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19th November 1958.
Dear Dr. Smirnoff,
Thank you for your further letter about the translation into French of Transitional Objects and Transitional Phenomena. I will try to help you over the points you raise.
Page 1, col. 2, line 12.
affectionate type of relationship.
The word “affectionate” in English means something very like the word “tender” but it is not used in just the same places. There is a display of an affectionate relationship when two people who are in love with each other touch with their hands and tingle. Undoubtedly instinct is implied but it is not at the same time operative. If you watch a small child you sometimes see an erotic type of relationship between the child's thumb and the mouth and at the same time an affectionate relationship between the fingers and the area of the upper lip and nose. It is the affectionate type of relationship which is typically lost in the delinquent or even in the early stages of delinquency. Perhaps there is no word in your language which just expresses all this which is sublimated affect and which is very characteristic of most of what a normal child displays in the way of feeling.
The word “tender” is rather good but it emphasizes an absence of aggression and destruction whereas the word “affectionate” neither emphasizes or denies it. One could imagine a hug, for instance, being affectionate and yet far from tender.
Page 2, col. 1, line 5.
imaginative elaboration of function etc.
I will try to explain what I mean by this whole paragraph. Let us assume that someone is trying to make a comprehensive brief statement of human nature. He might do this referring to the individual's pattern of external relationships. He might, on the other hand, do this same thing in terms of the patient's relationship to his inner psychic reality. Usually the attempt is made to relate the one to the other and it is sometimes implied that human nature consists in a mixture of these two aspects each of which enriches the other. In making this s