title: Transitional objects: idealization of a phenomenon.
abstract: Winnicott's thesis about transitional objects and transitional phenomena indicates that Kleinian theory, as well as his own preference for imaginative play with ideas, influenced his interpretation of his discovery and led to misapplications of its meaning. An alternative interpretation of its meaning, one that may be aligned more easily with other clinical data, is submitted. A brief review of the literature is appended.
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development; D002675:Child, Preschool; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D009769:Object Attachment; D011574:Psychoanalytic Theory