More about Sally in my novel Our Time is Up.
Although Donald Winnicott’s concept of “transitional object” is an important concept in psychoanalysis, it is not frequently brought up in discussions of current events. However, recently two events have brought it to mind: the coronation of King Charles III and the indictment of former-President Trump for conspiring to withhold classified documents from the National Archives. The transitional object is often the first "not me" possession that really belongs to the child. It could be a real object like a blanket or a teddy bear, but other "objects", such as a melody or a book. For a child, the object represents the infant's transition from a state of being merged with the mother to a state in which the mother is understood to be someone outside and separate. If this transition is traumatic because of illness, absence or some other incapacity of the mother, the need for a transitional object remains into adulthood.
Christopher Andersen, the author of The King, said that King Charles travels with a childhood teddy bear. He has had it since he was a small child and the only person who is allowed to mend it is his former nanny, Mabel Anderson, to whom he remains close. Christopher Andersen attributes the retention of Charles’ childhood transitional object to his childhood which he characterizes as “heartbreakingly lonely." Andersen claims that Charles has described his mother’s behavior toward him as a child as cold and aloof. According to Andersen, Charles only spent two 15-minute periods a day with his parents when he was a child. When he had a tonsillectomy, when he had a very bad case of the flu, when he fell down the stairs and broke his ankle, when he had an emergency appendectomy at the age of 13, neither his mother nor his father visited him in the hospital.
Priscilla Kauff, in her letter to the editor of The New York Times suggests that we look to the concept of transitional objects to explain former-President Trump’s motivation for withholding classified documents from the National Archives. She says his behavior can only be understood in terms outside the parameters of adult thinking. Kauff says, “Efforts to find a “logical” or even minimally reasonable explanation … tend to run into a stone wall, especially when the behavior clearly defies ordinary logic.” Political analysts have suggested that Trump withheld the documents for financial or political gain, or he wanted to possess them out of sheer vanity. Kauff suggests a consideration of what might be going on deeper inside Mr. Trump psychologically, below the realm of logic and conscious reason. “Think of a child’s beloved stuffed animals, commonly known in psychoanalytic terminology as ‘transitional objects.’ In theory, the transitional object provides a child with a fantasied connection to the safety provided by the “mother” that is increasingly threatened as normal development and separation occur.”
“Transitional objects,” Kauff says, “may also serve perverse or negative functions, such as maintaining the fantasy of unlimited, grandiose power… Mr. Trump’s behavior in protecting his transitional objects (in this case the documents) shows all the characteristics of a child’s response when the beloved stuffed animal is lost or taken away. Anxiety and rage are almost instantaneous. Desperate attempts to retain or restore the transitional objects follow. It may be helpful to reconsider Mr. Trump’s behavior as primitive, regressive and best understood outside the parameters of adult thinking.” (Priscilla F. Kauff, The New York Times, June 16, 2023. Opinion | What Makes Trump Act That Way? A Psychiatrist and a Psychologist Weigh In. - The New York Times (nytimes.com)).
Donald Trump’s childhood experience was akin to that of King Charles. When Trump was 2 ½ years old, his mother, Mary Trump, went to the hospital to give birth to her last child, she had a hemorrhage which required an emergency hysterectomy. She had subsequent infections and four surgeries in two weeks; she almost died. As a toddler, Trump endured the trauma of the prolonged absence and life-threatening illness of his mother. It’s not clear how long she was incapacitated or whether she ever really re-engaged with her son. Donald Trump has referred to his nanny many times, but rarely his mother. Mary was not involved with the intricacies of the day-to-day lives of her children. Reportedly, Donald saw more of the housekeeper than his mother. (President Donald Trump’s Mom, Mary Trump Facts (moms.com); Donald Trump’s Mommy Issues - POLITICO Magazine.)
In the case of Donald Trump, understanding his attachment to the boxes of classified documents as transitional objects is useful because it clarifies his continued references to “my boxes.” The transitional object is often the first "not me" possession that really belongs to the child. His behavior is not subject to a discussion of rational motives. His lawyers cannot control him because regressive behavior is not subject to logic or experience or empirical data. The primitiveness of the attachment is not subject to a logical discussion of consequences.
