Introductory Op-Ed
Something that I have noticed as I have moved through adult and clinical spaces is that adults do not play, nor is it prioritized as an important part of our lives. Play in adulthood is a concept that is worth exploring, especially as it relates to increasing levels of burnout in working adults. For an extremely burnt-out generation of adults, there needs to be a remedy that both alleviates the effects of burnout and safeguards against future instability. Play is an activity that, from a clinical standpoint, reduces stress levels in the body and correlates to better qualities of life. From a social and more philosophical standpoint, play is a connective event that guides a person to see the imaginative possibilities in front of them. Imagination, joy, and hope are all parts of ourselves that play bolsters. My question concerning play is one that comes from the belief that joy is healing and that such joy is in of itself revolutionary. Drawing from Ross Gay’s exploration into daily joy in The Book of Delights and bell hooks’ analysis of love as both a salve and deconstructive tool in All About Love, I ask, what does prioritizing joy through the tangible act of playing look like? What does play give us access to? Rather than making the burden of understanding and identifying play’s potentials a solely individual responsibility to discover and figure out, I wanted to see what clinicians themselves had to say on the matter. With the perspective that therapy and healing are communal events that draw from the experiences of both client and clinician alike, it is important to me to consider this specific perspective.
METHODology
I conducted an online survey announced through therapist groups on social media, with a series of questions asking respondents to reflect on play in their personal lives as well as in their clinical practices. The phrasing of these questions were intentionally open-ended so that participants were free to interpret play as it relates to them. Conducting a survey on play in an open-ended and non-defined inquiry method allowed me access to experiences and theories I would have otherwise been completely blind to. Allowing the definition of what “play” itself signifies to remain undefined or asking people to reflect and report on their experience of play in their own lives without scales were decisions I made intentionally, for the act of taking this survey might be itself an exercise in play. Were I to delineate any specific mode in which I was imagining play, the lush horizon of what a participant could consider as play would be harshly limited. Keeping in mind the critiques of clinical analysis that stem from a critique of rigidity and inaccessibility, this survey was in of itself an exercise in playing with inquiry that opened the space for stories and anecdotes from playing clinicians.
I asked clinicians working in Seattle to take time and reflect on their experience of play inside and outside of their clinical rooms. I created a survey split into two sections (personal and clinical), asking participants to describe what play looks like and what they notice happens as a result of play in these realms of experience. In the first section regarding play in a participant’s personal life, I asked them to self-report on how much they felt they currently played on a scale from 1 (none at all) to 10 (multiple times a day), and then I asked them to describe a specific time they remembered playing. I asked similar questions in the clinical section, inquiring into whether participants felt they tried to incorporate play into their sessions and what a specific moment looked like. I received a total of eight responses, and will use selected quotations from those submissions below.
Data/Discussion
Play in Clinicians’ Personal Spheres
After asking people to think about how much they felt they played in their personal lives with the intention of opening the door to deeply thinking about play, I asked people to tell me about what play looks like to them and about a specific memory. While some people were pretty succinct in their answers, they gave glimpses into a variety of playful moments. One person responded with a small list of their playful acts: “Writing, cooking, baking, skipping.” Compared to other responses, this answer is considerably shorter and simpler. Skipping itself is not a game that has rules or a form of play that comes with a set of expectations or goals; rather, skipping is fundamentally about movement. The whole “goal” of skipping is to play with movement itself and to do so with joy. Had I defined play and presented this participant with any single conception, this person may not have even given themselves room to consider skipping as a consideration nor would I have been able to experience the joy of knowing this person skips.
Play in the simple and lived present was a theme I noted throughout reading these responses, as others too noticed that the play in their lives existed in moments of movement and spontaneity. One person recalled a memory of their morning walk in which they passed by a jungle gym and ultimately played on it. “It was fast and definitely made me woozy,” they said after remarking on the type of equipment they played on. Another admitted that play is difficult for them, saying “I don’t always think of what I do as play. Last week, I called a friend to meet me for an impromptu walk. She has a 4-year-old who joined us. We played while we walked around the park.” This person did not specify what form this play in the park took, just that it occurred while in motion and with others. The simplicity of this memory leaves a lot for us to imagine, but it is not hard to envision the spontaneity a child can bring to something as normal as a walk in the park. In all three of these responses, these participants seem to happen upon play, or rather, play happened upon them. Within moments in which they were least expecting it and most likely not searching for play, they found something within themselves and their environments that inspired an excursion, a diversion from the norm, an adventure!
One other theme running through many responses was the centrality of community and relationship in peoples’ recollection of play. One such respondent described their conception of play with an anecdote about a moment between themselves and their partner:
“Being silly or spontaneous or creative. I love to surprise (but not scare) a laugh out of people, or support healing with humor.
More specifically? I had a break at work so I bought my wife something special for lunch, brought it home (she works from home), and arranged it on the kitchen counter for her to find on her lunch break 15 minutes later.”
