it can feel like it’s in a state of war.
He also adds that there is a third part of human experience that we cannot ignore: an intermediate area of experiencing to which both inner reality and external life contribute. This area isn’t challenged or forced to prove itself. Instead, it exists as a kind of resting place for the individual who is engaged in the lifelong task of keeping inner and outer reality separate yet interconnected.
Winnicott also talks about reality testing; how we distinguish between what we’re perceiving internally and what exists externally. In the context of transitional objects, he focuses on the period between an infant’s initial inability to recognize reality and their growing capacity to do so.
He also describes the role of illusion. Early in life, illusion is allowed and even necessary. In adulthood, aspects of this illusion continue in things like art, religion, and creativity. But it can become problematic when someone demands that others share an illusion that isn’t their own.
What I find interesting here is how this intermediate space allows us to connect with others through shared symbolic experiences; through art, religion, or other forms of creativity. But if we impose our internal reality too forcefully on someone else, that becomes problematic.
I’m not going to focus too much on the transitional object itself, but I do want to talk about Winnicott’s concept of the good enough mother, which I found particularly powerful.
Winnicott describes the good enough mother within the context of illusion and disillusionment. Early on, the caregiver adapts very closely to the infant’s needs. Over time, this adaptation gradually decreases in proportion to the child’s growing ability to tolerate frustration and manage small failures of adaptation.
For example, the process of weaning ideally occurs in step with the child’s developmental readiness. The caregiver is gradually no longer meeting that need in the same way, but it happens in proportion to what the child is able to do for themselves.
Winnicott describes the good enough mother as someone who actively adapts to the infant’s needs, but whose adaptation gradually lessens as the infant develops the capacity to tolerate frustration.
He emphasizes that successful infant care depends more on devotion than on cleverness or intellectual knowledge.
When I first read that idea—that infant care depends on devotion—it really resonated with me. It resonated with me as a parent, as an adult child, and as a therapist.
There’s often a symbolic quality to the therapist–client relationship that echoes early relational dynamics. In some ways the therapist can occupy a kind of parental or containing role, although that’s definitely something that could be unpacked much more deeply.
But what really struck me was the word devotion. As my own therapist pointed out to me, devotion is a word that’s often used in religious contexts. I hadn’t really thought about that before.
To me, devotion implies a kind of absorption, intensity, and purity of intention. It suggests that something becomes a priority in a very deep way.
At the same time, I think it’s natural for parents to experience frustration or resentment at times when their own needs collide with their child’s needs. Infants have endless needs, and that friction is inevitable.
What I appreciate about Winnicott’s model is how he emphasizes that frustration, when it occurs gradually and developmentally, is actually important.
If things go well, the infant can eventually gain something from frustration. Incomplete adaptation makes the object more real. The caregiver becomes someone who can be both loved and hated.
If perfect adaptation continues for too long, the caregiver can begin to feel almost magical or hallucinatory, rather than real.
In the beginning, adaptation does need to be almost exact. But over time, frustration helps the child develop a relationship to external reality.
I really love this idea because it reframes frustration as something potentially transformative.
From a therapeutic perspective, it’s also reassuring. There’s no need to be a perfect therapist. In fact, perfection wouldn’t be healthy.
Therapy depends on building a strong therapeutic alliance and then navigating small ruptures and repairs within that relationship. If a rupture is too large too early, the relationship may fail. But small frustrations and boundaries can actually make the therapist more real.
Therapists inevitably have limits and boundaries. We can’t meet every need. But working through those moments can deepen the therapeutic process.
In adulthood, Winnicott suggests that this intermediate space continues through art, creativity, religion, and philosophy. These are ways we explore the relationship between our internal and external realities.
Therapy is another place where this in-between space exists.
Often in therapy we’re asking questions like: how much of this experience is internal perception, how much is external reality, and what do we do with that uncertainty?
Sometimes people collapse this therapeutic space because they can’t tolerate the uncertainty or discomfort of not knowing. We try to close the gap too quickly.
For example, if someone can’t entirely remember something traumatic that may have happened to them, it can be a common pitfall for a therapist to say something like, “Well, I believe you. I believe it happened,” when the client themselves is saying that they don’t know.
Of course, every situation is case by case, but in my experience what’s often more helpful is for us to tolerate the uncertainty together. We might say something like, “I’m here to support you. It’s okay if you don’t know.”
We can notice the drive to know with certainty. We can notice what it feels like to sit with the uncertainty and the discomfort.
