Winnicott (1965) offered a comprehensive description of what we could call “solitude in the first years of life”: “The infant is able to become unintegrated, to flounder, to be in a state in which there is no orientation, to be able to exist for a time without being either a reactor to an external impingement or an active person with a direction of interest or movement” (p. 34). He also made the developmental claim that many individuals become able to enjoy solitude before the end of childhood and that some children “may even value solitude as a most precious possession” (Winnicott, 1965, p. 30). When discussing the noncommunicating self, he explicitly relates the ability for aloneness with the capacity to concentrate on a task, a major developmental aim during childhood (Winnicott, 1965).
The state I am alone passes through three developmental phases. The first one is the I, the phase of the integration or unit of the individual; “I includes ‘everything else is not me’” (Winnicott, 1965, p. 61). Next, comes I am, which signifies that the infant exists, is alive, although still vulnerable or even paranoid; he/she has a contact with reality (the not‐me) and is able to share with the use of the mechanisms of introjection and projection, which facilitate mutual enrichment. Sharing means, among other things, that his/her existence is recognized by others. And finally, comes I am alone, which stems from the infant’s awareness that a reliable mother exists for him/her. In this light, loneliness can be understood as arising in the I am phase (a close parallel to Klein’s [1975] depressive position). The infant, even under favorable circumstances, may experience failures in sharing, the main failure being that he/she is not seen or recognized to exist or is not understood by the mother. Therefore, loneliness is lessened by the acknowledgment of his/her existence, by sharing itself.
A precondition for the development of the capacity to be alone is the transition from object relating to object use. Winnicott (1971) regards this transition as perhaps the most difficult developmental task, in as much as he viewed the capacity to be alone as a major manifestation of emotional maturity. It requires that the subject places the object outside the subject’s omnipotent control. In other words, it presupposes the recognition of the object’s existence as a separate entity, as having a life of its own in the world of objects. For this procedure to be completed successfully, the object must survive from its destruction (i.e., expression of aggression) by the subject.
The infant’s capacity to be alone – a capacity that develops throughout life – depends largely on the mother’s capacity to be alone. Primary maternal preoccupation, in the sense of the mother’s complete devotion to her newborn baby, gradually subsides. Some failures of mother’s adaptation to her infant’s needs are inevitable, and this gradual disillusionment may be beneficial if it occurs according to the infant’s developing ability to cope with frustration. The mother’s past aloneness experiences, her own memories of time alone and of being cared for, contribute to this solitude à deux (shared aloneness), which is described by Winnicott (1965) as follows: “Ego‐relatedness refers to a relationship between two people, one of whom at any rate is alone; perhaps both are alone, yet the presence of each is important to the other” (p. 31).
Thus, a very useful distinction between withdrawal and benign aloneness can now be made. Withdrawal is a defense against persecution fear or anxiety and against a potential danger of losing identification with that from which one withdraws. Benign aloneness reflects the tolerance of ambivalence and the ability to share solitude, that is, the ability to be alone in the presence of another person who is also alone and perceived to be alone (see Rubin, Chapter 29 for the origins of social withdrawal in childhood).
Linking and the Capacity for Thought
A clear connection between the mother’s absence and the ensuing infant aloneness, on the one hand, and the capacity for thinking, that is, a very creative outcome, on the other, may be drawn from the work of W.R. Bion, who formulated a theory of thinking. Bion (1967) introduced the concept of linking one object with the other, self with objects, and the good and the bad in one and the same object. Linking means the process of connecting among people, emotions, and thoughts. It leads the infant to establish correlation, which is the basis of true communication and of thinking. The capacity for linking develops early in life in a healthy mother–infant relationship. In such a relationship the mother can contain the anxiety and the aggression that the infant projects onto her, and through her reverie, to return them to the infant in a modified, “detoxified” form, so that the infant can tolerate them and attribute meaning to them. Such a process transforms the raw (mainly physical and perceptual) elements, the so‐called beta elements, into alpha elements, which are storable and available in thinking, phantasy, memory, dreams, and in psychic life in general, and become food for thought (Bion, 1977).
According to Bion’s (1967) theory of thinking, thoughts are preconceptions. From the first experiences of satisfaction, which are provided to the infant by an actual breast (or breast substitute), the preconception meets a realization and becomes a concept. However, the mother is not omnipresent and omnipotent. Therefore, the frequent absence of the breast, which is experienced as a no‐breast or an “absent” breast inside, produces a frustration in the infant; this frustration meets the concept and becomes a thought. When the infant can withstand frustration and his/her envy for the mother’s capacity for reverie is not too great, an apparatus for thinking thoughts (Bion, 1967) develops, in other words, a way of thinking that is based on the links between thoughts. The absence of the breast and the related frustration constitute for the infant a problem to be solved, which is at the root of thinking and learning from experience. Through introjecting a model of containment from the start, the developing person has the chance to feel coherent and contained when he/she is alone. Furthermore, the capacity for thinking implies that one’s existence is re‐cognized by another, a state that apparently reduces loneliness.
Bion’s views about the absent breast as well as the no‐breast inside the infant are relative to the notion of the negative as conceived by Green (discussed in a previous section). They also place great emphasis on the mother’s absent presence as a fundamental experience of existence. A significant contribution of Bion’s theory to the understanding of mental health, and aloneness in particular, is that, when the linking process is facilitated by the infant’s genetic predisposition and the mother’s capacity for containment and reverie, the absence (the negative) becomes a fertile ground for thinking and learning. In other words, the mother’s absence and the resulting aloneness produce thoughts that exert pressure to be linked and develop into creative thinking – from the beginning of life.
Companions in Solitude
Transitional Objects and Transitional Phenomena
Winnicott’s insights into the origins of aloneness and solitude (as discussed above) are accompanied by insights into the capacity to use aloneness in a beneficial manner. He proposed a third, intermediate area of experiencing, located between the internal/psychic and the external/shared reality and enriched by both of them. This area is closely linked with the capacity to be alone (Winnicott, 1958, 1971). It is a potential space between the subject and the objects, which are beyond the subject’s omnipotent control. It is “a resting place for the individual engaged in the perpetual human task of keeping inner and outer reality separate yet interrelated” (Winnicott, 1971, p. 2).
In this area, transitional objects and transitional phenomena appear in the beginning of life, followed by the use of symbols and playing and finally by culture. The transitional object may be the thumb, a pacifier, a blanket, a teddy bear, a doll or, later, a hard object (e.g., a toy car), which is steadily available to the child. The transitional phenomena are rather intangible states, such as the infant’s (musical) vocalizations, rhythmic movements, and other habits and rituals, which usually appear at the time before sleep. Parents acknowledge the use of the transitional object (e.g., they encourage their children to take it with them),