The concept of transitional objects is useful in understanding child development, but also in understanding many adult behaviors. Kauff pointed out that transitional objects in adulthood can be functional or dysfunctional. When cell phones, watches, wallets, or keys are left or forgotten — one may feel anxious, bereft, or enraged like a child who has lost his teddy bear. Any of these objects can be transitional objects which connect us to a secure base. These attachments are relatively harmless. But, when the object is a cigarette, a glass of wine, or boxes of classified documents it is dysfunctional.
Having a transitional object as an adult can be harmless, functional or dysfunctional. For example, cigarettes can be transitional objects. The so-called “addiction” that some people have is not to nicotine, but rather to the feeling of calm and stability it creates in the smoker. In some cases, the cigarette has the same function as a security blanket. Clearly, in that case the transitional object is dysfunctional. On the other hand, the transitional object may be a pillow and people can avail themselves of it every night and carry it with them when they travel without any negative consequences.
Guilt, especially unconscious guilt, can prevent successful mourning and prevent someone from being able to move on after the loss of someone. Hamaguchi’s film unfolds slowly (it runs three hours), just as psychotherapy does, but it demonstrates the curative process of verbalizing one’s thoughts and feelings to a trusted confidante.
“The Menu,” a new Netflix film starring Ralph Fiennes, is a brutal satire of class division. It is also a study of the narcissism that characterizes the gastro tourism business and its celebrity chefs. For example, Noma, the Copenhagen restaurant that has repeatedly topped lists of the world’s best restaurant is currently serving grilled reindeer heart on a bed of fresh pine, and saffron ice cream in a beeswax bowl. A new class of gastro tourists schedules first-class flights and entire vacations around the privilege of paying a minimum of $500 per person for its multicourse tasting menu of things that most of us would not even characterize as “food.”
There’s usually a lot to say about the feeling that you have nothing to say.
“Ambivalence” is the simultaneous existence of opposite feelings. Most of us hate it. It is an uncomfortable state. We want to feel one-way or the other.
The concept of the repetition compulsion is at the core of the three principal lynchpins of the process of
psychoanalysis and distinguish it from other forms of psychotherapy: transference, resistance and acting
out. In psychoanalysis the analysis of the transference is the major tool for making the patient’s
unconscious become conscious. The patient transfers his unconscious attitudes from childhood, which
he does not remember, onto the analyst. He then experiences the analyst as if he is his father or mother
or significant other from childhood and regresses to experience what it was like to interact with that
person.
In his novel, More Than I Love my Life (New York: Knopf, 2021), David Grossman captures the subtlety of another type of narcissist—the self-righteous narcissist who derives her narcissistic validation and supply by maintaining herself as a morally superior person.
Many people are paralyzed when they have to make a decision because the concern about making a mistake is amplified by their fear of shame.
As seen in Washington Post.com Video 10/27/21
The borderline patient challenges the therapist, accuses her of not caring and threatens to quit treatment. The therapist must tolerate the aggressive and contemptuous behavior of the patient without retaliating. Working together, the therapist and patient have to manage the tumultuous ups and downs that are inevitable in the successful treatment of someone with a Borderline Personality Disorder.
Do you get angry at people who interrupt you all the time?
Part of the experience of psychoanalysis is learning that we have many complicated and contradictory feelings about people. We cannot get rid of them; but we do not have to act on them. Rather, we must accept that we have conflicting feelings, but weigh them before we act on them. Tolerating ambivalence is essential for maintaining a long-term relationship.
Some patients ask: “Don’t you have arguments with your husband?” or “Haven’t you made mistakes with your children?” The answer is: “Yes, I certainly have, and I know it’s painful and hard to deal with. But I also know it’s possible to change.”
President Trump has flaunted the idea of disregarding social norms and government advisories. He has sent out a message to all of America’s adults and children: “The law does not apply to me. I am special. Only suckers obey the law.” This Thanksgiving holiday demonstrated that the intergenerational transmission of narcissism is widespread in this country.
Many states, such as New York, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts, issued stay-at-home advisories; the CDC issued an advisory against travelling over Thanksgiving. Nevertheless, Thanksgiving eve was the busiest air travel day of the pandemic; many other people drove to visit relatives. All of these families disregarded their government advisories and sent a booming message to their children: “We are special! We do not have to obey the government! We don’t have to worry about spreading a deadly virus!”