Infant Observation

Vol. 14, No. 2, August 2011, 203
217

The creative role of playfulness

in development
Elena Della Rosa*
This paper explores how two children of different ages, races and backgrounds
were helped in their development through a creative use of play. It reflects on
play as an interpersonal phenomenon and also on its significance in relation to a
specific aspect of it: playfulness. There is a kind of joyful joined up play between
mother and child which promotes growth and healthy development. This paper
investigates how, in this sort of play, important maternal functions take place
and how a relationship between container and contained can generate
as Bion
conceptualised it
mental growth.
Keywords: play; playfulness; container-contained; attunement; maternal
depression

Introduction
This paper reflects on play in general terms and explores what significance play
had in the development of two children I observed and worked with. I hope to
show how play promotes healthy development and how this takes place;
I compare the notions of attunement and playfulness and also consider if
through play, primary functions such as containment and the creation of a
transitional space can take place.
This paper illustrates the importance of play between mother and baby. Play
is not an isolated phenomenon taking place in playgrounds but is an activity,
occurring in many aspects of children’s lives, where children experience, enjoy
and learn about themselves, others and life itself.
During the psychoanalytic observational studies course, I undertook a two-
year observation of a mother and baby (Marlene) as well as working one-to-one
with a latency eight-year-old child (Kyra) in a primary school. Both Marlene and
Kyra encountered difficulties in their development. Marlene had a difficult start.
Two months after birth, her mother was hospitalised with depression and away
for two weeks. Marlene’s mother’s capacity to play and engage with Marlene was
limited throughout the first year of her life; indeed, she often relied on the help

*E-mail:elenadellarosa@hotmail.com
ISSN 1369-8036 print/ISSN 1745-8943
# 2011 Crown Copyright
DOI: 10.1080/13698036.2011.583436
http://www.informaworld.com
204 E. Della Rosa

of members of her family to raise her baby. Marlene developed slowly, being
reluctant to crawl and to use her voice, and only attempting to walk at 17
months. However in the latter part of the second year of the observation
I witnessed Marlene becoming alive, especially in the presence of other family
members. This observation was concerned with important themes such maternal
depression and its impact of mother’s capacity to play, and the enlivening power
of play, as provided by other members of the family.
Kyra was an eight-year-old tomboy, who identified with the street children of
her deprived neighbourhood; she constantly had problems with aggression and
incapacity to concentrate in class. When I first met her she was reluctant to play
or smile, or to enjoy play in a conventional way: play was often used as a way of
attacking and destroying things and people around her. During the three years I
have been working with her I have been able to engage with her through lively
play, which both gave her enjoyment and stimulated her curiosity and self-
awareness; this, I believe, has brought about changes in the way she relates to
others, and how she plays.

Play and creativity

Play has been the main tool by which child analysts have explored children’s
unconscious phantasies, though it has been thought about in different ways by
different psychoanalysts.
In ‘Playing and Reality’ (1971) Winnicott reflects deeply on the nature of
play: not only does he think about what it might represent but also how it can be
a creative activity that leads to a healthy relationship with the external world and
helps in the developmental search for the self. Winnicott suggests that playing
lies in an area which is not inner psychic reality but is placed outside of the child
without belonging to the external world. He says,
And on the basis of playing is built the whole of man’s experiential existence. No
longer are we either introvert or extravert. We experience life in the areas of transitional
phenomena, in the exciting interweave of subjectivity and objective observation, and in
an area that is intermediate between the inner reality of the individual and the shared
reality of the world that is external to individuals (Winnicott, 1971).
Play, in young and older children, takes place in a transitional area which
allows them to experience their inner emotionality as well as objective reality.
This allows children to relate to this transitional dimension in their own personal
way; play is in fact strongly linked to creativity and it can be said to be one’s
creative way to act in the external reality. Winnicott believes that the search for
the self lies in this transitional, rudimentary area: ‘It is only here, in this
unintegrated state of the personality, that that which we describe as creative can
appear.’ (Winnicott, 1971)
Winnicott stresses the importance of relationships in the search for the self.
This is facilitated through the understanding of one person by another. A person
 Infant Observation 205

