Further Reflections on the “Watched” Play State and the Role of “Watched Play” in Analytic Work

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Notes

Though I will refer to “mother” as the primary caretaker throughout this paper, this does not exclude the possibility of another person—a nanny, a grandparent, an adoptive parent, etc.—acting as the primary caretaker for the child. It is conceivable that there can be a substitute for the mother in watched play if the caregiver meets the criteria for relational representation and is thus a substitute identificatory model for the child. However, it is of note that the identificatory process discussed below is facilitated by the presence of a single primary caretaker, so that variations of this situation (for example, two or more primary caretakers or a single-father household) may involve psychic processes different from those I describe (e.g., variations in identification).

This, of course, excludes the pathological and generalized inability to comprehend emotional states in others, as seen in autistic spectrum (axis I), antisocial, and narcissistic personality disorders (axis II), among others.

For a comprehensive discussion of the role of the mother in affect-mirroring, which builds both internal and external attributional capacity, see Gergely and Watson (1996). These authors develop a social biofeedback model in which the infant learns to distinguish the parent’s marked and realistic displays of emotion, the former corresponding to the baby’s own affective state as the parent mirrors it in a particular, exaggerated way, and the latter corresponding to the parent’s affective state. In normal development, the infant learns to differentiate between these two emotional states on the basis of the external social cues and behaviors preceding and following an affective event.

I am grateful to Rolf Kunstlicher and Nathaniel Karush for the suggestions that inspired these thoughts.

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Susan P. Sherkow

Supervisor, Child and Adolescent Faculty, New York Psychoanalytic Institute; Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Albert Einstein College of Medicine.