An Account of Lowenfeld Technique in a Child Guidance Clinic, with a Survey of Therapeutic Play Technique in Great Britain and U. S. A.: Phyllis M. Traill. Journal of Mental Science, XCI, No. 382, 1945, pp. 43–78.

The technique here described follows the theory propounded by Margaret Lowenfeld at the London Institute for Child Psychology in 1931. Lowenfeld differs from the classical psychoanalytic view that play is the representation in symbolic form of wishes, impulses and fantasies derived from infantile sexuality. Instead she maintains that play is 'the expression of the child's relation to the whole of life' and refers it to 'all activities in children that are spontaneous and self-generated; that are ends in themselves; and that are unrelated to "lessons" or to the normal physiological needs of a child's own day'.1

The present paper states in elaboration that the 'flow of impulse, idea, ambition, and feeling … is a complex phenomenon made up of many elements, such as pure bodily experience, experiment with material, endeavor to understand the environment and experiment with it, the acquirement of skill and of emotional expression', all expressed in play. These elements in their interrelationship are referred to as the 'primary system'. 'This form of thought is personal, multidimensional, irrational and largely unrelated to objective external fact.' Speech is stated to be the instrument of the individual's objective relationship to the outside world and is referred to as the 'secondary system'. The primary system remains active throughout life and constitutes its 'unconscious' matrix. The secondary system channels the primary system into contact with objective reality.

The rôle of the therapist, accordingly, becomes one of fitting the words to the actions of the child. An examination of the protocols of the five illustrative cases reveals that this consists of rather explicit verbalizations of trends revealed by the play. In general the 'interpretations' tend to be quite direct but remain at the level of what the child has explicitly acted out.

At the same time the relationship to the therapist is one of utter 'neutrality'. This is carried to such an extent that du