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In this rich and insightful article, Kestemberg discusses a type of object relationship which she terms fetishistic. She develops the concept of fetish
familiar to us from Freud into a broader concept which serves not only as a mechanism of denial of castration, but also to preserve narcissistic integrity by projection onto a thing. In this larger concept of the fetish, the ego projects onto an object other than the self the qualities of lasting immutability, magical powers, etc., which are habitually included in the unconscious fantasies of the subject in his relationship to his own internal objects. Thus the fetishistic object relationship is one manifestation of the tendency of the human psychic apparatus toward idealization. The range of such fetishistic phenomena is great, and, indeed, probably no one is exempt from some sort of fetishistic attachment to objects which serve as guarantors of narcissistic integrity. Kestemberg's article contains many stimulating insights into the similarities and differences between her concept and Winnicott's notion of the transitional object. She considers also Melanie Klein's concept of projective identification, but places emphasis on the immutability and deanimation characteristic of the fetishistic object. A case history illustrative of this phenomenon is presented. The analyst found it necessary technically to provide "holding" in Winnicott's sense until a different and stronger organization was achieved by the patient. In a metapsychological discussion of this view of the fetish, the author distinguishes her concept of the self from those of Winnicott and Kohut. The self is, for her, the first organized configuration of the psychic apparatus which develops from the mother-child unit and is the successor to this unity. Thus the self for Kestemberg prefigures and is the source of the ego/self distinction of these other writers. The self represents the narcissistic continuity of the subject in an autoerotic fas