Play and Adaptation

(1979).
Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 34:217-232

Play and Adaptation
Eric A. Plaut, M.D.
PLAY HAS NOT HAD A PROMINENT ROLE IN PSYCHOANALYTIC
THEORY, except for childhood play. This stems from Freud's view that play
is normally restricted to childhood and, in the course of development, is
replaced by fantasy, transformed into creative activity, or subordinated to the
reality principle. Play, however, is an activity of central importance
throughout life. It is universal, not only in man, but also in many higher
animals. It exists in all known cultures. In this paper I propose to develop an
ontogeny of play extending throughout life and to consider some implications
that such a revised role of play has for the psychoanalytic view of conflict and
adaptation.
Freud saw play as helping the child master anxiety through action. The
child experiences play as unreal, yet "linked to reality."
It would be wrong to think he does not take that world seriously; on
the contrary, he takes his play very seriously and he expends large
amounts of emotion on it. The opposite of play is not what is
serious but what is real. In spite of all the emotion with which he
cathects his world of play, the child distinguishes it quite well from
reality; and he likes to link his imagined objects and situations to
the tangible and visible things of the real world. This linking is all
that differentiates the child's play from 'phantasying' [Freud, 1908p.
144; my italics].
—————————————
Commissioner, Connecticut Department of Mental Health, Hartford,
Connecticut.
I am indebted to Professor Donald McIntosh, whose knowledge and insight
contributed so much to the substance of this paper, and to Susannah
Rubenstein, whose editorial skills contributed so much to its presentation.
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Copyrighted Material. For use only by IDCHerzliya. Reproduction prohibited. Usage subject to PEP terms & conditions (see terms.pep-web.org).
Creative artists preserve and renew the pleasures (or forepleasure) of play
by the use of "forbidden" wishes through alteration, displacement, and
disguise. Freud (1908) wrote that "the essential ars poetica lies in the
technique of overcoming the feeling of repulsion in us which is undoubtedly
connected with the barriers that rise between each single ego and the others"
(p. 153). The adult daydreamer "carefully conceals his phantasies … because
he feels he has reasons for being ashamed of them… Such phantasies, when
we learn them, repel us or at least leave us cold" (p. 152f.; my italics). This
repulsion may be understood dynamically as the result of the subordination of
the pleasure principle to the reality principle and the subsequent repression
and displacement of pleasure-bound activity through the activity of the ego
and the superego.
Freud's personal assessment of pure fantasy undistilled into art can clearly
be seen in these passages. For all his fascination with artistic creativity,
Freud could not free himself from his conviction that adaptation to external
reality was the hallmark of maturity, health, and happiness. He stated, "the
growing child, when he stops playing, gives up nothing but the link with real
objects; instead of playing, he now phantasies. He builds castles in the air
and creates what are called day-dreams" (1908p. 145).
Several further distinctions between child's play and adult fantasy emerge
in Freud's writings. The child's play is characterized by the compulsion to
repeat (in unaltered form and content) the activities and rules, patterns and
circumstances, inherent in games. This in turn is related to the child's
intellectual immaturity. The repetitiveness of childhood play is necessary
because the child lacks both the ability to link thoughts together by cognitive
work and the capacity for verbalization. Play helps children to renounce
instinctual satisfactions by creating substitutes that permit partial discharge
and to master anxiety by active rather than passive means. Adult play may be
aimed at an audience; a child's play usually is not.
In Freud's view (1920), the compulsion to repeat, characteristically
observable in children's play, is also the hallmark of dreams occurring in
traumatic neuroses; here again the association between
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normative childhood play and pathological symptomatology of adulthood
could be inferred:
If we take into account observations such as these, based upon
behaviour in the transference and upon life histories of men and
women, we shall find courage to assume that there really does exist
in the mind a compulsion to repeat which overrides the pleasure
principle. Now too we shall be inclined to relate to this compulsion
the dreams which occur in traumatic neuroses and the impulse
which leads children to play [p. 22f].
Freud concluded his remarks on play in Beyond the Pleasure Principle by
again linking it to the creative artist's role and suggesting that a system of
aesthetics with an economic approach might be devised to account for the
amount of pleasure and value inherent in artistic works.
