PLAY: PSYCHOANALYTIC

PERSPECTIVES, SURVIVAL AND

HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

Is play only a children’s activity? How is the spontaneous play of adults

expressed? What is the difference between ‘play’ and ‘game’? What function
does play have during war?

Play: Psychoanalytic Perspectives, Survival and Human Development explores the

importance of play in the life of the individual and in society. Most people associate
psychoanalysis with hidden and ‘negative’ instincts, like sexuality and aggressiveness,
but very seldom with ‘positive urges’ such as the importance of love and empathy, and
almost never with play. Play, which occupies a special place in our mental life, is not
merely a children’s activity. In both children and adults, the lack of play or the
incapacity to play almost always has a traumatic cause – this book shows also the
crucial importance of play in relation to survival in warfare and during traumatic
times.
In this book Emilia Perroni argues that whether we regard play as a spontaneous
creation or whether we see it as an enjoyable activity with defined rules (a game), it is
impossible to conceive human existence and civilization without it. The papers
collected in this book are the results of the research offered on the subject of play by
several Israeli therapists from different psychoanalytic schools including Freudian,
Jungian, Kleinian, Winnicottian and Self-Psychology. Other contributions are from
Israeli researchers and academics from various fields such as literature, music, art,
theatre and cinema, contemporary psychoanalysis and other disciplines.

Play: Psychoanalytic Perspectives, Survival and Human Development offers new ways to
think about, and understand, play as a search for meaning, and as a way of becoming
oneself. This book will be of interest to researchers, therapists, parents, teachers and
students who are interested in the application of psychoanalytic theory to their fields
including students of cultural studies, such as art, music and philosophy.

Emilia Perroni is a clinical psychologist and is a supervisor at the School of

Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy at the University of Tel Aviv and the Bar Ilan
University. She has a private practice in Jerusalem and in Tel Aviv. She is a member
of the Israeli Association of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy and the Israeli Association
of Psychotherapy, an associate member of the Israel Institute of Jungian Psychology
and research fellow at the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem.
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PLAY: PSYCHOANALYTIC
PERSPECTIVES,
SURVIVAL AND HUMAN
DEVELOPMENT

Edited by Emilia Perroni

Main translators Jeff Green and
Peter Gandolfi
First published 2014
by Routledge
27 Church Road, Hove, East Sussex BN3 2FA
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2014 Emilia Perroni
The right of Emilia Perroni to be identified as the author of the
editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters,
has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Play : psychoanalytic perspectives, survival and human
development / edited by Emilia Perroni.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Play—Psychological aspects. 2. Psychoanalysis.
I. Perroni, Emilia.
BF717.P58 2013
155—dc23 2012040050

ISBN: 978-0-415-68207-7 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-415-68208-4 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-54718-2 (ebk)

Typeset in Garamond 3
by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk
TO PETER AND MIKO
WITH LOVE
This page intentionally left blank
 CONTENTS

Contributors x
Preface to the English Edition xii
Foreword xiv
Shmuel Erlich
General Introduction xvi
Acknowledgments xxvi

PART I
The origins of play and the play space 1
1 Listening 3
Introduction: On listening—Emilia Perroni 3
Listening in parenting and therapy as a life-giving container and
as preparation for the capacity to play—Yael Ofarim 5
Hearing, listening, being attentive and everything
in between—Mira Zakai 16

2 Psychoanalysis and play 28

Introduction: Play from Freud to Winnicott—Emilia Perroni 28
Play as a world of magic and drama: Winnicott’s ideas about play
and their application to children’s psychotherapy—Liora Lurie 33
Psyche or soul in psychoanalysis: Towards the conceptualization of
play as a psychoanalytic transcendental selfobject—Raanan Kulka 47

3 Space and play 62

Introduction: Play as a movement of the soul: Some thoughts on
order and disorder—Emilia Perroni 62
Rites and games for creating sacred holy space—Avi Bauman 65
The dream’s navel and the hunt in the forest: Comments on the
structure of space—Itamar Levy 75

vii
 CONTENTS

PART II
Play, war and survival 85

4 Survival, motherhood and play 87

Introduction: Some observations on the exhibition “There Are No
Childish Games” at the Holocaust Museum of Yad Vashem in
Jerusalem—Emilia Perroni 87
Playing in the shadow of the Holocaust: Memories from a hiding place –
A personal testimony—Yael Rosner 91
Creativity and play in the shadow of war: A discussion of
The Notebook by Agota Kristof—Doreet Hopp 103

5 War and play 115

Introduction: The concept of enemy—Emilia Perroni 115
Why war? Between transformational and terminal links in
the field of therapeutic play and beyond—Gabriela Mann 118
Images of war and images of peace in sand-play therapy—
Rina Porat and Bert Meltzer 133

PART III
Play and fatherhood 155

6 Fathers and sons 157

Introduction: Fatherhood or motherhood?—Emilia Perroni 157
Dedalus and Icarus: Thoughts on relations between fathers and
adolescent sons—Shmuel Bernstein 160
Father’s truth-and-lies game: On Peter Weir’s
The Truman Show—Yael Munk 172

PART IV
Play and the theater arts 181

7 The theater and play 183

Introduction: To act and to tell—Emilia Perroni 183
Children and theater—Rami Bar Giora 186
The actor as eternal child: The role of play in the
training of actors—Noam Meiri 197

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 CONTENTS

8 Play and masquerading 210

Introduction: The play of the soul behind the mask—
Emilia Perroni 210
The mask—Jacob Raz 212
Carnival: The return to chaos—Micha Ankory 216

