Introductory Remarks

Following an address of welcome by Dr Moran, Professor Solnit formally opened the meeting.

A. Solnit: Thank you very much, George. I have a feeling that we are like a multi-generational family in which there is a small amount of shifting of the extended family, with the continuity of a certain group and the advent of new participants. We could say that a small number of our extended family go away to make their ‘fortune’ and return. In that way we have a continuous, international symposium.

I would like to introduce the people who are here at the front table and then tell you what their roles are. I think you know that Audrey Gavshon, who is a staff member of the Anna Freud Centre, will be presenting a paper. Before that Ed Weinshel, who is now the Secretary of the International Psychoanalytical Association, will present the first paper. It gives me special pleasure to introduce Donald Cohen who is the Director of the Child Study Center, who is going to set this ‘stage’ with an introductory report from a study group that meets in New York mostly (sometimes in New Haven) with child analysts and adult analysts from New York, New Haven, Boston and Washington. This study group, sponsored by the Psychoanalytic Research and Development Fund, has been considering the many meanings of play in child analysis now for approximately two years.

I would like only to set the scene with one or two statements which are quotes. One is by a graduate drama student in Israel, whose name is Shai Bar-Yaacov. He is not an analyst, but he is deeply devoted to drama and he seems to have captured the spirit of play. Bar-Yaacov said1:

the urge to do theatre is a very natural thing. It stems from the urge to play that exists in all of us. As we grow we have to funnel this urge into other forms. And that's what theatre is all about.

I would also like to say, although we all think we know what we mean when we speak of or hear about play, in fact play is better described by its functions than it can be