Freud's assessment of the role of play must also be understood in the
emotional and intellectual context of nineteenth-century European culture,
which, among other things, was characterized by a highly ambivalent attitude
toward pleasure and an elevation of work to a dominant position in its value
system. This view of play as inappropriate to adulthood had not characterized
earlier eras. As Aries (1966) put it, "In Western civilization, down to the
eighteenth century at least, the words 'games' and 'play' did not signify
anything childish" (p. 101). The subordination of the pleasure principle to the
reality principle and the linkage of repression to the emergence of higher
levels of civilization are evidences of this nineteenth-century trend in
Freudian theory. Freud's definition of health is an additional expression of
this value system: health is defined as the freedom to love and work (but not
to play).
Following Weber (1925), I regard play as an ideal type of action. From a
psychological point of view, love, work, and play are the three ideal types
of action. They are the three primary types of motivated behavior, "ideal" in
that they are pure types, nonexistent in reality in unalloyed form. Such a
formulation allows us to integrate the concept "action" into psychoanalytic
theory, and to tie together the adaptive and the conflict-based aspects of this
theory. Freud's definition of health was clearly an attempt at this. Perhaps
because his definition omitted the crucial role of play and
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because he did not have a workable definition of action, Freud never further
pursued his definition of health. As a step in that direction I shall first define
play and then explore it from the genetic perspective by developing an
ontogeny of play.
DEFINITION OF PLAY
There is no generally accepted definition of play. Many have attempted to
define play activity: it has been variously described as motorically diffuse,
i.e., nondirected, exaggerated, repetitive, and even wasteful of motion
(Millar, 1973), and psychologically syncretic, involving autonomous,
synthetic, integrative, and defensive ego functions (Corbin, 1974). In terms of
social relations, play has been shown to permit temporary destruction and
reconstruction of social hierarchies and value systems (Bateson, 1955). It has
been defined as "free motion within limits" (Forrest, 1978p. 2). It seems
likely that imaginative play activity aids in the development of empathy, while
simultaneously sharpening identifications and fostering reality testing (Rosen,
1960). Finally, play has been described developmentally in terms of its aims
and structures (Millar, 1973); (Erikson, 1977).
I define play as a form of action that is pleasurable, freely chosen,
intrinsically complete, and noninstrumental. In describing play as a form of
action, I follow sociologists, e.g., Talcott Parsons (1949) and Max Weber
(1925), who define action as behavior which has subjective meaning to the
actor. My use of the word "action" here is related to, but different from,
Schafer's in that Schafer (1973) rejected the use of metapsychological
constructs, while I retain them.
Play is action that is pleasurable. A wide variety of pleasurable
activities are found in play. Control, manipulation, ritual, and mastery are
common. A kinesthetic component is often present. Although many
preconscious and unconscious gratifications will be present in play (as in all
human activity), characteristic of play alone is that there is always a
conscious sense of pleasure.
Play is freely chosen activity. It is free from both internal and external
compulsions. It is free from internal compulsion in that it occurs in a
temporary state of relaxation of superego control,
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although conscience continues to operate. It is free from external compulsion
in that it is neither socially nor economically required. These are
characteristics of play as an ideal type of action. Real play often, if not
always, contains elements of both internal and external compulsion. Sports,
for example, often have both a "driven" quality and a strong component of
peer expectation and competition.
Play is intrinsically complete action. It does not require another person,
as does love, although much play and most games involve other people. It
exists entirely within its own boundaries and has no importance beyond the
duration of the activity, in contrast to work and love, which always have
future implications or immediate practical consequences.
Play activity is a carefully regulated function of the ego with clearly
demarcated temporal and psychological boundaries. Play activity in
adulthood reveals the masterful mature function of the ego, which, temporarily
dominating id and superego, integrates their components into ritualized
expression within a structured, articulated framework.
While all activity is bounded by structure, it is uniquely characteristic of
play that the bounds are freely chosen and are an integral part of the activity,
rather than a limitation to it.
Play is noninstrumental. It has no reality consequences. For example, in
competitive play, regardless of who wins and loses, there are no implications
for the relationship between the competitors. Play involves primarily
symbolic objects, not real objects. In that sense it is narcissistic. I view this
as a healthy narcissism, in the adult as well as in the child. Moreover, pure
play does not produce goods or services, in contrast to work, which always
does. Indeed, when play does produce goods or services, as in professional
sports, it is alloyed with an element of work.
