Playing and Reality

Playing and Reality – D.W. Winnicott

Donald W. Winnicott was a British pediatrician and psychoanalyst whose ideas about infancy, play and the mother-child relationship have had a lasting influence on psychology, psychotherapy, education and the arts. Playing and Reality, published shortly after his death, gathers some of his most important essays and is often considered the best introduction to his mature thought.

At the center of the book is Winnicott’s concept of the transitional object, such as a blanket or soft toy to which a baby becomes deeply attached. He suggests that such objects belong to an intermediate area of experience, between the infant’s inner world and external reality, which he calls transitional or potential space. This area, he argues, is where play happens, and it continues throughout life in the form of creativity, art, religion and cultural experience.

Winnicott explores the importance of play for children and adults, arguing that play is the essential ground for creativity and for discovering the self. He applies these ideas to psychotherapy, which he describes as taking place in the overlap of two areas of playing, those of the patient and the therapist. Other essays discuss the role of the mother’s face as a mirror in which the infant first sees itself, the use of objects, the location of cultural experience, and the difference between living creatively and complying with the demands of others.

Written in a distinctive, thoughtful and sometimes poetic style, illustrated with clinical examples, the book rewards careful reading.

Playing and Reality is a classic for therapists, psychoanalysts, students of psychology and readers interested in creativity and child development. Some passages are dense and assume familiarity with psychoanalytic ideas.