Parental attitudes and the development of the primary transitional object.

Research on the primary transitional object has ignored the subtle interactions that occur between parents and children in the development and use of the primary transitional object. While conscious expectations of whether the child will develop a primary transitional object do not seem to be an important factor, unconscious motivations seem to determine if parents serve as either facilitators or disturbers of the child's relationship to the primary transitional object. The ways in which parental attitudes may affect the development of the primary transitional object, and the consequences of this, are described. *Dr. Busch is Assistant Professor of Psychology, Children's Psychiatric Hospital, University of Michigan Medical Center, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48104. Miss McKnight is Clinical Social Worker, Children's Psychiatric Hospital, University of Michigan Medical Center. This research was conducted under the auspices of the Child Psychoanalytic Study Program (Director, Humberto Nagera, M.D.) of Children's Psychiatric Hospital, University of Michigan Medical Center. The authors express gratitude to Dr. Guillermo Pezzarossi for his help in interviewing the mothers of the children in the study. 12 Child Psychiatry and Human Development Vol. 4(1), Fall 1973 Fred Busch and Judith McKnight 13 In conducting studies of the primary transitional object* we were surprised at the complexi ty and variety o f parental at t i tudes toward the primary transitional object. The basis for our surprise was that in all previous studies of the primary transitional object there has been an absence of or a one-sided elaboration of parental at t i tudes toward the transitional object. Winnicott [2, 3] and Gaddini [4] both stressed the role of the "good enough m o t h e r " in the development of the transitional object, but do no t discuss the mother 's at t i tude toward the object and the role tha t this may play in the child's relationship to it. Stevenson [5] stresses that in her sample of mothers the stance toward the child's transitional object was primarily positive. As a n example of this positive at t i tude toward the transitional object Stevenson [5: p. 204] quotes one mother as saying, "When will he give it up? I don ' t know, but I do know that I shall never insist. I feel when he no longer needs it, he will do so of his own accord. It is t oo deeply loved and has helped him through too many trials to be t oo easily discarded." At the opposi te end of the cont inuum Sperling [6] describes pathological unconscious factors in a mother ' s a t t i tude that may lead the child to have an inordinate a t t achment to an object, and she comes to the conclusion that the child's attachment to a transitional object is an unheal thy development. In summary, there has been little discussion of parental att i tudes toward the transitional object and the role this may play in the development of the transitional object. Where discussed the view presented seems to be one-sided, and does no t match our own experience where a complex set of att i tudes toward the primary transitional object is expressed by parents. Thus, a natural step for us was to investigate parental at t i tudes toward the primary transitional object as a factor in its development. *In our investigative efforts [1] we have found it necessary to distinguish between two types of objects, each having properties of Winnicott's [2, 3] ~'transitional object," but which seem to serve differing developmental purposes. Those objects to which the child develops an attachment in the first year of life we have labeled the "primary transitional object." This is to be ~istinguished from those object attachments that occur at around age two which we have called the "secondary transitional object." The prototypical primary transitional object is a soft, malleable object that develops around six months of age from a set of experiences around going to sleep. 14 Child Psychiatry and Human Development