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Although hide-and-seek and its precursor in development, peek-a-boo, seem to be universal children's games, they have received limited systematic attention in the psychoanalytic literature. Peek-a-boo has fared better than hide-and-seek. Two papers (Kleeman, 1967, 1973) were devoted to careful observation of normal children and the various appearances and uses of peek-a-boo in their development. The first paper was based on observations of one child; observations of several children were featured in the second.
There is no shortage of mention and brief discussion of peek-a-boo and hide-and-seek as developmental phenomena (e.g., Peller, 1952; Mahler and Furer, 1963; Kaplan, 1978; Mahler, 1979; Neubauer, 1987; Bergman and Lefcourt, 1989). As a clinical event, hide-and-seek is mentioned occasionally (e.g., Alvarez, 1988; Berna-Glantz and Haflinger, 1988). What has been missing has been any systematic attempt to focus on the meaning of the games when they become events in the clinical situation. I organized this symposium to draw attention to and explore the meaning of individual occurrences of these games in the treatment of children of different ages, who were coping with a variety of stresses, necessities, and traumas.
The unique and lifelong grip of the game of hide-and-seek on the mental life of particular people was brought home to me yet again as I drove to Stockbridge, Massachusetts, in early May 1991 to deliver an earlier version of “Hide-and-Seek in the Playroom: On Object Loss and Transference in Child Treatment.” Jerzy Kosinski, author of the unforgettable holocaust novel, The Painted Bird (1983), had committed suicide and his body had been found that morning.