ABSTRACT
The Spatula Game consists of observing the way an infant aged between five and thirteen months responds to a shiny spatula placed on the edge of a table and within easy reach. The experience of daring to want and to take the spatula and to make it his own without in fact altering the stability of the immediate environment acts as a kind of object-lesson which has therapeutic value for the infant. Donald W. Winnicott sees the spatula and soon puts his hand to it, but he probably withdraws interest once or twice, before actually taking it, all the while looking at the author face and at his mother’s to gauge our attitudes. The mutuality between mother and infant can be seen in the way the infant uses the spatula/object. As a subsequent development of the Spatula Game, Winnicott devised the Squiggle Game for older children.