While it would be useful to attempt similarly detailed definitions of love
and work, these are beyond the scope of this paper. Here I will define work
as an activity producing something useful or valuable (goods or services)
and love as the active expression of valuing another being purely in his own
right. Freud (1930) considered work as the activity most suited to rooting
man in reality. His theory of object relations, however, was based primarily
on
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love relationships. The question of the role of play from the point of view of
object relations needs further examination, which cannot be attempted here.
THE LITERATURE ON PLAY
Having defined play, I turn to a brief overview of the current literature
representative of the widespread scientific interest in the subject. Ethologists,
anthropologists, child therapists, and sociologists have written extensively
about play (Altmann, 1962); (Bateson, 1955); (Groos, 1898); (Lorenz,
1952); (Millar, 1973).
Ethologists have long recognized that play is an inherent aspect of animal
behavior in a wide variety of species, including most of the higher mammals,
and that it is found both in the mature and the young. Animal play fulfills the
four criteria of my definition. Ethologists' studies suggest that animal
behavior, like human behavior, lends itself to organization in categories
broadly defined as sexual, playful, and work-oriented (in animals, the latter is
signified by food-gathering and habitat-building activity).
Anthropologists stress that play is present in all known cultures and, as far
as we know, has always been a feature of human activity.
The psychoanalytic literature on childhood play is extensive (Erikson,
1937), (1950), (1977); (Peller, 1954); (Waelder, 1932); (Winnicott, 1971).
There is wide agreement about the central role of play in the development of
the child and about the severe pathological implications of its inhibition in
childhood. Play has also been extensively explored and used in the
construction of Piaget's developmental psychology.
The sociological literature has a long-standing interest in the subject of
play. Riesman (1954) pointed out that Freud's neglect of play was deeply
influenced by nineteenth-century attitudes toward work and play, as a result of
which Freud associated work with the reality principle and play with wish
fulfillment.
The extensive literature by Marxists (Marcuse, 1969); (Marx, 1939);
(Schroger, 1970); (Shapiro, 1970) discusses only work and play as
important activities, omitting love. Marxist theory views work as onerous and
play as the relief from that burden, at least under
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capitalism. Under communism, play becomes unnecessary because work is
rewarding. The Marxist focus on group behavior as well as its puritanical
disregard of sexuality stand in interesting contrast to Freudian thinking, which
views work as rewarding, focuses on individual behavior, and gives sexuality
a central role.
There is a large body of psychoanalytic literature on play and creativity
(Freud, 1908), (1910a), (1910b); (Greenacre, 1957), (1959); (Kris, 1952);
(Winnicott, 1971). I shall limit myself to two contributions which are most
pertinent to the subject.
For Winnicott (1971), the realm of play is the area of experience between
subjectivity and objectivity. The origins of this area of experience are found
in the transitional object relationship, which stands halfway between the
infant's purely subjective relationship with his mother and later object
relationships. He states: "On the basis of play is built the whole of man's
experiential existence" (p. 64). While Winnicott did not develop a detailed
ontogeny of play, he postulated a development from transitional phenomena to
play, then to shared play, and from that to cultural experiences. Winnicott's
formulation that play stands halfway between the subjective and the objective
is very similar to Bateson's (1955) formulation that play stands halfway
between primary and secondary process. Closely related is Kris's (1950)
concept of regression in the service of the ego. All three formulations address
the dual aspect of play activity. It involves simultaneous access to
unconscious id elements and highly structured ego elements. The player faces
both inward to his unconscious and outward to reality (Rothenberg, 1976a);
(Waelder, 1932).
Like Winnicott, Erikson (1977) sees the origins of adult creativity and
cultural experience in childhood play. He uses this as a point of departure to
develop a detailed ontogeny of the ritualization of experience. For Erikson,
play is a quality of behavior and not an ideal type of action. Along the same
lines, the bounds and rules of games are (in Erikson's view) to control hostile
aggression (in contrast to my view that they are intrinsic to play as an
activity). Erikson's description of the role and development of ritual
brilliantly combines biological, developmental, social, and historical factors.