can discover his inner self by having an experience of his own creativity: this
though, can only happen if the creativity is reflected back by another. Play, he
writes, is extremely exciting and it originates in a state which is derived from the
experience of an intimate safe relationship where thoughts take shape in a similar
way to the oniric state.
In recent times, child psychotherapists have built on Winnicott to integrate
child development research and the psychoanalytic understanding of play. They
have thought more extensively about the life-enhancing function of play and not
only about it as a tool in psychoanalytic practice.
In Alvarez’s ‘Live Company’ (1992) she writes about play as something which
fosters liveliness and development. She believes that the importance of play is not
derived from loss and deprivation as has usually been thought, but from the
presence or the finding of the object. Play is not only an activity to master pain
through sublimation (Freud, 1920) or a way to control feelings of loss (Isaacs,
1952, cited by Alvarez, 1992) but is also an activity which can promote growth.
Alvarez explores play’s role in fostering contact and generating curiosity and
development: these originate through the exploration and enjoyment of the
object. The curiosity the child feels for the object and the enjoyment that he
gains from it can, stimulate the child’s need to discover, to investigate and play
with the object. The manipulation and exploration of the object takes place in a
similar state to what Winnicott has described as a transitional space. Alvarez
frequently refers to Winnicott and particularly to his reflections about the
importance of sustaining the paradox of the transitional area. The child must not
be disillusioned in his game but should be left to make his own use of its
illusionary reality. Alvarez takes this further and stresses that it is important that
the therapist or the mother does not always interpret to the child what
unconscious motives are fuelling his game. Alvarez draws a distinction between
omnipotence and a sense of potency, believing that the therapist should not give
in to the child’s omnipotence, but rather help him to find a sense of potency.
Alvarez believes this can happen through the capacity of the adult working or
playing with the child, letting the child play and focusing on the developmental
aspects of the play rather than those which represent loss and pain. She believes
in the importance not only of considering the past and the here and now in child
analysis but also to include in the therapy an idea of the future. This, Alvarez
believes, can take place with the use of an enlivening play, a playful play. But
what exactly is this kind of play?

Playfulness
Reddy (1991) writes that there is too little literature on playfulness, that it ‘forms
such an important part of the experience of interacting with babies in any
extended and secure relationship’ and that he sees it as ‘a cause of developmental
advances’. He asserts that playfulness is an interpersonal phenomenon, always
taking place in a relational dimension and goes on to explain how it is important
206 E. Della Rosa

for children to play in order to develop a capacity to understand others’ minds.

Sylva (1984), in Alvarez and Phillips (1998), writes that ‘for playfulness to be
useful in helping solve problems you need a sensitive partner, to guide but not
dominate and also take pleasure in the activity’. Like Reddy, she stresses the
dyadic dimension of the relationship. It must be both dyadic and pleasurable if it
is to promote growth.
Alvarez links her clinical research to that of Stern (1985) and points out the
importance the author gives to ‘mothers tuning in with their babies’. Babies,
Stern believes, have a very active emotional and relational life which is filled with
‘vitality affects’. These are different kinds of feelings (love, hate, anger and
pleasure, just to name few) which arise in the encounter with people. Alvarez
writes that it is not only the containment of anxiety which has to be taken into
account but also the containment of other feelings. The baby and the mother
therefore interact in a frame which includes a vast range of emotions and which
can take a playful, reciprocal form.
Youell has shown in her observations or through clinical examples how
playful play can be a transformative and enriching experience which leads to a
more complex way of thinking and relating to others. In her paper on ‘The
importance of play and playfulness’ (2008), she talks about playfulness as ‘a state
of mind in which an individual can think flexibly, take risks with ideas (or
interactions) and allow creative thoughts to emerge.’ Youell stresses the relational
aspect of this activity, which she believes can only emerge in the presence of
another; she says the presence of another is an essential component of play, in
order for play to be creative. She draws a distinction between play devoid of
creativity and imagination, and playfulness which implies children using their
minds and emotions to interact with the toys and the world around them. She
differentiates between various uses of toys and how play may appear at times like
real play but instead be just an imitation or a false form of it.
The ideas which these writers put forward represent a significant develop-
ment in thinking on the subject of play: play is not only the means through
which we uncover unconscious phantasies but something which helps develop-
ment in itself. I will reflect on how the mutual interactive play which Stern talks
about can prepare the ground for the child to experience a container. The
mother, in fact, does not only play, but also gives meaning to the play and to the
child’s communication during his play. I will show how the experiences of
attunement which Marlene and Kyra experienced at different times of their lives
are the means through which something more complex, like Bion’s idea of
container/contained and the capacity to form new thoughts can take place.

