[The role of microrhythms and macrorhythms in the emergence of thought in the infant]

Cathexis of time and even more of waiting is considered critical for the development of thought, as S. Freud himself often pointed out. The author discusses the means available to the infant for growing out of the hallucinatory perceptual system and coming to a representational activity which implies a capacity to tolerate the frustration provoked by the waiting. Two distinct interactive processes play a role in the appearance of thought: on one part the macrorythms of repetition involving the interaction partners, mainly in their care-giving activities; on the other part the microrythms with their discontinued rhythms, unsatisfied waiting involving the partners in short sequences, mainly in play activities. The author tentatively demonstrates on the basis of clinical examples and various sources that these seemingly opposed moments give a structure to a unique element of the dyad: the interactive rythm. Rythm is a condition of the capacity to wait and thus of the capacity to think.