On Becoming able to Play: Individual Child Psychoanalytic Psychodrama and the Development of Symbolization

Abstract

In this paper, the authors analyze the relevance and transformative potential of individual psychoanalytic psychodrama in the treatment of children with severe impairments in symbolization. Central features of this modality, including promoting the representation of early traumatic experiences, are presented and discussed. Specific features include double-envelope containment of the co-therapists’ group and play leader, consequent diffraction of the transference-determining portrayal, gradual integration, and initial figuration of coexisting split-off fragments. Drawing on in-depth clinical material, the authors show how psychodrama tempers the potentially traumatic effects of the encounter with the object, allowing these patients to access the transitional area of play.

• Individual child psychoanalytic psychodrama
• symbolization
• unrepresented mental areas
• child analysis
• diluted transference
• primitive mental functioning
• bodily countertransference
• psychic figuration
• early traumatic experiences
• transitionality