Afterword: On a personal note—Emilia Perroni 221

Additional Bibliography 223
Index 227

ix
 CONTRIBUTORS

Micha Ankory is an Analytical Psychologist and Jungian Supervisor-

Analyst.
Rami Bar Giora is a Clinical Child Psychologist.
Avi Bauman is a Jungian Supervisor-Analyst and Lecturer in Mythology and
Art on the relationship between the depth psychology and culture.
Shmuel Bernstein is a Supervising-Clinical Psychologist, and Training
Analyst, Israel Society for Analytical Psychology; Former Director,
Adolescents Unit, Summit Institute, Jerusalem.
Shmuel Erlich is a Training Analyst at the Israeli Institute of Psychoanalysis
in Jerusalem and Sigmund Freud Professor (Emeritus) and former Director
of the Freud Center for Psychoanalytic Study and Research, The Hebrew
University of Jerusalem.
Doreet Hopp is a Lecturer in Literature at the Kibbutz College of Education
and at Tel Aviv University.
Raanan Kulka is a Training Analyst at the Israeli Institute of Psychoanalysis
in Jerusalem, and Head of the Israeli Society of Self-Psychology and
Subjectivity Research.
Itamar Levy is a Training Psychoanalyst at the Israel Institute of Psycho-
analysis in Jerusalem, painter, and art critic.
Liora Lurie is a Clinical Psychologist and Psychoanalyst at the Israeli Institute
of Psychoanalysis in Jerusalem.
Gabriela Mann is a Clinical Psychologist and Psychoanalyst at the Israeli
Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis in Tel Aviv, and Lecturer in the
Department of Psychology at the Bar Ilan University.
Noam Meiri is an actor, director and Lecturer in the Department of
Theater – Tel Aviv University.

x
 CONTRIBUTORS

Bert Meltzer is a Clinical and Educational Psychologist.

Yael Munk is a Lecturer on Cinema at the Open University in Tel Aviv and
Lecturer on Cinema and Culture – Department of Literature, Languages
and Arts.
Yael Ofarim was a former Training Analyst at the Israeli Institute of
Psychoanalysis in Jerusalem.
Rina Porat is a Psychologist and Jungian Analyst.
Jacob Raz is Professor, Department of East Asian Studies – Tel Aviv
University.
Yael Rosner is a Child Survivor of the Holocaust and Professional Embroiderer.
Mira Zakai is a Teacher in Musicology in Rubin Academy.

xi
 PREFACE TO THE
ENGLISH EDITION

The first edition of Play in Psychoanalysis and Other Disciplines was published in
Hebrew almost ten years ago. Since then, interest in the topic of play has not
diminished: in fact, it is growing continuously. In Israel the book has been
received with great interest not only by therapists, but also by the public at
large. It has been displayed on the list of recommended books at the
Universities of Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa, in addition to Leslie College,
and it is still on those lists to this day.
While preparing this English edition, I realized that the concepts and the
messages delivered by the contributors have not lost their originality. They
are still valid today as they were ten years ago. Nevertheless, I saw that some
small adjustments and updating on my introductions could bring some fresh
aspects to the topic of play. The material of the contributors has been left the
same as it appeared in the first edition, apart from some small revisions here
and there. I have also introduced three new papers, by Mira Zakai, Jacob Raz
and Micha Ankory, which, I believe, have added new and important dimensions
to this topic. I also endeavored to give a new structure to the layout of the
articles, in order to make the book easily accessible to readers from different
fields.
The few terms and concepts related to Jewish religion and Israeli culture,
when necessary, have been defined in order to render them accessible to the
public at large.
Finally, I feel very moved, and it is a great joy and honor, that this book is
published in London, the city, where Donald W. Winnicott helped so
many children and their parents. (It is also the city of Melanie Klein
and Anna Freud, to whom I always feel very indebted.) The revolutionary
ideas of Winnicott, so important for the development of psychoanalysis, are
still being used today by therapists all over the world, and they have repeatedly
proved to be of great help in the treatment of both children and adults. It can
be said that today all of us, in some way, are Winnicottians: Freudians,
Jungians, Kleinians, theoreticians of Ego-Psychology, Self-Psychology, and
the Inter-Subjective approach. All of us, in one way or another, have adopted
his ideas. Now his message is ‘returning home,’ enriched with new ideas

xii
 P R E FA C E

and new applications. It is also a confirmation that his discoveries are still
valid to this day.
I would like to add that in preparing this new edition, I felt overwhelmed
by the same passion I had when working for the first edition of the book about
ten years ago.
Emilia Perroni
Jerusalem, 2013

xiii
 FOREWORD

More than a century ago Sigmund Freud wrote the following sentence in a
book that was published in 1900, entitled The Interpretation of Dreams: “The
unconscious is the true psychic reality; in its inner nature it is just as much
unknown to us as the reality of the external world, and it is just as imperfectly
communicated to us by the data of consciousness as is the external world by
the reports of our sense-organs.”
With this sentence, as with many others in that book, Freud laid the
foundation for his conception of the human psyche – its elusive essence, its
early and delayed development, its functioning – which is so complex and
impressive, and at the same time so partial, unknown, and uncontrolled. The
unconscious is foreign territory but not unknown, the kernel of “otherness”
within our selves.
I chose the above sentence of Freud’s for another reason: it traces the outlines
of the known and the unknown, of the interior and the exterior, of objective
and subjective reality; but also of the inevitable subjectiveness at the basis of
all knowledge of external reality, and the eternal incompleteness inherent in
any effort to “know” the inner reality of our selves objectively.
This is also the intersection of the two areas that this book deals with:
psychoanalysis and play. Both exist and are carried out in a place where worlds
meet and information is incomplete, but still possible. Thus it is no coincidence
that this subject, which unites the chapters in this book, invites a multifaceted
encounter of scholars and areas, of experience and knowledge from places that
are, for many of us, “another” place.
Freud related to the play of a child as a subject that was expanded and
explained later by many authors, including Jacques Lacan. However, he left
the expansion of the subject of play and the direct – not roundabout – entry
into the developing world of the child as an area for his followers to play in,
to expand, and to deepen. Anna Freud, Melanie Klein, and mainly Donald
Winnicott were the leaders of the main currents that described the illusionary
and creative world of play, through which the child learns – with profound
seriousness – about his own inner and outer reality and that of others in his
family, his surroundings, and his culture.