Playfulness and containment

Play not only has the purpose of entertaining and giving enjoyment but also
supplies important functions; what the observations of Marlene and Kyra show is
that play gives space to what Bion (1962) describes as containment. The
 Infant Observation 207

relationship between container and contained when the holding environment is

positive fosters growth; Bion shows how thought can develop from this
relationship. Mother and child work on a container/contained model which
involves a pre-conception searching and mating up with a realisation. A
preconception is an expectation which is innate in the infant and which awaits
the realisation, such as the baby’s mouth’s expectation of the nipple. When this
mating up takes place in a loving relationship it gives form to a conception and
mental growth takes place. ‘Conceptions are the results of satisfying conjunc-
tions’ writes Bion (1962). From this relationship, K, the innate push towards
knowledge can come about and take form. When the relationship is destructive
there is a destruction of this impulse and linking capacities, and
K takes place
which depletes the relationship and brings emptiness and dread.

Baby play and Marlene

The observation of baby Marlene was a painful experience. Her mother’s
difficulties arose soon after the birth and led to her hospitalisation for depression;
she had to cope with her own anxieties and with a newborn, first baby. The
mother and father had been married for 10 years before Marlene was born, and
lived in a comfortable home. The mother’s family was enthusiastic about
Marlene but did not have much time to spend with her initially as they were
employed full-time. The father was fond of Marlene and played in a lively
manner with her; however, he had a job that took him away from home
frequently. Mother described herself lonely after the birth and she said that the
reason why she liked the idea of the observation was because an observer would
keep her company.
In her first weeks of life Marlene sucked vigorously at the breast, for a long
time. The feeding was facilitated by a device called ‘my breast friend’: this is a
sort of mat which can be strapped to the mother’s waist and allows free use of the
hands while feeding. This way of feeding and relating proved hard for mother,
who complained that the feeding was too intense, it was draining her energy and
making her feel sad and extremely tired. She said she was trying to get Marlene
on the bottle as this would give her more freedom as somebody else could help
her with the feeding. Marlene though, was refusing the bottle with inconsolable
cries. Her mother’s depression worsened until she was hospitalised for two weeks
when Marlene was two months old.
The early interactions between mother and baby which I observed were
mostly feeding times which were mediated by ‘my breast friend’, which seemed
to hinder the possibility of a vis-à-vis interaction. Contact was taking place
mainly through their bodies, there was hardly any exchange of looks or vocal
interactions, which many child development authors have described as central to
the mother and baby relationship.
In the first months of interaction, mother and baby develop a strong emo-
tional and psychological bond which will be the basis of mutual understanding
208 E. Della Rosa

and from which the capacity for thinking and communication will develop.
Stern (1985) writes of a ‘choreography’ performed by the infant and the
caregiver that is led by an ‘implicit knowledge’: this is a repertoire of schematised
interactive patterns which are made up by sensorimotor knowledge and affective
and anticipatory cognitive aspects of the mind. He believes that the dimension of
enjoyment is central to this particular ‘dance’; in ‘The first relationship’ he talks
about a dance which takes place between the infant and the caregiver, stressing
the importance of the playfulness of this dance. He writes:
Beside the gratification of feeding and warmth, these involve the mutual creation of
shared pleasure, joy, interest, curiosity, thrills, awe, fright, boredom, laughter, surprise,
delight, peaceful moments, silences resolving distress and many other such elusive
phenomena and experiences that make up the stuff of friendship and love. It requires a
mother with no other thought in mind except to have fun with her baby and a baby in
the mood to have fun.

