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We have widened the scope of psychoanalysis through the use of transitional space to accept and modify projections and use countertransference as a tool for exploring internal representations of early relationships that color perceptions and inhibit access to ambiguity in our emotional lives. Psychoanalysts like Melanie Klein and Winnicott have given us theories based upon observations of children. Analysts have applied these ideas to their work with adults who have sequestered themselves into cocoons of stiff self-sufficiency and lives without emotional resonance. This collection of scholarly papers advances our use of play and playfulness in the consulting room by elaborating symbolization and facilitating practice in order to internalize structures which can be applied to the management of anxieties unless inhibited in the absence of emotional resonance.
Organized into four parts: “Development,” “Psychopathology,” “Sociocultural Aspects” and “Technical Implications,” this collection edited by Monisha Akhtar includes papers by her, Salman Akhtar, Anni Bergman, Melvin Bornstein, Ira Brenner, Lucy Daniels, M. Hossein Etezady, Daniel M.A. Freeman, James Herzog, Christine Kieffer, Ilene Sackler Lefcourt, Mali Mann, Jill Savege Scharff and Vamik D. Volkan. This collection describes the ability to play interrupted by a surround of unmodulated aggression, narcissistically unavailable parents or situations of unreal realities which leave the child splitting off, inhibiting, blasting out or mechanically repeating experiences rather than sitting with unmanageable affect states. The work for the consultant and the clinician is to broaden internal perceptions through a reworking of internal representations within an emotionally responsive setting that resonates with but also allows for individual expression, tolerance and resolution of distress. In the absence of this transitional space, play becomes defensive with stereotypic repetitions (Brenner), inhibitions or outbursts of