xiv
 FOREWORD

Study of the world of children’s play (and to a different extent that of adults)
has made an inestimable contribution to the development of psychoanalysis.
As a therapeutic method, psychoanalysis plays – or permits the play of – what
would otherwise be too threatening or painful. As a route toward under-
standing the human psyche, psychoanalysis grew up in the border regions of
human knowledge – outside institutions of higher education, and close to
definitions of the world of conventional, rational science, which for a long
time (perhaps still) has not desired its closeness. However, psychoanalysis,
too, has maintained its separateness. The willingness to approach, to learn and
be enlightened from one another, is acquired slowly and gradually.
This book is valuable as a cultural, emotional, and intellectual encounter
especially because it makes both interdisciplinary and interpersonal dialogue
possible. I am convinced that we can all enjoy and learn from the thoughts
preserved in its pages.
Shmuel Erlich

xv
 GENERAL INTRODUCTION

Once I walked into a stationery store and I told the saleswoman I was looking
for a happy pen. I said it half as a joke, half seriously. In response to her
surprise, I said that sometimes I write sad things, so the pen has to be a happy
one. She asked me what I did and what sort of sad things I write. I told her
that I am a psychologist, and that a lot of people, in order to unburden
themselves of their problems, pour their sad stories on to me. I expected her
to laugh or make fun, but no. She certainly didn’t act as if “all the nuts talk to
her,” and she didn’t even show self-control by following the principle that
“the customer is always right.” She related to the task with the utmost
seriousness and began to open drawer after drawer in a systematic way,
murmuring to herself: “True, a pen has to be happy.” So she sorted out the
pens according to their seriousness, their gloom or their happiness and from
time to time she said: “No, this one is not a happy pen at all.” She showed me
a pen after another and asked: “Is this one happy enough?” “No,” we declared
together, and she kept looking. At a certain stage, finding a happy pen lost its
importance; the play was over. Eventually I bought three ordinary pens, with
a rather serious personality.
This anecdote, like this whole book, is about play. A dynamic story
comprising various types of play took place in it: the play within me by means
of the search for a pen, the play between sadness and happiness, and the play
between me and the saleswoman.
The subject of play has interested me for many years: children’s play, adults’
play. Play has an important role in psychoanalysis and in psychoanalytic
therapies. We will see playfulness in societies in general and in Israeli society
in particular. In this book I shall discuss its essence, its functions, and its
various uses in detail.
Many types of play take place in kindergartens, in school, and on television,
and nowadays they include also computer games. Nor did the upheavals of the
twentieth century eliminate the need for play. Today, as never before, we are
also witnessing a strong connection between play and market. Computer
games have taken the place of rocking horses, and electric swords have become
more yearned for than witches’ broomsticks. More and more games are being

xvi
 GENERAL INTRODUCTION

bought rather than being invented, and a trip to Disneyland is regarded as a

personal achievement … As the Italian philosopher Bencivenga (1999) argues,
most games have become too clean even when the play includes instinct and
energy. When some dirt clings to us, it shows that we’ve made an effort in our
encounter with the world. Our sweat, for example, tells us that we’ve
contended or loved. Play has become too competitive, and it has only winners
and losers, and mainly concerns money. Children at a very early age begin to
play computer games and they tend to neglect – too soon in my opinion –
spontaneous play and plays of imagination. Some computer games strengthen
the illusion of omnipotence, which then strengthens a sense of pseudo-
maturity in many adolescents. It brings several types of disturbances, which
can develop into deviances in adults.
As we shall see from contemporary psychoanalysis, one dimension of the
individual’s mental health is the capacity to play. Most probably (these issues
have not yet been studied systematically) playfulness – which is characterized
as pleasure-oriented flexibility – is also indicative of a social situation. For
example, upon the outbreak of the first Intifada, in the Palestinian refugee
camp of Dahaysheh, the children suddenly stopped playing their most
common game: the wedding game, in which a boy and a girl stand in the
center of the kindergarten, all the other children stand around them, and each
child in turn gets to play the role of the groom or of the bride. The sudden
cessation of this very traditional form of play is certainly not without
significance and perhaps it expresses implicitly the trauma of the Palestinian
refugees as a whole. At the level of the individual as well as of the society, both
in children and in adults, the lack of play or the incapacity to play always has
a traumatic cause.
Play, which occupies a special place in our mental life, is not merely a
children’s activity. Play has fascinated both children and adults, and artists
and scholars apparently from time immemorial. Its many applications appear
in various fields of knowledge: philosophy, anthropology, psychoanalysis,
mathematics, sociology, music, literature, the arts, and religion. Hence we are
in fact dealing with a concept whose boundaries are very wide, almost infinite.
The first human beings, as well as our contemporary mammal cousins, had to
know how to play when in their infancies in order to survive.
Can the creation of the world, as recounted in the Bible, be viewed as an act
of play? Although in the biblical creation story there is no mention of
endowing an existing reality with meaning, nevertheless it is possible to
locate several elements that comprise Winnicott’s definition of play (Winnicott
1971): a new creation and its endowment with significance, the externalizing
of something inward, putting it out into the world and shaping it, and the
element of pleasure and surprise (“And God saw everything He had done and
behold it was very good,” Gen. 1:31), and the interaction between the player
and the play (as Wisdom says in the Book of Proverbs, in describing her
relations with God: “Then I was by Him, as one brought up with Him:

xvii
 PERRONI

and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him; Rejoicing in the
habitable part of His earth; and my delights were with the sons of men” (Prov.
8:30–31). We see God all alone, doing, creating and forming. He creates with
words – but He also plays with dust, works with materials, differentiates
among them, blesses them, and waxes enthusiastic over the fruit of His
creation (“And God saw that it was good,” Gen. 1:10). Adam, too, who was
created in God’s image, begins his life by playing with his environment. In
giving names to the animals and to his living surroundings, he imbues
that which had existed before him with new meaning. The following Midrash
is an example of the threatening aspect of the spontaneity of playful
construction – the temporariness, the instability, the danger of destruction
and death:

