Thinking about a playroom

Abstract

This paper discusses how thinking about a playroom involves our thinking about the setting in psychoanalytical work with children in general - the physical as well as the human aspects - and how this encourages us to rethink some of the basic aims in psychoanalytic work. The paper describes the importance of the setting being such as to help the therapist to have the freedom to think and to feel what is going on in the child and himself. Links are then made with aspects of transference and counter-transference, and brief examples given.

Key Words:

• Playroom
• setting
• child psychoanalysis
• child psychotherapy
• projective identification