Chapter 5 The Playing Through of Selfobject Transferences of a Nine-Year-Old Boy

I use the term playing through as many use the term working through to suggest that, in analysis with children, especially young children, playing is the main form in which children and therapists communicate. In using this term I want to convey the uniqueness, creativity, and pleasure involved in analytic work with children. Playing is their language. It is a language that is coupled with experience, similar to the language of adults, which commonly associates words with particular events or experiences. Every child has his or her own language that the therapists must learn the meaning of in order to make an interpersonal exchange possible. In this context the child's language or play includes all forms of expressions that the child has at his or her disposal: painting, drawing, role-playing, movement, manipulating objects, sand, clay, and so on.

At the beginning of therapy, many children are not able to play. They are not able to express their inner state in symbols and can only communicate with signs, body language, and by making noises. This state seems to resemble that of an infant attempting to express himself to the outer world using only noises and motor responses, particularly facial expressions. Given this absence of conventional means of communication, the therapist needs to place himself or herself in the experiential situation of the child. This does not mean that the therapist must form a symbiotic relationship with the child; it does, however, imply that the therapist must repeatedly immerse himself or herself in the child's inner world to decode the signs. Only then can the therapist discover the form of exchange that