And God saw everything He had created, and behold it was very
good” – Rabbi Tanhuma began: “Everything he did was beautiful in
its time” – Rabbi Tanhuma said: “In its season the world was created,
and the world was not worthy of being created before then.” Rabbi
Abahu said: “From here we know that the Holy One blessed be
He creates worlds and destroys them, creates worlds and destroys
them – once He created them, He said: these were not pleasant for
me, these were pleasant for me.”
(Breshit Rabbah 9)

The Bible story is very different from other creation myths, especially
because God creates by Himself – “No one is with him” (the Avodah service for
Yom Kippur, in the prayer book according to the Jewish–Italian rite). In the
Hindu religion, for example, the world was created as a result of the splitting
of the ancient god into male and female from a single androgynous figure
(Handelman and Shulman 1997). The male body of the god became the world
of phenomena (the cosmos), and a game of dice between the god Shiva and his
consort Parvati represents the dynamic foundation of the cosmos. In Pelasgian
Greek mythology, the world was created from an erotic dance of the goddess
Eurynome with the north wind, which in her hands becomes the serpent
Ophion. The union of goddess and the serpent brings forth a gigantic egg,
from which the sun, the moon, the stars, and the earth emerge. In a similar
fashion, according to Orphic mythology, the union of the black winged
goddess of the night with the wind produces a silver egg, from which Eros
emerges – and he creates the world and sets it in motion. According to the
Olympian myth, the earth mother emerges from chaos and, while asleep,

 The Midrash is an interpretation in a literary form of passages of the Old Testament and
mainly parts of the Pentateuch. It has the scope of widening the message of the manifest text
and of adding some hidden meanings.

xviii
 GENERAL INTRODUCTION

gives birth to her son Uranus; Uranus fertilizes his mother by means of rain,
and she “gives birth” to grasses, trees, and flowers (Graves 1955).
In philosophy, the first reference to play is that of Heraclites (seventh–sixth
centuries BCE), who said that life is a child at play moving pieces on a
checkered board (an idea adopted by Martin Heidegger in the twentieth
century; see Atlan 1993). One can also point out the “ludic” characteristics in
the figure of the “Demiurge” described by Plato, who shapes matter according
to the world of ideas. A “ludic” figure with similar characteristics is that of the
Greek god Dionysus, the god of the mask and of acting, of wine, of lust, and
of the forces of nature in general, and also of death. He represented one of the
sources of the development of early Greek tragedy: tragedy is the fruit of
transmutations of the death wish, and comedy is the fruit of transmutations of
the desire for life.
As Gideon Ofrat has pointed out (Ofrat 1990), explicit conceptualization
of play did not occur before the eighteenth century: Immanuel Kant
wrote that play was possible only after humanity frees itself from fixed
ideas and purposefulness. After him, Friedrich Schiller maintained that
only playfulness can be the bridge between our coercive nature and
human freedom, and he gave art – by means of the play in it – the task of
redeeming society. Eugène Fink (1966) saw the symbol of the world in play
in its universal potential, its ordering power, through which the possible
becomes real. Ludwig Wittgenstein (1953) defined language as a ludic activity
with rules (language games), and as the locus where in fact the “cosmic game”
is revealed. In his Homo Ludens (1938/1949), the Dutch historian Johan
Huizinga wrote that play is the essence of humanity, and he warned that in
fascist regimes people were liable to lose their playfulness – and thus their
essence.
Indeed, whether we regard play as spontaneous creation or whether we see
it as an enjoyable activity with defined rules (a game), it is impossible to
conceive human existence and civilization without it. Furthermore, play
appeared in the world long before the appearance of the concept of “the child”
as distinct from “the adult.”
Play is creation within that which already exists, a quest for the true self,
the search for meaning, and a way of becoming oneself. Hence, play inevitably
bumps into the boundaries of “life” and “not life.”
Play is usually precarious: it can easily be destroyed or it can destroy us.
As Liora Lurie points out in “Play as a World of Magic and Drama,” in
Chapter 2 of this book, when a child plays at being a great warrior with a
cardboard sword, he wants the people around him to give him the feeling that
he is really dangerous. If someone reminds him that his sword is made of
cardboard, the illusion of omnipotence dissolves and the play collapses.
Like every other kind of decision or creation, play is always a risky act, and
not only for children. Interestingly, the Judeo-Christian tradition fiercely
condemned playing with dice, whereas in the Hindu religion the game of dice