For this person, play takes the form of a connective moment between themselves and their wife, one that does not necessarily involve a specific game or script but purely the element of kind surprise. What makes this moment playful is the irony of one person knowing something another does not and using fun to connect, which is not something we often think of when we try to define play. This anecdote may stand as an example of how the action of being in community with others may be an act of play all by itself, for it is through our interactions with others that we somewhat step out of our hard shells. Many others noted that their play involved other people in their lives, whether that be children/family or friends, and I am keen to make note of the way in which other people bring about or make up the space for play in our lives. One person said play looks like “being silly with [their] cat and partner” or “playing games with online friends,” leaving up to our interpretation what “silly” means or what constitutes these games. Another participant described play in a few words, saying “goofing around with my son this morning.” One simply just responded, “with my infant and toddler…” without a description of what occurred between them and their children. For these people, their connection to another person (or being, in the case of pets) was enough to encapsulate what play meant to them, so much so that they did not feel the need to go into any specifics. Instead, they seemed to say, here we were together, we did something together, and what we did brought me joy. For these participants, play takes on the form of connection, of quality time, of loving another person. Play is not necessarily a highly individualized and independent action; it may even be inherently social.
A final and somewhat unexpected theme was the percentage of responses that included something along the lines of table-top roleplay games (TTRPGs) like Dungeons & Dragons (DnD) or video games. In their answer, one participant simply named such games as “imagination play” while two others specifically named DnD, the increasingly popular tabletop roleplay game. Two responses mentioned some form of online or video games, and one named general board games as part of their play as well. To play in such a way requires immense imaginative capabilities, as this type of play asks the player to purely be in an entirely different manner. In taking on the character of a being existing in an entirely different realm than our own, these people begin to fully embody the play itself. Especially for those players who, when playing, use accents or cultural habits different to their own, such imaginative play asks a player to step completely outside of themselves and into someone new.
After asking people to recall a moment of play in their personal lives, I asked people if they noticed any changes in themselves as a result. Specifically, I asked participants, “did you notice any changes in yourself, emotional or physical, as a result of this play?” A few people recalled feeling lighter and “[getting] outside of [their] brain for a bit” as a result of play, while others specifically recorded feeling recharged in some way. The feeling of being weighed down or even held down is common for those experiencing intense stress or struggling with their mental health. From this place, future plans even as far as the next step feel burdened and impossible. For these participants, play acted as a way of revitalizing, a way of re-accessing energy and life to move through the next moments with renewed energy or outlooks. Other responses noted the feeling of being happier, of smiling, of feeling “a bit more ‘fun’ inside” when they played. Two answers touched on the joy of slowing down, of becoming “less rigid and goal-oriented, less linear” after their moments of play. As adults, we are sometimes asked to choose between what is practical and what makes us happy. In some cases, someone may not even have a choice but must do what will best support themselves or their communities. Play may be antithetical to a world that forces people to sacrifice joy for survival by letting joy exist even in the smallest moments. We may not have the answer to creating an entirely new world in which people do not have to choose surviving over thriving yet, but play may bring us to a place where imagining such a world is more possible.
Play in Clinicians’ Professional Spheres
After asking people to recall play in their personal lives, I specifically shifted the conversation towards play in participants’ clinical lives, starting with simply asking participants if they intentionally try to incorporate play into their therapeutic sessions. The majority of clinicians reported yes, they do try to intentionally play in their therapeutic spaces, although what form this play takes varies. A couple respondents reported that they integrated play into the general organization of the session itself, rather than as a distinct event. One respondent said, “I like to take the formality (not professionalism) out of therapy, so my office is about getting comfy,” and described the ways in which they try to invite their clients to play with environmental tools. In these instances, play becomes a way of inherently experiencing the therapeutic space as a playful and familiar space, so that the space itself becomes a source of comfort. A few respondents also reported that they aim to intertwine humor into their conversations with clients, both for themselves and for their clients’ sakes. One respondent said they preferred “using humor to address uncomfortable topics” with their clients and making assignments “playful” in what feels to be an effort to make the therapeutic conversation more accessible. Another person said, “I love to laugh with clients” and that if they can laugh with their clients about anything, then “that feels playful,” while another clinician mentioned “gently teasing clients and being open to being teased.” In these sessions, humor becomes an invitation into the therapeutic space as well as a processing tool that encourages both clinician and client to engage with the subject of the session in a playful manner.
A few people described play in their sessions as some distinct form of creative or artistic event offered to their client. For these clinicians, the play they brought in was a separate activity for their clients to do alongside therapeutic conversation. One such activity was “creating and decorating a worry box” for one clinician. For the clinician who reported that they try to make their space a source of comfort, they gave the following example:
“My client let me teach them how to make a string bracelet (like what some people call a friendship bracelet). We spent a lot of session just working on it back and forth together.”
This playful activity acts as a bridge between client and clinician and helped make the clinician a source of comfort for the client as well. Play in this instance took the form of connection and bonding, so that the very tie between client and clinician was filled with play. One clinician who reported being trained in therapeutically applied TTRPGs said that they incorporate games and other forms of play therapy into their sessions.
