From Emergency to Emergence: The Deep Structure of Play in Psychotherapy

Abstract

Games emerge within the deep structure of psychotherapy at implicit rather than explicit levels as relational bids that establish rules of engagement and disengagement. A clinical case demonstrates how the implicit play of psychotherapy stretches regulatory boundaries and allows for the emergence of new structure and higher complexity in a dissociated patient.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Terry Marks-Tarlow

Terry Marks-Tarlow, Ph.D., is in private practice in Santa Monica, CA. Most recently she has authored Clinical Intuition in Psychotherapy (Norton, 2012) and Awakening Clinical Intuition (Norton, 2014). Along with illustrating her own books, she curates Mirrors of the Mind: The Psychotherapist as Artist plus edits the art exhibition catalogs. Dr. Marks-Tarlow is on staff with the Insight Institute and teaches developmental affective neuroscience at the Reiss Davis Child Study Center.