xix
 PERRONI

between the god Shiva and his consort Parvati represents the dynamic principle
of the cosmos (Handelman and Shulman 1997).
Gambling games have ancient sources, and through them people sell their
souls to chance. In Israel we have recently witnessed a worrisome spread of
this phenomenon: gambling – like wild driving – is experienced as a source of
powerful excitement by more and more people, and not only by adolescents.
It appears to me that the basis for this search for excitement is the yearning for
an external power, such as fate, to determine who we are. Freedom and the
possibilities that the affluent society offers us threaten our identity and
endanger the boundaries of ourselves every day. According to the sociologist
Melucci (1996), the dimensions of our world are changing very rapidly: very
small boxes can now contain gigantic reservoirs of information, and it is
possible to influence birth, life, and death to a degree that we have never
imagined before; it is even possible to choose, if we so wish, whether to be a
man or a woman. Are we prepared for all this? If it is possible to define our
identity as a complex of specific needs, our real needs can be altered by our
western civilization, and so is our identity, because we are being offered other
kinds of satisfactions before we can manage to identify our needs. Thus, many
people feel emptiness, their “true self” is lost and they seek to merge their
identity with a roulette of some sort, which itself becomes the center of their
existence (Perroni 2004).
It appears that the search for this excitement can be so strong that more and
more people are unable to free themselves from it: thus the one-time, free, and
entertaining bet that enriches our lives and holds surprises in store for us
ceases to be a game and becomes obsessive gambling – a death trap.
It is interesting to note that since ancient times, play, death, and motherhood
had a dual nature. In her article “On Death and Transformation” (1989), Sara
Shalev, a Jungian analyst, argues that death is experienced on one hand as a
nameless dread, frightening in its mysteriousness and aggression, and, on the
other hand, that it is also an opportunity for rebirth and transformation. This
motive is also found in mythology. In Egypt and Greece, for example, the
ancient earth goddesses were simultaneously goddesses of birth, fertility and
also death. The subject of death as a possibility of transformation occurs in
many fairy tales: thus, for example, Little Red Riding Hood had to die along
with her grandmother in order to be reborn and become an adult woman.
In the context of this theme, let me tell you a personal story. Several years
ago I learned of the possibility in Italy of recovering the essays we had written
for the exams of our matriculation, and I was curious to read the one I had
written for my test. I was feeling that life was very complicated, and that I was
beginning to have problems in understanding myself. I wanted to read what
my thoughts were when I was eighteen years old, because I had the feeling
that everything appeared clear to me during that period: how the world, or
the society, or youth ought to be. So, during one of my regular visits to Italy,
I went back to my old high school and I asked the secretary for my essay. He

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 GENERAL INTRODUCTION

told me with regret that they had kept the manuscripts for twenty years, after
which they sent all the papers for recycling. I arrived five years too late. I said
out loud: “So, actually, my essay does not exist anymore,” and the secretary
replied: “That is not true. It does exist, but now it has become cardboard.”
I was surprised to discover in this answer an unexpected and clear concept of
death and transformation.
This motive is also found in the myth of the hero, which appears in similar
forms in various cultures: the decisive task of the hero is to overcome the
forces of death and evil and to undergo a transformation. Figures such as
Ulysses or Pinocchio can undergo transformation only because they have dealt
with death.
Like play, motherhood has also a dual nature: in his article on the myth of
the three caskets, as well as in his article “The Uncanny,” Freud refers to the
dual essence of the woman: as giving life and as taking it away. Erich Neumann
(1955), a Jungian therapist, and Adrienne Rich (1976), a feminist theorist,
believed that the central component in the discrimination against women is
the fear of woman as the source of both life and death and the fear of the power
of transformation within her. The figure of Eve in the Book of Genesis also has
these two aspects: she is both the mother of all living things and the cause of
the expulsion from the Garden of Eden, and the origin of death.
A baby playing with his mother’s nipple is beginning to know about
himself. From the expressions on his mother’s face, the baby will learn how to
identify his own emotions, because in his mother’s face he sees her and himself
at the same time. He experiences pleasure through her. He perceives that he
can get a reward in his belief that there are good things in store for him in this
world. As he grows older, he will learn that there are also bad aspects in both
his mother and the environment, and that he will need to face them also
through play (Perroni 2009). This is the history of all of us.
It can be stated that the State of Israel arose in the wake of a “thought play”
by the visionary Theodor Herzl. But today is playfulness in jeopardy? Does
the Jewish humor of the Diaspora still exist? Here in Israel I have the
impression that in a casual encounter in the street, people have the tendency
to exchange sentences of distress or of tragedy with one another rather than
jocular phrases or free associations. Moreover, it is now well documented that
situations of uncertainty are experienced as intolerable, and in general they are
devoid of playfulness. Very often the pleasure and the spontaneity that is
involved in all play is blocked by threat, hatred, and the fear of others, and we
are not prone by our very nature to sufficient flexibility within ourselves and
in respect to the environment. The “public ceremonies” of the Israeli society
are nowadays less festive, more subdued, and they have acquired a more
materialistic character. This is quite apparent with the celebrations of
Independence Day. The Jewish holidays are also losing their original,
pleasurable meaning, and they are being perceived more and more as a
nightmare that has to be overcome in a heroic fashion. Similarly, there is a

