ABSTRACT
In Playing and Reality Winnicott explores a group of interconnected concepts which have great significance for anyone working psychotherapeutically with children (Winnicott 1971a). The book contains his clearest statements about the importance of ‘playing’, which he sees as taking place in an intermediate area between internal and external reality, later enlarged on as ‘the place where we live’ and experience life (Winnicott 1971c: 122–129). As I understand it, being fully alive in Winnicott’s sense is not an idealized, pain-and conflict-free experience, it is more a connectedness to a life force with as few impingements in this flow of vital energy as possible. He writes that ‘… no human being is free from the strain of relating inner and outer reality, and (that) relief from this strain is provided by an intermediate area of experience which is not challenged (arts, religion, etc.). This intermediate area is in direct continuity with the play area of the ordinary small child who is ‘lost’ in play’ (Winnicott 1971b: 15).
