Therapy and Play
For many, counselling can seem like an unattractive idea. There can be fear about dredging up old stuff that would be better left alone. Some feel shame at needing help, or being vulnerable. These feelings are important for the counsellor to take into consideration, and clients need to know that what takes place in the sessions is completely confidential.
What surprises many clients, however, is that counselling can be deeply absorbing and even – whisper it – enjoyable. The client may begin to make unexpected discoveries about her- or himself, sometimes unconnected with the original problem that they thought they had. Getting in touch with long-buried feelings can be both painful and tremendously liberating, opening up new possibilities and ways of being. I frequently hear comments such as “I had no idea that was 50 minutes. It felt more like ten!”
D.W. Winnicott
The child psychologist D.W. Winnicott said, “psychotherapy has to do with two people playing together.” He wasn’t thinking of playing to distract ourselves, as when we play computer games or card games, but of the deeply engaged play of small children. As we grow up we lose some of our ability to play in this way, but it is natural to us. It’s how we learn about and explore reality. There is an idea that the opposite of play is work, but the opposite of play, as I’m using the term here, is being stuck in a repetitive pattern without the possibility of escape. As Winnicott went on to say, in his remarkably matter of fact way, “where playing is not possible then the work done by the therapist is directed towards bringing the patient from a state of not being able to play into a state of being able to play.”
A psychological illness is about being rigid, stuck and imprisoned. If someone is depressed and unable to find enjoyment in anything; or has a phobia of leaving the house; or feels chronically anxious and fearful, then they are in a stuck state of being. The process of getting better is ultimately about finding the way back to being playful – to freedom, enjoyment and creativity. And it is this play that brings about healing.
This is good news for me as a counsellor, because it means I don’t need to “make anyone better.” I don’t need to fix, advise, or solve problems. My clients will get better by themselves, provided that I can create the right conditions for that to take place.