The feeding stood in place of an understanding and containing relationship:

it saturated the environment with food and sleep and there was no space for
thinking of the emotionality of Marlene. The interaction between mother and
baby went on having the same quality, becoming even more pronounced in the
months following the return of the mother from hospital. Marlene’s contact with
her mother lacked the playfulness and the capacity to ‘dance together’ described
by Stern. Mother was in a state of convalescence and found it hard to be with her
baby; her anxiety took the form of over-organisation of her time and of her
interaction with Marlene. She set up a busy routine: she would go to baby
pilates, baby music and mother and baby group. Her time was filled with things
and was very organised; everything had a time and structure. This was also in
feeding and play. The feeding followed a strict routine and was done accordingly
to the ‘rules’ rather than according to the baby’s needs, as in the following
extract:
Marlene at 4 months:
Mother was sitting on her sofa-chair, holding Marlene on her lap, and they were both
facing me. Mother got the bottle and gently pushed it into Marlene’s mouth. Marlene
kept looking away and kept her mouth closed so as not to let the milk in. Mother
pushed it in with more strength, Marlene slightly opened her mouth and let a bit of
the teat in. Marlene looked at me and did not seem interested in sucking; the milk
started spilling out of her mouth, onto the floor. Mother insisted on pushing the bottle
into her baby’s mouth and said ‘‘a little bit more’’ until I drew her attention to what
was happening.
The same pattern took place during their play. Mother responded didactically
to Marlene’s urge to play. Their interactions during play were often characterised
by a mechanical sequence of manipulation of the toys. Mother would offer
Marlene a toy and try to help her manipulate it the right way in order to show
 Infant Observation 209

me how it worked. If Marlene tried to do something different with it she would

stop her and ‘put her back on track’, as illustrated in this example.
Marlene at 7 months:
Mother told me enthusiastically that Marlene has learned to shuffle. She looked at
Marlene and tried to encourage Marlene to show me how she shuffles. Marlene looked
at her mum and then looked around. Mum kept on encouraging her to show me but
Marlene did not respond. Mother said she was probably not going to do it and she
took out a wooden toy. Mother told me this is Marlene’s latest favourite game. Mother
pushed the little wooden bits out so that they would stuck out toward Marlene and
told her to push them back. Marlene slowly pushed the wooden bits but soon stopped:
her eyes were wandering around and her interest got caught by the xylophone. Mother
put the xylophone in front of her. She gave her the stick with which to play it and
encouraged her to play it. Marlene flailed the wooden stick in the air whilst looking at
me and giggled, shaking the stick. I smiled back at her while mother tried to get her
back ‘‘on task’’ and encouraged her to play the xylophone.

What is interesting about these two observations is Marlene’s attempts to

make links with other objects, whether this is another toy or the observer, and
mother’s failure to respond to this demand. Marlene tried to include the third
object by looking at the observer, giggling, engaging or by seeking out things
around her. Mother, on the other hand, was reluctant to let go of their bond, of
the close duality of their early relationship.
The family’s living room contained a large number of toys, including a
special chair with rattles and swinging toys hanging from it so Marlene could be
entertained while mother went off to make tea. I found it peculiar that Marlene
would rely on this chair to feel safe rather than on my presence: it felt again as if
physical entertainment had more value than the human presence of another.
Another device serving this purpose was a chain of pink butterfly shaped lights
attached to the ceiling above the changing mat. Mother said this was to keep
Marlene engaged with a visual stimulus while being changed. I relate this mother
and baby’s play to what Youell (2008) refers to play devoid of playfulness: she
draws our attention to electronic toys and devices such as the baby rocker
activated by the child’s cry, which can be adopted by parents whose minds are
not on enjoying their babies. Busy, anxious, perhaps depressed, they are also led
to believe that these toys are ‘educational’ and to set the scene for an experience
which privileges ‘work’ and downgrades ‘play’.
There was an incapacity to tolerate frustration and consequent anxiety:
mother was trying to avoid baby’s frustration by keeping her close to her breast
for long periods early on. The absence and separation which would lead to an
anxious experience, seemed unbearable to mother and baby and was avoided by
the use of props like colic drops, coloured lights and a rocking chair. I wondered
whether Marlene’s lateness in developing was due to this indissoluble attachment
which did not give her space to experience frustration and did not motivate her
210 E. Della Rosa