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 PERRONI

conspicuous lack of humor both in children‘s books and in the literature for
adults.
There are deep and complex reasons for this phenomenon of the attenuation
of playfulness in Israeli society: the great number of wars in which Israel has
been involved and the feeling of prolonged peril have created within the
Israeli a traumatic personality. The average Israeli harbors severe anxieties in
regard to fear and to the loss of territory, the subjective fear of extermination
and the feeling of guilt. It is well known that one of the characteristics of
trauma is that the present is dominated by the memories of the past: this
tragic and traumatic attitude requires a long process of decompression before
it can turn into a tranquil enjoyment.
Nevertheless, it appears that in recent years the need for softening and
for playfulness is growing stronger among certain segments of the population.
It is important to hear those voices. For example, in the ultra-orthodox
society (Haredi), where there is still a continuous and systematic ideological
struggle against play, during the past five years theater groups for women have
been set up in Jerusalem and in Bnei-Brak. Following this trend special
theater groups for ultra-orthodox men have sprouted around the country. The
active struggle waged by the ultra-orthodox establishment against initiatives
of this kind has so far not succeeded in suppressing them.
Another interesting example of the wish for playfulness in Israel is the
exhibition in 1997 of plays and games from the period of the Holocaust,
which was set up by the Yad Vashem Museum of the Holocaust in Jerusalem.
For a long time the very idea of exhibiting the topic of play or games from
that tragic period aroused a fierce opposition among the many historians who
were dealing with the Holocaust and who considered as dogma the maintenance
of the historical and documentary character of the museum. However, this
exhibition has been very successful and has now become permanent.
A year afterward, on the fiftieth anniversary of the State of Israel, the film of
the Italian director, Roberto Benigni, La vita è bella (Life is Beautiful) has been
screened in Israel. This film deals with a play situation and develops it ad
absurdum: playing within the Holocaust. Parenthetically, this movie could
only have been made in Italy, where, in my opinion, the society is characterized
by a playful richness, sometimes even over-playfulness. The film shows how
playing becomes psychotic when the external reality is psychotic. But it shows
also that playing can help us to survive psychologically and that it can be a
way for overcoming the fear of annihilation. Furthermore, it makes it possible
for the father and his son to maintain the quality of their relationship in the
face of death, and even to continue to love life, without identifying with the
aggressor. Thus play can soften our tragic–paranoid position, which is so
deeply rooted in ourselves, and it can restore its spoils: the capacity to love and
to enjoy life.

* Bnei-Brak is an ultra-orthodox city, next to Tel Aviv.

xxii
 GENERAL INTRODUCTION

The Israeli version of “Simon Says” is “Herzl Said!” which is still being
played by children in kindergartens all over the country. In the English
version, Simon is a simple fellow, whereas in the Israeli version the order-giver
is the beloved Herzl, who envisioned the Jewish state. This means that
whoever fails to obey Herzl’s “order” loses and is removed from the group or,
as it were, from the game.
It seems to me quite evident that allowing ourselves to be more fully
involved in the dimension of play can be of great benefit not only for Israeli
society but also for societies in general. Perhaps we may discover that we need
to play more, with more people; perhaps we may even realize that a lot of
people would have liked to play with us in the past, but we didn’t allow them,
because we didn’t know or because we were not capable of doing so. Therefore
I would like to dedicate this book to play, to those who love play, and especially
to those who do not believe that they are capable of playing.

This book has several purposes; all of them, in my opinion, very important.
First of all, it will show the crucial importance of spontaneous play, the essence
of play and its manifold uses and manifestations in the development of a
human being as an individual or in society. We shall also learn about the
concept of play from different perspectives. Within this frame we will show
the vital function of spontaneous play as an instrument for creative life and for
survival, even in situations of war, or peril or threat.
Another purpose of this book is to offer a way not only for Israeli society,
but for societies in general to soften the grip of suffering and of deep
identification with tragedy and to utilize our inner resources by means of a
continuous play within the environment.
This book is a selection from the rich and beneficial contribution by
contemporary psychoanalysis and interdisciplinary essays on the subject of
play. The papers collected here are the results of the research and the arguments
offered by several therapists from different psychoanalytic trends: Freudian,
Jungian, Kleinian, Winnicottian and Self-Psychology. It is interesting to note
that regarding play, there are no substantial differences among the various
psychoanalytic schools; we see common ground with various complementary
approaches. Other contributions are from Israeli academics from various fields
of knowledge and creativity, such as literature, music, art, theater and cinema.
I also thought it appropriate to include in this collection a personal testimony
from a survivor of the Holocaust.
This being a collection of essays from different disciplines and from different
contributors, the English style of each paper may sometimes reflect the
spontaneous personality of its author. Consequently the language of the book
is not uniform. The contributors wrote in their own personal style and,
naturally, they used the concepts of their fields. But it was important to me to
preserve, wherever possible, their mode of expressing themselves, so that each
contribution would not lose its authenticity. The names and identities of the

xxiii
 PERRONI

patients in the articles presented by the therapists have of course been

disguised.
I am aware of some redundancy throughout the book in regards to the
theories of Winnicott. However, I have preferred not to omit or to cut the
related quotations so that each chapter can stand on its own. This will enable
the reader to choose the preferred topics, without having to go through the
whole book.
This book is intended for therapists, teachers, philosophers, artists,
sociologists, educators and parents, and of course, for everyone who is
fascinated by play, in all its varieties.
The book is divided into four parts; in each part the papers are divided
among different chapters. In order to link the topics of the papers selected for
each chapter and to provide a sense of continuity and integration among them,
I have inserted at the beginning of each chapter a short introduction, which
will illustrate the conceptual basis that guided me in its editing. Parts of these
introductions were published in the Hebrew and English editions of the daily
newspaper Haaretz in 2000.

The first part of this book opens with two essays on “Listening” – Yael Ofarim,
psychoanalyst, on listening in parenting and in therapy, and Mira Zakai,
musicologist, on listening as a preparation for the capacity to play. Following
this Liora Lurie and Raanan Kulka, both psychoanalysts, present the concept
of play, its nature and its function within human existence. Two papers
conclude the first part: the first by Avi Bauman, Jungian analyst, and the
second by Itamar Levy, psychoanalyst, artist and art critic; both deal with “the
space” where play is achieved.
The second part deals with play as a tool for survival and the importance of
the mother figure as a protecting agent of play: Yael Rosner, a survivor
of the Warsaw Ghetto, with her testimony, and Doreet Hopp, literature
critic, deal with the topic of play during the period of the Holocaust and
the Second World War respectively. Following this, Gabriela Mann,
psychoanalyst, and Rina Porat together with Bert Meltzer, both Jungian
analysts and experts on sand play, deal with the topic of the relationship
between play and war.
In the third part, Shmuel Bernstein, Jungian analyst, and Yael Munk,
movie critic, deal with the topic of play and its conflicting aspects in the
relationship between fathers and sons.
In the fourth and last part, Rami Bar Giora, psychologist, and Noam Meiri,
actor, cover the topic of the stage-play in therapy and in front of an audience.
Finally, Jacob Raz, teacher and research fellow on eastern studies, and Micha
Ankory, Jungian analyst, show the various aspects of masquerading and the
need for carnivals.
I end the book with a personal note.

