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When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face … 1 Cor. 13:11, 12
This paper explores common links between psychotherapy, play and theatre; especially where they take place and what conditions are necessary to bring them to life, so that we can see through the glass less darkly.
Prominent among my various starting points was the work of Winnicott that developed out of his original paper 'Transitional Objects and Transitional Phenomena' (1953) and led to the series of studies assembled in his book Playing and Reality(Winnicott, 1971). Ideas which he developed at length in relation to psychotherapy and play but only hinted at in relation to other areas of cultural experience are extended to the theatre.
Other starting points were the questions asked by trainee therapists beginning psychotherapy—either individually or in a group. Do we begin, or do we leave it to the patients and remain silent? Should we look at patients or avoid their gaze either in individual therapy or in a group when singled out for a communication at the beginning? These might appear to be simple questions of technique but more basically, I feel, are about the right level of tension needed to set psychotherapy going.
A further starting point arose from reflecting on the increased skill needed by actors in the modern theatre when they are not sheltered or framed by the traditional proscenium arch, with its obvious parallel problem for the therapist when not sheltered by the traditional medical frame of reference or uniforms.
The discussion of psychotherapy is restricted to what is variously known as dynamic, analytically orientated, interpretive or insight-oriented psychotherapy. Note the word 'insight': we try and help our patients get a look into their inner worlds. The concept of insight is fraught with difficulties, as pointed out by Lewi