His epigenetic sequence for ritualization is especially pertinent. He follows
the ontogeny he developed earlier,
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assigning the characteristics of ritual as follows: for infancy, mutuality of
recognition; for early childhood, discrimination of good and bad; for the
preschool years, dramatic elaboration; for the school age, rules of
performance; and for adolescence, solidarity of conviction.
Winnicott and Erikson have documented the long-neglected role of play in
creativity and ritualization. However, neither creativity nor ritualization has
its origins in play alone. They both require elements of love and work.
Indeed, as the highest forms of human activity, creativity and ritualization
probably involve the greatest mixture of the three primary types of action.
I close my overview of the psychoanalytic literature with a few comments
about the energies involved in play. Their source remains a subject of dispute.
The traditional view follows Freud (1915) and was succinctly stated by
Waelder (1932p. 98): "From the standpoint of the theory of instincts, the
mastery instinct, like all others, is a blending of love and destruction."
Hartmann et al. (1949) expanded on this formulation, using the concept of
fusion of neutralized sexual and aggressive energies. Numerous authors
(Bühler, 1925); (Fenichel, 1945); (French, 1952); (Groos, 1898);
(Hartmann, 1964); (Hendrick, 1943); (Kardiner and Spiegel, 1947);
(Mittelmann, 1954); (Murray and Kluckhohn, 1953); (White, 1959),
however, have held that a separate instinct is needed to understand play, as
well as for other reasons. White's (1963) viewpoint is the opposite of
Waelder's: "The playful, exploratory, manipulative behavior of animals and
young children … provides us … with the clearest body of facts upon which
to build a conception of independent ego energies" (p. 33).
It is the thesis of this paper that play has equal status with love and work
as one of the three primary types of action. Just as the libidinal instincts are
the primary (but not the sole) source of energy for love, just as the aggressive
instincts are the primary (but not the sole) source of energy for work, so
independent ego instincts may well prove to be the primary source of energy
for play. This approach lends support to White's position. An extensive
exploration of this issue is beyond the scope of this paper.
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ONTOGENIES OF CHILDHOOD PLAY
The best-known psychoanalytic ontogenies of childhood play are those of
Peller (1954), A. Freud (1965), and Erikson (1950). The work of Piaget
(1951), from the point of view of developmental psychology, also has
influenced psychoanalytic thinking on the subject. Erikson lists four stages of
early childhood play: autocosmic play, centering on the child's own body;
play with nearby things, like mother's body; play in the microsphere, the small
world of manageable toys; play in the macrosphere, the world shared with
others. A. Freud postulates a six-stage transition from body play to toys and
from play to work. Her early stages closely parallel Erikson's; her later stages
deal with play as a precursor for work. Peller's ontogeny of childhood play is
the most detailed. She elaborates the defensive, expressive, formal, social,
material, and secondary gain aspects of childhood play. Her four stages are
based on the child's developing capacity for object relations: from the body,
to the preoedipal mother, to the oedipal relations, to sibling relations. Piaget
lists three stages of play: practice play, symbolic play, and games with rules.
His second and third stages parallel Peller's third and fourth stages. Erikson's
(1977) ontogeny of ritualization parallels Peller's first two stages (he uses
almost identical language) and Piaget's stages three and four. These various
ontogenies of childhood play are in basic agreement about the major
characteristics of play at each stage of the child's development, although they
use varying terminology.
AN ONTOGENY OF PLAY THROUGHOUT LIFE
For my ontogeny of play (see table 1), I have drawn upon Erikson's eight
stages of life. I have characterized the play stages as follows: for infancy,
recognition play; for early childhood, discrimination play; for the preschool
years, symbolic play; for the school age, games with rules; for adolescence,
playfulness with boundaries; for young adulthood, integrated play; for
adulthood, generation play; and for mature age, creative play. The first four of
these stages come directly from Erikson and Piaget, whereas the last
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four represent an attempt to identify the most important forms of play in the
postchildhood years.