xxiv
 GENERAL INTRODUCTION

I hope that this book will give the reader as much pleasure as I had during its
compilation and its editing.
Emilia Perroni

References
Atlan, H. (1993) Enlightenment to Enlightenment. Intercritique of Science and Myth,
Albany: State University of New York Press.
Bencivenga, E. (1999) Per gioco e per passione, Rome: Di renzo Editore.
Fink, E. (1966) Le jeu comme symbole du monde, Paris: Ed. de Minuit.
Freud, S. (1913/1990) “The theme of the three caskets”, Art and Literature, Penguin
Books, Harmondsworth, Vol. 14. Trans. from German by James Strachey, ed. by
Albert Dickson.
—— (1919/1990) “The uncanny”, Art and Literature, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth,
Vol. 14. Trans. from German by James Strachey, ed. by Albert Dickson.
Graves, R. (1955) The Greek Myths, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.
Handelman, D. and Shulman, D. (1997) God Inside Out, New York: Oxford University
Press.
Heidegger, M. (1998) The Essence of Truth (original German: Vom Wesen der Wahrheit,
Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1943), London: Athlone.
Heraklitos of Ephesos [Fifth Century BCE], 1978. Frammenti (Fragment. 52, www.
heraclitusfragments.com/files/e.html; “Time is a child at play, moving pieces in a
board game; the kingly power is a child”), Florence: La Nuova Italia.
Huizinga, J. (1949) Homo Ludens – A Study of the Play-Element in Culture (Homo ludens:
Proeve eener bepaling van het spelelement der cultuur (1938) Haarlem), London:
Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Kant, I. (1986) The Critique of Judgement (Kritik der Urteilskraft (1792) Frankfurt und
Leipzig), Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Melucci, A. (1996) Il Gioco dell’Io (The Playing Self), Milan: Feltrinelli Ed.
Neumann, E. (1955) The Great Mother: An Analysis of the Archetype, trans. from German
by Ralph Manheim, New York: Pantheon Books.
Ofrat, G. (1990) “Play it” in Mishkafaim, Israel Museum Youth Wing Quarterly.
8:11.
Perroni, E. (Ed.) (2004) Time: Psychoanalysis and Other Disciplines, Tel Aviv: Van Leer
Institute and Ha-Kibbutz Hameuchad Publishing House.
—— (Ed.) (2009) Motherhood: Psychoanalysis and Other Disciplines, Tel Aviv: Van Leer
Institute and Ha-Kibbutz Hameuchad Publishing House.
Rich, A. (1976) Of Woman Born, New York: W.W. Norton.
Shalev, S. (1989) “On death and transformation”, Sihot, 3:219.
Winnicott, D.W. (1971) Playing and Reality, London: Tavistock.
Wittgenstein, L. (1953) Philosophical Investigations, Oxford: Blackwell.

xxv
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book grew out of a series of lectures given between March 1999 and June
2000 at the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem. My vision of organizing a series
of encounters on the subject of play from different perspectives and different
disciplines found immediate support from Professor Shmuel Erlich, who was
by that time director of the Sigmund Freud Center at the Hebrew University
in Jerusalem. I am greatly indebted to him. Without his cooperation and help
the project would never have materialized.
I want to give special thanks to Dr Shimshon Zelniker, who was the
head of the Van Leer Institute of Jerusalem during those years, for placing
his trust in me and for his responsiveness, generosity and openness toward
the project. I should also like to thank Ms Shulamit Laron, director of the
public events program, for her invaluable assistance, and Ms Tsipi Hecht,
assistant of the head of the institute, who created a supportive and facilitating
environment for me at the Van Leer. It has been a pleasure to work with you
both. Thank you.
I am very grateful to all the contributors of the articles in this book. Their
enthusiasm and willingness to devote their precious time to this project have
deeply moved me. When I first approached them on the idea of a series of
encounters on the topic of play, they immediately understood the importance
of the project and their outstanding contribution has been decisive in its
success.
A warm thanks to the general public who participated in the series of
lectures. Almost each session was crowded. Their continuous interest and
their active participation during the meetings have greatly enriched the topic.
If it weren’t for their enthusiasm and their repeated demands for a manuscript
of my introductions and of the lectures, I would have not been so convinced
of the importance of editing a book on play.
I am also very grateful to Ms Sara Sureni, executive editor of publications at
the Van Leer Institute, and to Ms Michal Ben-Dov (Millul). Both have been
of great assistance in the initial editing of the Hebrew version.
Raanan Kulka, my teacher and mentor, deserves special thanks. Through
him I found the courage and the strength to carry out this project. He showed

xxvi
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

me the many spiritual aspects of psychoanalysis and he made me see the

infinite multiplicity of human nature.
I am highly indebted to Johanna Gottesfeld, who read some parts of my
introductions and several papers and has offered valuable suggestions in regard
to the English version.
I have been greatly supported by many colleagues and friends, and it would
be impossible to cite them all. Among them, Rivka Eifermann, Yael Liron,
Anat Raz, Ruth Rossing and Meir Winokur have been of great help in paving
the way to the success of the Hebrew edition.
My acknowledgment is also due to the daily newspaper Haaretz for the
permission to publish some parts of my introductions.
Finally, Peter, my husband and companion, has always been there for me,
sharing with me the work involved in the English translation and in the
editing. His help, his encouragement and advice, and his ideas and suggestions
have greatly enriched the English manuscript.

