The Alchemy of Play

Abstract

Jung devoted his late career to alchemy, convinced that it revealed the psyche's deep structure. This structure is not static, but dynamic. Jung saw that the alchemists described, through naïve projection, a process by which the psyche realizes its highest potential, called by the alchemists the philosopher's stone or the elixir of life. From a psychological perspective, we realize our highest psychic potential in an ongoing creative engagement with life and the world. Using theoretical and illustrative clinical material, the author examines alchemy through the lenses of Jung's and Winnicott's perspectives and shows how the alchemist's prima materia suggests a form of consciousness that Jung refers to as participation mystique and that Winnicott refers to as transitional states. Winnicott describes a process for moving from subjective fantasy to a creative relationship with the world. This process aligns with the alchemical process of moving from the prima materia to the elixir of life. Winnicott's psychology also shows aggression's necessary role in this process. This understanding of the role of aggression in the mind's self-construction accounts for the necessity of the dark nigredo phase in the alchemical process. Alchemy's goal, the elixir of life, is the correlate to Winnicott's notion of play: not so much an activity as a way of being and living creatively. Clinical material from play therapy, seen through Winnicott's views on play, are used in conjunction with Jung's seminal insights into alchemy to yield new perspectives on both psychology and alchemy.