Two People Playing Together: Some Thoughts on Play, Playing, and Playfulness in Psychoanalytic Work

Children's play and the playfulness of adolescents and adults are important indicators of personal growth and development. When a child is not able to play, or an adolescent/adult is not able to be playful with thoughts and ideas, psychotherapy can help to find a more playful and creative stance.

Elaborating Winnicott's (1968, p. 591) statement that “psychotherapy has to do with two people playing together,” three perspectives on play in psychotherapy are discussed. In the first point of view, the child gets in touch with and can work through aspects of his or her inner world, while playing in the presence of the therapist. The power of play is then rooted in the playful communication with the self. In a second perspective, in play the child is communicating aspects of his or her inner world to the therapist as a significant other. In a third view, in “playing together” child and therapist are co-constructing new meanings. These three perspectives on play are valid at different moments of a therapy process or for different children, depending on the complex vicissitudes of the child's constitution, life experiences, development, and psychic structure.

Concerning these three perspectives, a parallel can be drawn between the therapist's attitude toward the child's play and the way the therapist responds to the verbal play of an adolescent or adult. We illustrate this with the case of Jacob, a late adolescent hardly able to play with ideas.