While most clinicians who responded to this survey were able to pinpoint and describe some form of play in their practice, one person responded saying they do not intentionally bring play into their sessions as they “don’t have the training to feel comfortable with play.” It is intriguing to classify play as something that necessitates training, which implies a level of standardized rigor or structure. This is not to say that there are no unhealthy forms of play and every form of play in a clinical space is beneficial, however the concept of play as a specific modality raises a question about how we define play. Perhaps the definition of play in certain clinical spaces is too narrow, and this conception of play makes playing in the clinical space unachievable for these clinicians. Considering that this response included the notion of comfort in playing, it is interesting to think about what makes a clinician uncomfortable or lack confidence in bringing play into their sessions. When we view play as an act or event, which is therefore something that can be practiced or developed, a lack of confidence here may point to an underlying lack of support for the development of play in clinical development. To be clear, this is not a negative reflection on these clinicians, but more a critical inquiry into clinical definitions of play.
At this point, I asked clinicians to similarly reflect on whether they noticed any changes in their clients as a result of this play. Many of the responses stated that clients generally felt “more open” and “more engaged” after play as though play took the form of a respite or reinvigoration in the midst of hard work. In these sessions, play became a source of energy with which to continue the conversation or to explore concepts more deeply. For the clinician who described the playful act of making friendship bracelets with their client, they mused that play “helped [clients] build trust in [them]” as clients felt more able to “be clumsy” and then “get better” at something with their clinician. This clinician even noted that “they felt really proud to wear the bracelet” after making them. For this clinician and their client, play acted not only as a healing activity but a prerequisite to healing conversation, without which this clinician may not have been able to connect and work with their client at the level needed. In almost every response to this question, clinicians reported some kind of reinforced and bolstered connection between themselves and their client or between their client and the healing work.
After reflecting on any changes they may have observed in their clients, I asked clinicians to reflect specifically on changes they may have noticed in themselves as a result of play in their clinical spaces. These responses described similar observations to those of the changes observed in their clients, as a few clinicians responded saying they felt a reprieve from the heaviness of session, ranging from responses saying play made the session “feel less heavy” to being “emotionally rewarding” for the clinician themselves. These responses give us an insight to the emotional weight held by the clinicians when endeavoring to work with clients and encourages us not to forget that healing work is a two-way street and one that requires full engagement from both client and clinician. Play, then, is not only important for the health of the client but also for the wellbeing of the clinician, on which a lot of responsibility rests. Additionally, play may act as a cathartic release within the clinical space itself, such that clears the air between clinician and client and allows them to genuinely meet. Another main theme running through the responses to this question revolved around connection and trust between the clinician and their client. One respondent answered this question by saying that play “took some of the pressure off [them] to ‘build trust’” with their client. Another responded by saying that play in session “helps [them] relate as people” to their clients. Play in these moments became a way of humanizing the clinicians for their clients, enabling them to be accessible and comforting sources of healing for these clients. One clinician simply stated that playing in session made them feel like they and their client “are on the same level when we play.” For therapeutic work, which may often seem daunting or cold to clients, play is not only a tool for healing but also a tool for making space for healing.
Conclusions
It may sometimes be easier to sit behind the curtain and expound on what play could mean theoretically for us, but to think on play purely from a theoretical perspective blocks us off from play itself. To think about play, to imagine what play is, to remember and keep play alive in our lives - these are all ways of playing as well. I asked people to recall a memory of play to open their minds back up to a moment in which play was fully available and accessible. I asked them to tell me about this memory to make the play stronger by bringing another person into it, by allowing it to live in another moment. It is important to ask ourselves to come back down to the ground and think about play from a truly practical and tangible perspective, because then we can see how available play is to us.
The themes running throughout these responses are not themes wholly devoid from our lives: spontaneity, curiosity, connection, love. They may be harder to reach or make room for in our highly structured and regulated lives, but they are not extinct. If we can recognize that the fundamental building blocks of play can be things as basic as spontaneity or love, we can find an entire world of play at our fingertips. One participant perfectly encapsulated this in their response to the question about whether play changed anything inside of them. They simply responded, “I’m not sure. This is just how I am! :)” In the entirety of this survey, no answer made me pause as long as this one did, nor did any one make me smile as hard. It is not difficult to imagine that this respondent smiled as they wrote this, and my own smile mirrors theirs while reading it. In their answer, they embody being playful, they embody the experience of living in the moment, of connecting, of caring. his person may be able to see play in more moments when they hold the components for play in themselves at any given moment. One other response from a clinician seems especially poignant in this final reflection, as they said “I believe play looks and feels different for each person. It also evolves as they find healing.” Play is not something stagnant and monolithic but vibrantly human and something that is constantly shifting. With this response, the question stops being “how do we play?” but perhaps morphs into something closer to “how do we stay playful?”
Contributed by: Neha Hazra
Editors: Jennifer (Ghahari) Smith, Ph.D. and Jerome Veith, Ph.D.
