Various forms of play in the psychoanalytic psychotherapy

Play is a communication between two persons. Understanding play in the psychoanalytic psychotherapy opens new perspectives to perceive and understand the interaction between analyst and patient. Disturbances in the ability to play manifest themselves in the collapse of the dialectic of the reality and phantasy in the space of playing and the potential space. The different forms of successful play and of disturbed playing ability are described: the play in the development, the curative play, the play getting out of control and the posttraumatic play.