I would never question someone’s certainty that they’ve been through a traumatic experience or that they suspect one has occurred. But if someone genuinely doesn’t know, I think it’s important not to take shortcuts.
Sometimes the most meaningful thing we can do is acknowledge how difficult something is and simply stay present with someone while they struggle with it.
This brings me to Ogden’s paper.
Ogden & This Art of Psychoanalysis
Ogden begins with the idea that psychoanalysis is a lived emotional experience. Because of that, it can never fully be translated, transcribed, or explained in words.
Anyone who has tried to document psychotherapy in a medical record probably understands that tension. Something essential is always lost when we reduce the experience to a summary.
Ogden explores two phenomena: night terrors and nightmares.
Night terrors are different neurologically from nightmares. People who experience night terrors often don’t remember them, and they can’t be comforted while they’re happening.
Nightmares, on the other hand, can be remembered. They can be talked about and integrated emotionally and relationally.
Ogden connects night terrors to what Bion called beta elements, which are raw emotional experiences that have not yet been psychologically digested.
Nightmares represent a step toward integration. They can be dreamed, remembered, and processed.
Ogden suggests that therapy can help people dream experiences that were previously “undreamt.” When emotional experiences cannot be dreamed or symbolized, psychological growth becomes difficult.
Through the therapeutic relationship, analyst and patient together create something like a shared dreaming process.
Ogden describes this as the emergence of a third subject, something created through the interaction of the analyst and the patient. It’s more than just the two individuals separately.
This analytic third has a transformative capacity.
Ogden also talks about how awareness of our emotional states is mediated by language. We can try to describe feelings, but we can’t fully say a feeling.
That’s where metaphors become powerful. Metaphors and symbols allow us to communicate emotional experiences that would otherwise be very difficult to express.
He also points out that sometimes things left unsaid can be more powerful than things that are said.
I love that paradox. Honestly, all the paradoxes make me happy.
Later in the paper, Ogden describes his work with a patient who had molested his sister. The way he writes about his own reverie evolving during the treatment was fascinating.
He was able to join with the patient enough that both of them were able to engage in reverie within the session. By holding that container, the patient was able to begin working through very difficult material.
Often people carry enormous shame around experiences like this—whether they were the perpetrator or the victim. If we immediately collapse the experience into a label, no real work can happen.
Instead, Ogden stayed receptive. He allowed the process to unfold.
Acts of Devotion & Working Through
That made me think about times in my own career when I’ve noticed parallels between what clients are experiencing and what begins to surface in my own unconscious.
One example came to mind.
At one point I was working with many older adults who had hoarding behaviors and who were living in very disorganized homes. Their living environments often reflected what was happening internally.
At the same time, I was working extremely hard. I was a student at Pacifica and commuting frequently. I would work Monday through Thursday, then Thursday night drive up to Santa Barbara once a month. I would attend lectures Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, then drive home and go straight back to work.
It was a very intense period.
One weekend someone needed a ride from school, and I offered to give them one. When I opened the back seat of my car, it was completely filled with stuff.
Laundry I had meant to do. Random items I had been carrying around. Just piles of things.
I had this moment where I thought, “Oh my gosh.”
I’m normally a very organized person. I like my space to be orderly. But there was literally no room for someone to sit.
And I had this realization: How am I taking my work home with me?
Something symbolic had surfaced.
These things bubble up.
I was able to reflect on it, clean out my car, and recognize that I was overfunctioning at that time. It helped me become more aware of how the work was affecting me personally.
That’s one of the beautiful aspects of this work. We don’t always need to share these internal realizations with clients. Sometimes we do, if it’s clinically helpful, but often the important part is simply that we are doing our own internal processing.
Both of these papers really spoke to me.
In closing, I want to return again to the idea of devotion.
Many of us may not have had the experience of someone being deeply devoted to us.
So what might it be like to practice devotion toward ourselves?
Not in a narcissistic way, but in the sense of choosing our own development and caring for our inner life.
Recently I found myself imagining what it would be like to have my own therapy office instead of subletting a space. I was picturing how I could set it up the way I wanted and use it freely with clients.
And I noticed that the idea felt like an act of devotion.
So I’ll leave you with that question:
What might an act of devotion toward yourself look like?
If you have thoughts about these papers or anything I discussed today, I would love to hear them.
Citation / References:
Ogden, T. H. (2004). This art of psychoanalysis: Dreaming undreamt dreams and interrupted cries. International Journal of Psychoanalysis (85), 857-877.
Winnicott, D.W. (1971). Chapter 1: Transitional Objects and Transitional Phenomena. Playing & Reality: Tavistock Publications.