to look for the ‘third’, even though she was making timid attempts in this
direction.

Play in a latency child, Kyra

Kyra’s play was rich in communication but of one particular kind: she adored
boys’ toys and games, such as ‘Power Rangers’ or football. She used this in an
aggressive way: all the power rangers had to fight and knock each other down,
and get into trouble and be arrested by the police. The football was used as a way
to defeat and belittle members of the other team. The first months of my work
with Kyra required a lot of me in terms of dealing with the destructiveness in her
play and also finding the skill to avoid letting it overtake the sessions. Reflecting
upon this I thought that encouraging a new kind of play would be a helpful way
of building the foundations for working together.
Play initially took this kind of form:
Kyra took out the drums and said we were going to have a drumming lesson. She put
on a man’s voice and talked to me in a sort of bossy manner. She gave me the drum
and told me: ‘‘Now you are going to listen to me and repeat what I do!’’ She beat it for
a long time and asked me to repeat it; I got the beats wrong. She shouted at me: ‘‘Oh
man, you don’t understand anything! That is crap! I told you to listen.’’ She repeated
the drumming and asked me to copy it. I got it right this time but she said it was still
wrong and told me, ‘‘You just cannot do it. You are a waste,’’ then took the drums and
threw them in the corner of the shed.
Her teenage-boy-like attitude made me think of Esther Bick’s (1968) idea of
second skin formation; Kyra was a fragile eight-year old who did not to have an
experience of a containing skin and needed to make up for it by using a powerful
body and a bossy attitude.
In the second year of our work she abandoned the drums for a while and
found that she liked playing board games which involved a challenge; especially
‘Guess who’ and chess. She was extremely eager to play them but then found it
distressing to find herself in the game, frightened not to win:
Kyra said she wanted to take my castle and I showed her how she could do that. She
told me I was wrong, took her piece and banged it on my castle saying it belonged to
her. She then stopped and sighed, took back her hand and immediately afterwards
made a different move and said it was my turn. I moved something so that nothing
happened and she had a chance to get one of my pieces. She looked at the chess
board
looking sulky as she did so
said that she would beat me this time and then
took one of the pieces, according to the rules. I praised her and she tried to hide her
smile with an angry expression. We played a little longer and nothing much happened.
I then showed her how I was going to take one of her pieces. Kyra said it was not fair
and that I was cheating; she looked agitated and threw some of the pieces back in the
box saying she was tired and wanted to play something else.
 Infant Observation 211

It was very hard to find common ground to build on: it was a battlefield
rather than a playground.

