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This title includes a talk given by André Green in 2004 for the Donald Winnicott Memorial Lecture held annually by the Winnicott Clinic of Psychotherapy, along with an introduction by Brett Kahr and a brief closing comment by Cesare Sacerdoti. A short addendum to the lecture was added by Green.
André Green, in my opinion, is a brilliant and thought-provoking author. This short piece is no exception. His talk, while condensed into the time frame of a brief lecture, is consistent with his broad-based perspective that seamlessly weaves together important threads of classical and contemporary psychoanalysis drawn from a wide variety of theoretical orientations. Focusing on Winnicott's ideas about play, as explicated in his landmark book, Playing and Reality (1971), Green pulls on threads and expands specific notions into universal themes. Explicating both the positive and the negative elements in play and its relation to reality, he broadens and expands Winnicott's views on the mother/infant dyad, which he cogently argues maintains a positive bias. Green disagrees that play belongs exclusively to health, as Winnicott asserts, and he notes that it “is in the presence of horror that we understand the necessity of play” (p. 8). Green is attentive to the violent, provocative, power-driven, and destructive aspects of play. For instance, he cites as an example the custom of certain South American tribes to play football with the heads of their captured enemies.
Green prefaces his critique of Winnicott's understanding of play by describing him as the “most creative mind in psychoanalysis after Freud” (p. 7). He places Winnicott's ideas in perspective within the larger context of psychoanalytic theory and then further develops them. Winnicott's ideas are rooted in his observations of the mother/child relationship. Green challenges this foundational cornerstone of Winnicott's work. Rather, Green sees play as innate and he points to its universality to support his position. Winnico