What does it mean to ‘play’ in analysis?

Abstract

ABSTRACT Playing’ in analysis within the frame of the post-Bionian theory of the analytic field has to do with a) listening to the discourse of the unconscious as if virtually everything reflected the dream of the couple or the analytic field, b) interpreting the process of analysis not as rectifying transference distortions but as promoting emotional transformations, c) using a simplestyle of conversation with the patient. In the new paradigm of psychoanalysis, which can be defined no longer as epistemic but as ontological, i.e. directed not so much to unveiling repressed contents as to promoting new psychic functions, the psychoanalysis of children, in which play has such an important place, serves as a model for the psychoanalysis of adults. The concepts of activity, vitality, intensity, curiosity, pleasure, exploration, spontaneity, openness, etc., become elements that ideally should be present in any analysis. In the play, everything is fiction and it is played à deux. Playing serves to make the mind grow through moments of affective attunement (at-one-ment). Hence the need for the analyst to have the conceptual instruments useful to intuit at the highest possible degree of resolution what is happening on the unconscious and shared level of the relationship.