Children at Play: Clinical and Developmental Approaches to Meaning and Representation

As they play, children do more than imagine--they also invent life-long approaches to thinking, feeling, and relating to other people. For nearly a century, clinical psychologists have been concerned with the content and interpersonal meaning of play. More recently, developmental psychologists have concentrated on the links between the emergence of symbolic play and evolving thought and language. At last, this volume bridges the gap between the two disciplines by defining their common interests and by developing areas of interface and interrelatedness. The editors have brought together original chapters by distinguished psychoanalysts, clinical psychologists, social workers, and developmental psychologists who shed light on topics outside the traditional confines of their respective domains. Thus the book features clinicians exploring subjects such as play representation, narrative, metaphor, and symbolization, and developmentalists examining questions regarding affect, social development, conflict, and psychopathology. Taken together, the contributors offer a rich, integrative view of the many dimensions of early play as it occurs among peers, between parent and child, and in the context of therapy.

Arietta Slade is at City University of New York. Dennie Palmer Wolf is at Harvard Graduate School of Education.