the familiar comforts (teddy bears, dolls, blankets) that represent the mother and are carried everywhere by the child to help ease separations. The object’s form, smell, and texture are physical representations of the comforting mother. Transitional objects are one of the first compromises made by the developing child in negotiating the conflict between the need to establish autonomy and the need for dependency. This conflict of opposites is the first “dialectic” that a child learns to negotiate.
