[In pursuit of an object]

Abstract

The author proposes an extension of the transitional phenomenon concept. Beginning with Winnicott's well known description, the author reviews the successive transformations of transitional space, first materialized and then increasingly "intrapsychic" and which persists in the individual all life long in various forms. Transformations go from the gross blanket to a more figurative little bear, then to play activities, creative drawing of the child, and finally to hypotheses and theories. This progressive hold on the object involves the mediation of transitional space--first found then created--and is instrumented through age-specific different means: concrete handling; certain characteristics of baby-talk such as voice intonation, use of the past tense before playing and the conditional in playing; redundancies, parentheses and abstractions. In the course of this paper, the author gives his personal view on the subtle differences between figuration and representation, and on the relationship between abstraction and aesthetical feeling.