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A woman's capacity for autonomous desire requires transformation of the maternal identification with which she dissolved the oedipal conflict as a girl. The challenge of womanhood is release from the inhibiting childhood identification without loss of the inner maternal presence which is both a treasured emotional bond and a vital source of self. This article describes how a woman may use worry, a disguised relic of maternal care, in her move toward autonomous desire. A new concept is introduced to elucidate the complexities of the process by which the childhood identification is transformed in adulthood: the post-oedipal transitional object. Like D. W. Winnicott's (pre-oedipal) transitional object, the post-oedipal transitional object fortifies an object relationship over separation and thereby facilitates development; moreover, the post-oedipal transitional object is the creation of an adult mind that reflects mature psychological capacities and embodies neurotic conflict
Jeanine M. Vivona, PhD, Department of Psychology, The college of New Jersey, and independent practice, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
My deepest thanks to Peter Badgio, Katherine Dalsimer, and Elizabeth Paul for sharing their invaluable insights during the development of this article, which is better for my conversations with each of them. An earlier version of the article was presented at the 1998 spring meeting of Division 39 (Psychoanalysis) of the American Psychological Association, Boston.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Jeanine M. Vivona, PhD, Department of Psychology, The College of New Jersey, P. O. Box 7718, Ewing, New Jersey 08628-0718. Electronic mail may be sent to jvivona@tcnj.edu.
The article elaborates the contributions of worry, the prototypic post-oedipal transitional object of women, to attainment of the capacity for autonomous desire in adulthood.