British pediatrician and psychoanalyst who developed the object relations theory of early development — introducing the concepts of the transitional object, the good-enough mother, and the holding environment.
Transitional objects: the teddy bear and security blanket are 'transitional' — existing in the intermediate space between subjective (me) and objective (not-me) reality. The good-enough mother: perfect mothering is not required or desirable — good-enough attunement and the child's development of frustration tolerance. The holding environment: the mother's provision of a reliable, responsive environment as the basis of psychological development. The false self: compliance in infancy can produce a false-self organization.
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