The Cassel June 2026 Summer Conference explored the concept of transition.

Donald Winnicott introduced the concept of transitional space as an intermediate area between inner psychic reality, largely based on phantasy, and an ‘objective’ appreciation of the real, external world. Winnicott’s emphasis was on early development and the way in which this space, when it emerges between infant and care giver, helps the infant to manage a gradual recognition of the care giver as separate, thus supporting a shift from absolute dependence towards relative independence.

Can the important relationships formed between patients and clinicians, as well as between fellow patients, not also facilitate the emergence of such transitional spaces?  Spaces that foster symbolisation, play and creativity, and a gradual shift from dependence to a more self-determined, autonomous but connected life.

The Cassel Summer Conference explored  various stations along this journey. A presentation on beginnings and endings considered the anxieties, hopes, and unconscious meanings mobilised at the threshold of treatment and its conclusion, highlighting how these moments can both consolidate and destabilise psychic ch+ange. Another, on adventurousness, explored the delicate balance between safety and experimentation, drawing on the concept of play as a transitional activity that enables new forms of experience and self-representation. Finally, a paper on epistemic trust addressed the conditions under which patients come to recognise and internalise knowledge from another mind, particularly in the context of developmental trauma and disrupted attachment.

This conference invited reflection on how treatment itself may function as a transitional space –one that holds movement, uncertainty, and transformation at its core.