Playing as a Basic form of Living: On Winnicott’s “Playing: A Theoretical Statement”

The author offers a creative reading of Winnicott’s “Playing: A theoretical statement,” a paper in which Winnicott makes his most fully developed statement of his understanding of the phenomenon of playing. Winnicott is less interested in the symbolic content of play than in the experience of playing. Interpretation may at times supplement the psychic work the child and analyst achieve in playing together, but the principal agent of psychic change is the experience of playing. In the course of this paper, the author (1) views Winnicott’s concept of transitional objects and phenomena as a significant step in the expansion of contemporary object relations theory; (2) understands Winnicott’s view of playing as inherently self-therapeutic as an extension of Freud’s conception of dreaming; (3) points out Winnicott’s struggles with the limits of language to communicate what is conveyed in the medium of paradox;(4) offers his own experience of playing with children outside of a clinical setting to illustrate ideas introduced by Winnicott; and (5) notes that if the child does not know her baby is not a real baby, she is psychotic; if she sees the doll as only a doll, she is unable to play. Play rests on the simultaneity of the make-believe and the real.