ABSTRACT
When remedies are created to address social problems, leisure is probably considered least, if at all, as a legitimate partner in the battery of therapeutic or life-enhancing strategies. That said, it is always interesting to observe the amount of time most social work agencies devote to creating leisure activities for their clients without officially recognizing its curative and life-enhancing value. It seems that leisure activity often provides the context in which groups of people, including the marginalized and disadvantage, engage during remedial or restorative healing. Society generally considers leisure as an area of life that is casual and without purpose other than to amuse or to help individuals escape the harsh realities of life for short periods of time in order for them to return refreshed to the more serious matters of life. Upon closer observation, however, leisure and meaningful activity appear to play a much greater role in individual and social life construction than most of us might think. It may have value beyond the playful elements attributed to it and provides many of us with purposeful and consequential life-enhancing experiences, perhaps, more so than work in many cases. In the future it may become even more meaningful to life construction as we move from a consumer society to a more nonconsumptive and sustainable existence.
