ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses intervention techniques that have to do with affect regulation: keeping play within boundaries, giving reality value to affect states, and deducing second-order affect representations. Examples of interventions illustrate the intervention technique. Naming the possible presence of fantasy in nonverbal play is a therapeutic intervention, because pretend mode can be viewed as a vehicle for the representation of wishes, intentions, and feelings. The therapists actively makes remarks on the difference between possible fantasies and reality. Explicitly introducing pretend thinking can help in dealing with both the reality aspects and the fantasy aspects. Sometimes it is necessary to join in the pretend mode to bring about a transitional space. In the play situation, the therapist is the child who makes the mistakes. Once the child feels sufficiently recognized in his primary affect states, it is time to start working on the deduction of secondary affect representations.
