The First Treasured Possession—A Study of the Part Played by Specially Loved Objects and Toys in the Lives of Certain Children

With a Preface by D. W. WINNICOTT, M.D. (London)

… So wherever I am, there's always Pooh,
There's always Pooh and Me.
"What would I do?" I said to Pooh,
"If it wasn't for you, " and Pooh said, "True,
It isn't much fun for One but Two
Can stick together, " says Pooh, says he,
"That's how it is, " says Pooh…
(Now We Are Six: A. A. Milne)

In a paper read for the British Psycho-Analytical Society (1953) I drew attention to the importance of the first object used by the infant and the value that a study of such objects and of techniques employed by infants in the first months can have both in clinical work and in the elucidation of the theory of early object relationships.

The phenomena themselves are well recognized, but it seemed to me that full use was not being made of them. In psychoanalytic literature there are a few references to objects employed early by infants; in particular, Wulff (1946) describes the use of objects by certain infants, but according to my view he does not draw attention sufficiently clearly to the normal aspect of these phenomena. He puts special emphasis on the relationship between the object used by the infant and the objects that are important in fetishism and in fact used the term fetish objects, thereby implying an abnormality which I think is not necessarily a feature.