The patient with anxiety neurosis tends to instrumentalize his therapist into an ego-supportive function and a magical omnipotent object. This phenomenon may be explained in terms of Winnicott's concept of the transitional object. Schlierf suggests that a disturbance in the transitional object phase of childhood prevents the integration of ambivalence and development of object constancy. In his defensive solution the patient with anxiety neurosis instrumentalizes his objects—in the transference relationship, his therapist—perpetuating the transitional object phase. This has much in common with the infantile fetish as described by Greenacre; in contrast to the transitional object, which has a progressive function, the infantile fetish delays the

process of psychic differentiation. Schlierf discusses these aspects of the therapeutic relationship, as well as the implications for technique, in her presentation of a case in which prescribed medication assumed the role of a transitional object in therapy.