Playfulness at work
There were moments when I was able to observe a different kind of interaction
and play in both Marlene and Kyra. This new sort of play came about in
response to what had been offered and stimulated by new figures in these
children’s lives. As Alvarez (1988) says an active role on the part of the caregiver
or therapist can bring about changes in the child.
Marlene’s play lacked creativity: there was no transitional space where she
could feel and act out her internal reality. Rather, her external world was
conducted according to her mother’s need to control reality. While mother was
in charge of the care of Marlene it seemed that other members of the family had
to do the playing. It was during the visits of the paternal grandparents, and
during the times when father was present in the observations that I saw a new
side of Marlene coming alive. Paternal grandparents were very fond of Marlene
and paid close attention to her behaviour and her likes and dislikes as in the
following observation:
Marlene at 5 months:
Marlene sneezed a couple of times and both times grandparents imitated her by
pretending to sneeze; Grandmother started rocking her and Marlene’s expression
became more relaxed. Marlene made a long ‘‘eeeeeeeeee’’ sound and they did the same.
She kept doing this quieter and quieter as the adults talked to each other. Marlene
leaned towards grandmother who, because she said Marlene wanted her big buttons,
pulled her cardigan near Marlene so she could get hold of them. Mother said: ‘‘Let’s
show Elena the tea pot toy!’’ She took it and gave it to grandmother and said she was
going to do the gardening. Grandmother took the tea pot and put it near Marlene who
pressed the big buttons with some force, producing music and looked up at
grandmother’s face with curiosity, as if in trepidation to see her response. Grand-
mother smiled at her and sang along the tune. Marlene pressed the two buttons which
she had not pressed before and smiled, shyly. Grandmother started bouncing Marlene
on her lap; Marlene responded with giggles and high pitched sounds and they seemed
like they were having a very good time.
I believe this observation shows examples of primary and secondary
intersubjectivity (Trevarthen, 1977), of intimacy and connection which are
shared in a playful atmosphere. The grandparents are able to tune in with the
baby and play along with her explorations. Marlene is initially a bit shy to play
with the teapot, and waits for grandmother’s response to get a sense of what is
happening. As grandmother plays with her and encourages her with her smiles
and words, Marlene is able to express her curiosity freely and to continue the
game and the exploration. Marlene seems still interested in finding the breast
212 E. Della Rosa

when she approaches her grandmother’s cardigan buttons but then her interest
gets diverted onto a third object, the teapot.
A similar, but more evolved pattern, took place at an older age with the
father.
Marlene at 14 months:
Dad was pushing Marlene on the swing. Marlene looked at me as I approached them
and pointed at me. Dad said that yes, Elena is here, how exciting. Marlene then
pointed up to the sky. Dad imitated Marlene and pointed up to the sky and told her
about airplanes. He was using baby-talk and told her what sound they made and how
fast they go and then a helicopter comes. Marlene had her mouth in an O shape, as if
surprised and alert as she kept searching the sky. Dad made the sound of the
helicopter. Marlene kept looking at him and then up with the same surprised and alert
expression. Dad then took Marlene out of the swing and as he carried her back in the
house he drew her attention up to the sky. When we got in, dad took her jacket off and
swung her in his arms while blowing raspberries on her stomach. Marlene giggled with
excitement and he commented that she always loves this.

This interaction made me think of what can be described as playfulness:

father and daughter share an interest in a pleasurable manner and are able to
interact through it. Father waits for his baby’s communications, understands
them and plays with them. It is interesting to notice how the third here comes to
take on a real dimension. Father recognises with enthusiasm the presence of the
observer and picks up on the look and pointing of Marlene. There is space
between father and daughter to let the external world in, to be curious and to
explore.As Burhouse (2001) has shown the capacity of the couple to include to
third object opens the door to new knowledge and ways of thinking, and to the
need to discover more
the epistemophilic instinct. Contrary to what she
describes however, the inclusion of the third takes place via a playful experience,
rather than through an experience of loss.
In the case of Kyra something similar happened, in the sense that a sort of
play which had been used destructively came to take on a different shape. At
times Kyra would impersonate a football trainer insisting on me being the
goalkeeper. She would then throw a little soft ball at me and ask me to save it; at
times she would do so really hard making sure it would land beside me instead.
There was no risk of being hurt as the ball was soft and light but it was
psychologically aggressive and difficult to manage. I would usually give the game
a certain length of time and then propose to play catch with the same ball. When
performing the trainer she would be bossy and pushy and laugh and say that I
was no good at football and very lazy:
‘‘Come on man catch it, catch it!’’ She said loudly and threw it towards me with some
force. I managed to catch it and said it was a powerful throw and gently threw back at
her. I started commenting on the game as if I were the commentator of a match. By
doing this I was describing Kyra’s actions and my response. A throw and catch and a
 Infant Observation 213