The pressure of the resurgence of sexual and aggressive instincts in
adolescence leads to attempts to discharge these via play. Playfulness
characterizes many adolescent interactions. However, this playfulness often
lacks the boundaries that are required to prevent
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it from degenerating into maladaptive behavior. Adolescent "horseplay" can
become overtly hostile or inappropriately sexual. "Playing with ideas" in
adolescence is a necessary precursor of adult creativity, yet it can become a
vehicle for self-absorption. Masturbation, "playing with oneself," is a normal
adolescent behavior unless it renders object finding dispensable (Blos, 1962).
In play the boundaries are explicit. In playfulness they are implicit.
Containing playfulness within boundaries is an important task of adolescence.
TABLE 1
Play Throughout Life
Life Stages Stages of Stages of Stages of Ontogeny of
(Erikson, Ritualization Play (Peller, Play Play
1950) (Erikson, 1977) 1954) (Piaget,
1952)
Infancy Mutuality of Body Practice Recognition
Recognition Play Play
Early Discrimination Preoedipal Practice Discrimination
Childhood of Good and Bad Play Play
Preschool Dramatic Oedipal Symbolic Symbolic Play
Age Elaboration Play
School Age Rules of Sibling Games with Games with
Performance Rules Rules
Adolescence Solidarity of Playfulness
Conviction with
Boundaries
Young Integrated Play
Adulthood
Adulthood Generation Play
Maturity Creative Play
Genitality is the characteristic mode of relating in young adulthood
(Erikson, 1950), with marital intimacy as the primary arena for its
expression. Mutual participatory play needs to be an integral part of that
intimacy. If young adult play is narcissistic or imitative, rather than
participatory, it will undermine the relationship. If there is no play involved,
the intensity of the intimacy, with all the inevitable unrealistic mutual
expectations, can threaten the only recently established independent adult
identities. Similarly, play must be an integral aspect of the sexual
relationship. Otherwise, intercourse without foreplay depersonalizes the
partner and foreplay without intercourse becomes teasing.
For adulthood, I have chosen generation play as the most characteristic,
because of the critical role that the parents' ability to enjoy playing with their
children has in successful child rearing. Child psychoanalysis has long
recognized that meaningful interaction between an adult therapist and a child
patient requires that the adult participate in the child's play. Curiously, child-
rearing theory and practice have not given comparable weight to parent-child
play. Spock (1976) devotes only 2 of 600 pages to the subject. My ontogeny
of play, like other psychoanalytic ontogenies, posits that successful adaptation
at later stages is predicated on successful integrations at earlier stages. The
parent who was not able to play, freely and pleasurably, in earlier stages of
his own life will have difficulty enjoying play with his or her children.
Because play is such a central aspect of a child's world, the parent who does
not enjoy playing with the child excludes himself from full participation in the
child's life. The child, in turn, will feel that he is valued only insofar as he is
learning to become an adult, not as a member of the family in his own right. In
my clinical experience, the parents' ability to enjoy playing with their children
is a significant
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indicator of the quality of functioning of the family as a unit.
For maturity, "creative play" is most characteristic. Here I have in mind
not only the social significance of creative play (e.g., hobbies) when so much
time in retirement is devoted to leisure, but also the significance of mature
creative phenomena such as Verdi's Falstaff and Thomas Mann's Felix Krull.
Both are products of old age and both are their creators' most playful works.
Similarly, Picasso, Matisse, Klee, and Kandinsky all turned to playful work
in their later years.
The creative play of hobbies and the playful creativity of many mature
artists reflect the subjective and objective aspects of creativity. The retired
businessman who has completed a paint-by-the-numbers picture has a
subjective feeling of creativity, even though there is no originality involved.
Objective creativity requires a new synthesis (Freud, 1928); (Rothenberg,
1976b). The hobbyist reaffirms old pleasures or defenses, while the artist
creates new solutions to conflicts. Popular art confirms prejudices, while
great art gives new insights. Hobbies, of course, are play, albeit not pure
play; there is no sense of responsibility involved. The artist is working, even
though it be a playful creation. The frequency of playful works among mature
artists suggests that play in older age is not just the result of more leisure, but
that play has an increased importance in later life.
Far from being abandoned in adulthood (as Freud described it), play
becomes more ritualized, structured, and controlled by the mature ego and
coexists alongside of fantasy life. Here I disagree with Freud (1908) who
argues that an exchange of fantasy for active play occurs in adults.
