ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the developmental usefulness of play for the child, particularly with regard to providing the psychological foundation for the social and intellectual skills that human adults need to function in the increasingly complex social environment that sociologists call 'the global village'. In this way play is about a flexible, self-directed experience, which serves the needs both of the individual child, and of the future society in which s/he will live in adulthood. The chapter presents three alternative perspectives on the role of play in children's lives - psycho-social, educational, and playwork - which provide different, but not incompatible, standpoints and constructs for examining the complex concept of play. The linkage of'play' with 'the development of behaviour' is a common focus for developmental researchers. Psychoanalytic theory was originated by Sigmund Freud, who believed that play had an important role in children's emotional development.
