It's well observed that between the ages of around one and 12, 据观察，在一到十二岁间，

many children manifest a deep attachment to a stuffed, soft object, normally shaped into a bear, a rabbit, or—less often—a penguin. 许多孩子对填充、柔软的物品会展现密切的依附感，这些物品通常被做成小熊、兔子或是比较少见的企鹅的样子。

The depth of the relationship can be extraordinary. 这段关系的深度可以很惊人。

The child sleeps with it, talks to it, cries in front of it, and tells it things it would never tell anyone else. 小孩和他的绒毛玩具一起睡觉、和它说话、在它面前哭泣，还告诉它绝不可能告诉他人的事情。

What's truly remarkable is that the animal looks after its owner, addressing him in a tone of unusual maturity and kindness. 真正令人惊叹的是，动物玩偶会照顾它的主人，用独特的成熟和善良语调与他对话。

It might, in a crisis, urge the child not to worry so much and to look forward to better times in the future. 它可能在危机发生时激励小孩，告诉他别担心太多，并期待未来更好的时光。

But naturally, the animal's character is entirely made up. 但当然，动物玩偶的角色完全是被创造出来的。

The animal is simply something invented, or brought to life, by one part of the child in order to look after the other. 那动物仅仅是由孩子心里的一部分所创造或赋予生命的东西，以能照顾另一部分的自己。

The English psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott was the first person to write seriously, and with sensitivity, about the business of teddy bears. 英国心理分析师 Donald Winnicott 是第一位认真又感性地研究泰迪熊行业的人。

In a paper from the early 1960s, Winnicott described a boy of six, 在 1960 年代早期的一篇论文中，Winnicott 描述了一个六岁男孩，

whose parents had been deeply abusive to him, becoming very connected to a small animal his grandmother had given him. 他的父母严重虐待他，男孩和他祖母送的小动物玩偶产生强烈的连结。

Every night, he would have a dialogue with the animal, would hug him close to his chest and shed a few tears into his stained and graying soft fur. 每天晚上他都会和玩偶对话，将他紧紧抱在胸前，且掉几滴泪在他那带有脏污又逐渐变灰的绒毛上。

It was his most precious possession, for which he would've given up everything else. 那只玩偶是男孩最珍贵的资产，男孩会为了它放弃一切。

As the boy summarized the situation to Winnicott, "No one else can understand me like Bunny can," 当男孩向 Winnicott 简述这个情况：「没有人能比兔兔更了解我」，

what fascinated Winnicott here was that it was, of course, the boy who had invented the rabbit, 在这让 Winnicott 感到有趣的事是，当然，男孩创造了兔子，

given him his identity, his voice, and his way of addressing him. 赋予他个性、声音，以及和自己说话的方式。

The boy was speaking to himself via the bunny in a voice filled with an otherwise all-too-rarely-present compassion and sympathy. 男孩是在透过这只小兔子和自己对话，以一种充满生活中少见的怜悯和同情的声音跟自己对话。

Although it sounds a little odd, speaking to ourselves is common practice throughout our lives. 虽然这听起来有些奇怪，但和自己对话是我们人生中常见的行为。

Often, when we do so, the tone is harsh and punitive. 常常当我们和自己对话时，我们的语调会严厉又苛刻。

We upbraid ourselves for being losers, time-wasters, or perverts. 我们责备自己一事无成、浪费时间或行为反常。

But, as Winnicott knew, mental well-being depends on having to hand a repertoire of more gentle, forgiving, and hopeful inner voices. 但据 Winnicott 所知，心理健康取决于必须以一种更温柔、宽容且怀抱希望的心底声音表达。

To keep going, there are moments when one side of the mind needs to say to the other that the criticism is enough: 为了继续下去，有时候心里某一面必须告诉另一面批评已经够了：

that it understands, that this could happen to anyone, that one couldn't have known. 它能理解，任何人都可能碰到这种事，人人都没办法事先知道。

It's this kind of indispensable benevolent voice that the child first starts to rehearse and exercise—with the help of a stuffed animal. 就是这种不可或缺的和蔼声音，那是孩子最先开始练习和实现的－－透过填充动物玩偶的协助。

In adolescence, animals tend to get put away. 青春期时，这些动物玩偶往往被丢到一边。

They become embarrassing, evoking a vulnerability we're keen to escape from. 它们变得令人难为情，唤起一种我们亟欲逃避的脆弱感。

But, to follow Winnicott, if our development has gone well, 但依照 Winnicott 的建议，若我们发展良好，

what was trialled in the presence of a stuffed animal should continue all of our lives 拥有填充玩偶时的试验应该要跟着我们一辈子－－因为，

—because, by definition, we will frequently be let down by the people around us, who won't be able to understand us, 就本质来说，我们会常常对生活周遭的人感到失望，他们无法理解我们、

won't listen to our griefs, and won't be kind to us in the manner we crave and require. 不愿聆听我们的悲伤，而且不会以我们渴望且需要的方式善良地对待我们。

Every healthy adult should therefore possess a capacity for self-nurture, 因此每个健康的成人都应该有自我照顾的能力，

that is, for retreating to a safe, secluded space and speaking in a tone that's gentle, encouraging, and infinitely forgiving. 也就是退回一个安全、僻静的空间，并以一种温柔、鼓励和极其宽容的语调说话。

That we don't formally label the understanding self "white rabbit" or "yellow bear" shouldn't obscure the debt 虽然我们不会将宽容体贴的自己正式标签为「小白兔」或是「黄色小熊」，

that the nurturing adult self owes to its earlier embodiment in a furry toy. 但这并不应否定长大后能自我照顾的自己是早期绒毛玩偶化身的功劳。

A good adult life requires us to see the links between our strengths and our regressive, childlike states. 为有美好的成人生活，我们需要看见自己的力量和倒退、稚气状态之间的连结。

Being properly mature demands a gracious accommodation with what could seem embarrassing or humiliatingly vulnerable. 真正的成熟需要和看似难为情或羞辱般地脆弱的事物达成一种仁慈的和解。

We should honor stuffed animals for what they really are: 我们应该向动物填充玩偶的真正样貌致敬：

tools to help us on our first steps in the vital business of knowing how to look after ourselves. 在了解如何照顾自己这项重要工作起步时帮助我们的一样工具。