throw back. Kyra found this amusing and kept on playing the game, which became less
violent.
Another example is our interaction around the drums. Kyra had started
playing with the drums, by impersonating a tyrannical music teacher who was
disappointed with a pupil who was just ‘no good’. One time during our
drumming session, Kyra started singing in a timid, low voice a song which
repeated ‘Keep the fire burning’. I imitated her singing and tried to join in the
rhythm. Kyra was initially a bit suspicious of my singing along with her but
slowly started to enjoy it and kept singing it and giggling. During the following
sessions she would play this song without telling me. Testing me, she would start
drumming it and singing it in a very low voice. It seemed to me as if she wanted
to see if I would pick it up as it happened in this observation before a holiday.
When we got inside the shed, she took out the box with the table game I reminded her
we would meet two more times before the holiday. She lifted the box lid and put it in
front of her face so as to cover it. She said ‘‘nooooooooooooo’’ and started gasping. She
kept gasping for a while on purpose as if she were hyperventilating; she then turned to
get the drums. She started playing and told me to guess what song she was drumming.
She started giggling and I knew what it was, as she always used to play this one, ‘‘keep
the fire burning’’. I guessed right, and she giggled and hid her face in her hands.
Kyra’s projections of inadequacy into me, by her throwing and belittling my
capacity to play football or the drums found a space for understanding, and came
to take on a specific form and shape; a rhythm, a catch and throw and a
drumming and singing together which gave an enjoyable form and shape to what
had started as a game full of aggression. By underlining the playful aspect of the
interactions of Marlene and Kyra I do not intend to pass over the difficulties they
were experiencing but rather to show that these painful aspects were turned into
something more positive during their play. In the interactions presented the
adult picks up on the children’s projections
which then become acknowledged
and explicit between the two
and is able to transform them. This is where
playfulness comes into play: this sort of modulation takes place through the use
of an enjoyable communication, whether verbal or physical, through a comment
or through a game. A mother should be a clown to her child in order to bring
about a transformation (Bollas, 1995, in Lemma, 2000): from potential trauma
into pleasure. She relates this transformation to Bion’s model of containment
(1962): amusement and laughter, provided their underlying intent is benign,
may be understood as further examples of the mother’s processing of her baby’s
development towards his predicament. A playful, coordinated interaction
between mother and baby can transform negative affect into positive affect
(Tronick, 1989, in Lemma, 2000).
I believed this to be true for Kyra, whose angry emotions found a container in
my capacity to pick up on and respond, through the game, to her projections. By
catching the ball and giving it back, commenting on the play and going along
214 E. Della Rosa

with the play, I found a way of matching up these projections with something
which would contain them and which could create a better understanding of
what was going on.

What emerged from playfulness and containment

As I was observing and taking part in the capacity of these children to be
‘playful’, I also was able to see new sides of their personalities start to develop.
Marlene was becoming a curious and alive child who was willing to discover
the world around her. While this happened, Marlene also developed the capacity
to talk and walk. This came about comparatively late and Marlene’s grand-
parents with their capacity to take up on her feelings and curiosity and relate to it
in a playful way have been a great driver towards developing new skills.
Marlene’s capacity to walk emerged during a holiday she spent with her
grandparents, who supported her and encouraged her to walk. In ‘Humour on
the couch’ Lemma (2000), drawing from Alvarez’s work, reports how the
mother’s capacity to interest and enliven her baby acts as a spur towards
separation. She writes:
There is little incentive to learn how to crawl, for instance, if the baby is not
encouraged to take those critical first steps, and the mother cannot enjoy this
significant achievement because she fails to convey that life can be enjoyed.
The following observation shows how walking came about in Marlene’s life.
Marlene at 17 months:
Marlene bent down while holding on tight to the edge of the sand tray. It seemed that
she was hiding from me. I bent my head and looked at her. She giggled and raised her
body up and then went down again. Grandmother said: ‘‘Are you playing peek-a-
boo?’’ We smiled at her and she giggled; she then made some loud sounds again and
hid her face in her chest and switched her attention to the sand tray. I asked
grandmother how Marlene had been on holidays and she told me that she was OK and
managed to walk a little, making a few steps with her help. She said she had to spend a
long time holding her hands and trying to make her walking around. Grandmother
held Marlene’s hands and helped her walk. Marlene stood up promptly and made
quite a few steps, with more confidence, and reached to the toy trolley. When she
reached it she got hold of it with the help of grandmother. Marlene then started a slow
walk holding and pushing the trolley. Grandmother looked at her while she walked
around the garden, often turning round, making sure and smiling when realising she
was being watched.