As people grow up, then, they cease to play, and they seem to give
up the yield of pleasure which they gained from playing. But
whoever understands the human mind knows that hardly anything is
harder for a man than to give up a pleasure which he has once
experienced. Actually, we can never give anything up; we only
exchange one thing for another. What appears to be a renunciation is
really the formation of a substitute or surrogate. In the same way,
the growing child, when he stops playing, gives up nothing but the
link with real objects; instead of playing, he now phantasies. He
builds castles in the air and
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creates what are called day-dreams. I believe that most people
construct phantasies at times in their lives. This is a fact which has
long been overlooked and whose importance has therefore not been
sufficiently appreciated.
People's phantasies are less easy to observe than the play of
children. The child, it is true, plays by himself or forms a closed
psychical system with other children for the purposes of a game; but
even though he may not play his game in front of the grown-ups, he
does not, on the other hand, conceal it from them. The adult, on the
contrary, is ashamed of his phantasies and hides them from other
people. He cherishes his phantasies as his most intimate
possessions, and as a rule he would rather confess his misdeeds
than tell anyone his phantasies. It may come about that for that
reason he believes he is the only person who invents such
phantasies and has no idea that creations of this kind are
widespread among other people. This difference in the behaviour of
a person who plays and a person who phantasies is accounted for
by the motives of these two activities, which are nevertheless
adjuncts to each other [p. 145].
In keeping with the Freudian dictum that nothing disappears from mental
life, it is more accurate to say that both the capacity to fantasy and the
capacity to play coexist in human mental life, from infancy through old age,
and their functions, genetically and dynamically linked, continue throughout
life.
At the beginning of my comments, I touched upon the relationship between
the neglect of play and nineteenth-century puritanism (which rejected the
pleasurable) and nineteenth-century industrial capitalism (which physically
separated play from work and rejected the intrinsically complete and
noninstrumental elements of play altogether). Before that time, the farmer, the
artisan, and the small shopkeeper not only played with his children during
working hours, but also retained a playful aspect to his work. To this day, the
small shopkeeper in the Middle East considers playful bartering with a
customer an essential part of his working life. Few workers in Western
industrialized societies have that opportunity. When play occurs in the
industrialized workplace, it is generally either totally separated from work
and confined to breaks, or it is grafted onto the work in order to relieve
boredom, often in a way that undermines the work.
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The dichotomy that play is for children and work is for adults came out of
the nineteenth century and was accentuated in the twentieth century by our
reactions to the abuses of child labor. Since then, in addition to excluding
play from adulthood, we have also excluded work from childhood. The
fashionable educational theory of the past half century has been based on the
concept that pleasurable, freely chosen activities lead to optimal learning.
Prevailing psychological views supported that thesis. It is no coincidence that
at a time when educators are questioning this thesis, we are also reevaluating
the role of work in childhood.
Other forces in our society are also causing us to reevaluate the role of
play. As increasing pollution, diminishing resources, and vanishing frontiers
lead us to question our focus on the instrumental, we become more interested
in less instrumental cultures such as the oriental. As more leisure time
becomes available, we are beginning to reevaluate the value and meaning of
both work and play. A revision of our theory of play also affords new
opportunities for relating psychoanalytic theory to sociology, ethology, and
anthropology.
CONCLUSION
In psychoanalytic theory, play has been assumed to have a subordinate
role, with the exception of early childhood play. In the past 70 years much
evidence has accumulated that play is of central importance throughout life.
Freud's formulation of psychological health: "the freedom to love and
work," could be revised to: "the freedom to love, work, and play." Such a
reformulation can serve as a bridge concept between our conflict-based
psychology and our psychology of adaptation and health. It will be fruitful to
assume that love, work, and play are ideal types of action whose major
sources of energy are found in the sexual, aggressive, and ego instincts. Play
has its own lifelong ontogenetic development. The stages are: in infancy,
recognition play; in early childhood, discrimination play; in preschool years,
symbolic play; in school years, games with rules; in adolescence, playfulness
with boundaries; in young adulthood, integrated play; in adulthood, generation
play; in maturity, creative play.
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Article Citation [Who Cited This?]
Plaut, E.A. (1979). Play and Adaptation. Psychoanal. St. Child, 34:217-232
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