Hesitation in winnicottian clinical practice

Abstract

Winnicott deals with the theme of hesitation with considerable delicacy. This reflects a choice, a choice that is congruent with his own practice and with the general ethic of psychoanalysis. For Winnicott, hesitation appears in the road that leads to the utilization of the object and, as such, that of the position as subject. But where is this time of suspension today? Hesitation is a vocabulary that is so rare today that we can almost anticipate that its generalized absence marks an aspect of civilization and its discontents. In a highly clinical perspective, I propose to conceive of the time of hesitation as a "potential time" during which an intrapsychic dialogue propitiates desire, and, as such, culture. Keywords: Hesitation, Objection, Subjectivation, Resistance, Indecidability, Civilization.