In this observation I got a sense that Marlene was now free to express herself
and was feeling understood. Marlene is being playful with me and grandma, she
is hiding, playing a peek-a-boo game; she uses her voice a little and then shows
all of us how she can walk and will find enjoyment in being looked at when
trying out this new skill. This last bit of the observation shows how Marlene,
 Infant Observation 215

being watched by grandmother and mother, is now able not only to include a
third object, but to be the third herself. This capacity is a crucial one from which
the child
can envisage being observed (which) provides us with a capacity for seeing ourselves in
interaction with others and for entertaining another point of view whilst retaining our
own, for reflecting on ourselves whilst being ourselves (Britton, 1989, in Burhouse,
2001).
From this point, the child also develops the capacity to understand others’
minds, and to infer what somebody else is thinking. This is shown in the
following example:
Marlene at 18 months:
Marlene was playing with some coloured wooden bricks. She took them out one by
one from the trolley. At one point she seemed to be stretching her hand towards me as
if to give me one. I offered her my open hand and she smiled and ‘‘cheekily’’ retracted
her hand next to her tummy. She then tried again and this time dropped the brick into
my hand quickly and retracted hers close to her body in a fist with a smile.

Reddy (1991) shows how teasing and messing about is linked to a theory of
mind. For, in order to be able to cheat on another, the child must in fact be able
to have an understanding of various elements: what the other is expecting from
him, the meaning of give and take, and an expectation of the other’s amusement.
Kyra began, over time, to be able to play, and to use her play without being
overwhelmed by her emotions. Play had become more of a transitional space
where she was able to make use of her feelings creatively.
Kyra helped me build the Jenga tower. She passed me the Jenga pieces and said ‘‘We
are going to build a tall tower!’’ As I was about to make the tower fall down by taking a
wobbly piece, Kyra asked me to leave that piece and try to take another one so that we
could play for longer.

This time she did not wait for me to lose the game but seemed more
interested in keeping the game going by cooperating. Together with the capacity
of being able to play and to be more interested and capable to play in an age
appropriate manner. Kyra also became more able to understand her own feelings
and express them.
Summer of the third year: second last session.
Kyra keeps saying she wants to play’hang-man’, which had become a recurrent game.
She is going to think of the words and I will have to guess. She writes quite long
sentences and gets excited while I am about to guess. She makes me guess two long
ones. Whenever I get a letter right she covers the paper on which she is writing and she
gets giggly and shy. When the sentence is complete she managed to show me she had
written: ‘‘I am going to miss you’’.
216 E. Della Rosa

Through the use of the hang-man game she could sublimate the aggression
she felt towards me on account of my leaving her whilst finding an acceptable
way of expressing her gratitude and sadness.

Conclusion
Reflecting on Alvarez’s work has been one of the aims of this paper, not only as
regards thinking about play, but also showing how development can take place
through presence and the enjoyment rather than just through loss and pain. The
experiences of these children show how play is a valuable tool which can be used
to foster essential vital functions in children generally, and in those who have
experienced a maternal or emotional deprivation. Some child psychotherapists
(Robertson, 2008; Urwin, 2002) have written about their use of play and
playfulness in therapy and how this proved to be an effective way of sharing and
interacting with something profound and central to the child’s internal world.

Acknowledgement
Thanks to Kate Robertson for her supervision.

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