The interplay of edges

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Abstract
Winnicott and Milner conceptualise the baby as being psychically part of the mother in the earliest stages of development. They develop a theory of separateness between mother and baby through the use of the infantile illusional area and transitional phenomena. In this paper, three examples are explored in depth, one developmental, the other two clinical. The first example is of a patient's description of her transitional object when she was a child, which became terrifying to her. In the second example, the emotional development of an 11-month-old baby boy is explored, who is beginning to develop a sense of being a separate self from his mother, which comes under threat through a premature separation. The third example explores the dynamics of a borderline patient in long-term psychotherapy who cannot bear separateness and reacts with dissociation. Winnicott's theory of illusional space and Milner's ideas of the therapist becoming an ‘answering activity’ are used in order to understand the case material. The purpose is to show how these concepts lead to interesting ways of thinking about the development of a baby's separateness and the stage before separateness. The implications for therapeutic practice with patients who have borderline tendencies or fundamental problems in the area of separation are also examined.

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