Playing and Becoming in Psychoanalysis

✍ Scribed by Steven H. Cooper

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 193
• Series: Psychoanalysis in a New Key Book Series
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Building on Winnicott’s theory of play, this book defines the concept of play from the perspective of clinical practice, elaborating on its application to clinical problems.

Although Winnicott’s theory of play constitutes a radical understanding of the intersubjectivity of therapy, Cooper contends, there remains a need to explore the significance of play to the enactment of transference-countertransference. Among several ideas, this book considers how to help patients as they navigate debilitating internal object relations, supporting them to engage with "bad objects" in alternatively playful ways. In addition, throughout the book, Cooper develops an ethic of play that can support the analyst to find "ventilated spaces" of their own, whereby they can reflect on transference-countertransference. Rather than being hindered by the limits of the therapeutic setting, this book explores how possibilities for play can develop out of these very constraints, ultimately providing a fulsome exploration of the concept without eviscerating its magic.

With a broad theoretical base, and a wide definition of play, this book will appeal to psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists wanting to understand how play functions within and can transform their clinical practice.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
Endorsements
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Contents
Acknowledgments
Credits List
Introduction
References
Chapter 1: Playing in the Darkness: Use of the Object and Use of the Subject
Introduction
Play as a Link between the Unsymbolized and Symbolized: Linking Freud and Winnicott
The Incommunicado and Unsymbolized Experience
Return to Sam
How Are We New in the Process of Play and Symbolization?
Note
References
Chapter 2: Toward an Ethic of Play in Psychoanalysis
William
Peter
Nina
Discussion
Note
References
Chapter 3: The Limits of Intimacy and the Intimacy of Limits: Play and the Internal Bad Object
Henry: Part 1
Henry: Part 2
Discussion
References
Chapter 4: The Paradox of Play in Mourning
Introduction: Play and Mourning
Elizabeth Bishop's "One Art": An Example of Play as a Link to Grieving
Case Vignettes
Rachael
Julie
Discussion: Mourning and the Ethics of Play
References
Chapter 5: A Theory of the Setting: The Transformation of Unrepresented Experience and Play
A Brief Review of the Setting Concept
The Objects in the Setting and the Setting in the Object
Case Vignette 1
Case Vignette 2
Play at the Seam between Unrepresented and Represented Experience
Clinical Vignette 1
Clinical Vignette 2
Concluding Remarks
Note
References
Chapter 6: "I Want You to Be": Thinking about Winnicott's View of Interpretation in Ontological and Epistemological Psychoanalysis
Winnicott's Contribution to the Understanding of Interpretation
What Do We Mean by Being and Being in Time?
Further Understanding What We Mean by Ontological Psychoanalysis: Bridging the Epistemological and Ontological Divide
Coda
References
Chapter 7: Donald Winnicott's Play and Stephen Mitchell's Developmental Tilt Hypothesis Reconsidered
Introduction
Winnicott as a Theorist Who Emphasized the Continuity and Perpetuity of Psychic Engagement
Mitchell's Characterization of Winnicott as Proposing "Simple" Provision
More on Being a "Good Object or Replacement Object" and Play
A Note about Winnicott's Ontological Psychoanalysis and the Developmental Tilt
Concluding Remarks
Note
References
Index