* “Seder: the coexistence of order and disorder”, April 14 2000; “The enemy without, the
enemy within”, June 8th 2000 – copyright Haaretz newspaper.

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 Part I

THE ORIGINS OF PLAY

AND THE PLAY SPACE
This page intentionally left blank
 1
LISTENING

Introduction: On listening

Emilia Perroni
This chapter deals with the importance of listening as a cornerstone of mental
health, and it shows how good listening makes it possible to develop the
capacity to play.
The idea of combining listening in parenting and in therapy with listening
to music came to me in the wake of special moments, which I have experienced
as a mother and as a therapist. It is clear that psychoanalysis and parenting, on
one hand, and music, on the other, are different situations, with different con-
texts and different goals: parenting and therapy are situations of development
and nurturing, whereas music is a situation of pleasure for its own sake.
However, there are certain moments in parenting or in the course of a treat-
ment that are reminiscent of the feeling of listening to music: we listen to the
gaps, we learn the tones and the various voices of a person, we are guided by the
vicissitudes of various events and we absorb a particular atmosphere. We learn
how to distinguish between words on the symbolic level and words that mask
emotional chaos, we feel when a person is “out of tune,” and we listen at the
same time to the other one and to ourselves.
But this is not all about the connection between these two situations. It
seems to me particularly appropriate here to borrow from the book by
Yehoshua Kenaz, A Musical Moment (1995). The book consists of four stories
that describe stages in the development of the same narrator, from the age
of three to the end of secondary school. The entire book is full of words
such as “voice,” “hearing,” “to hear,” “noises,” “sounds.” May we speak of a
sonorous text?
The book defines as “musical moments” those moments of combined fear
and attraction when the narrator distances himself from events external to
himself, when he looks at them, and when he pulls himself together emotion-
ally through that distanced contemplation. It may be said that these moments
are like critical stations, where the narrator becomes himself and changes, in

3
 LISTENING

pain and in distress, from being an object to being a subject during the process
of maturation.
In one short story from his collection, which is entitled “A Musical Moment,”
the narrator struggles with the seduction of music as a source of meaning. We
learn that music sometimes represents instinct, sometimes the combination of
“logos” and “eros,” and finally we see that it represents self cohesiveness. At the
end of the story, the narrator decides to stop playing the violin completely: a
decision that will open for him a new stage in the “birth” of his own voice.
When the patient sitting in front of me succeeds in being himself (or
herself) and not someone else, when he is capable of love and can create from
within himself, when he can free himself from the agencies external to him
and when he speaks in the first person, for me it’s like hearing a “musical
moment” – of course this is something very personal and I can’t generalize it
to other therapists. If I may say so, it’s like in the story “The Three-Legged
Hen,” the first story in Kenaz’s book, where the narrator says: “A voice arose,
and the voice said: ‘I am me, I am me’ . . . and that voice filled me with dread
and joy” (p. 17).
I call “musical moments” the situations in which an arrogant person
succeeds in feeling shame, when a timid person encounters ambition, when a
suspicious person feels the need to merge with another one, or when a
materialistic person feels nostalgia. Indeed, I feel a “musical moment” every
time I find in the patient a small step forward in his development from
contrasts. Music, too, can contain life and death at the same time.
Both in music and in development, musical moments are like landmarks in
the process of becoming, and in both listening plays a decisive role. It may be
said that listening begins with hearing and develops into a complex function
that includes all the senses. In his article “Voices and Words in the Therapeutic
Encounter,” Moshe Landau (1996) emphasizes that the fetus’ capacity to hear
is fully developed from the fourth month of pregnancy: the fetus hears its
mother’s voice from a bain sonore (sound bath), a term coined by Édith Lecourt,
in which touch and sound are combined, including unpleasant sounds. This
sound bath envelops the baby also after it is born, and the mother, by listening
to the baby’s needs, makes its blurred experiences into a “thinkable” object.
During development, the envelope of listening undergoes essential transforma-
tions, both within the listener and within the object that is listened to.
It appears to me that lullabies are also a type of “sound bath,” involving
different types of sounds and emotions. In his article “The Cradle Song as
Mirror of Early Parental Problems” (1986), Rami Bar Giora shows how the
infant’s fear and the mother’s aggressive needs are expressed simultaneously in
tender melodies.
Other variations of the sound bath are the stories that parents tell their small
children. They also contain a combination of softness and aggression: to tell a
child a story about witches in a pleasant, cosseted room is a kind of extension
of the sound bath, a communal experience shared by parent and child.

4
 LISTENING

Interestingly, Frances Tustin (1987), who treated and studied the blockages
of autistic children, used the term “the rhythm of safety” to describe the
mutual adaptation between the infant and its mother. Rhythm here means the
regular alternation between strong and weak elements, between different
types of things, or between opposites. Such a rhythm allows an infant not to
be repelled by contrasts, with the assurance that everything will work out.
According to Tustin, children who suffer from autism are incapable of bring-
ing themselves into their mother’s rhythm. They split between sounds of dif-
ferent kinds in an extreme way and remain with an experience of chaos and
terror. In this context it is fascinating to note that one of the ways to treat
autistic children is with music.
In general a person who has been listened to in the past has a greater chance
of knowing how to listen to someone else. However, even the fullest type of
listening is always interpretive, partial, subjective, shaped by world views,
moods, projections, or “disguises” of various kinds, so that listening, even
when sincerely desired, is sometimes a particularly complex process.

References
Bar Giora, R. (1986) “The Cradle Song as Mirror of Early Parental Problems”, Sihot,
1:63.
Kenaz, J. (1995) A Musical Moment. Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad.
Landau, M. (1996) “Voices and Words in the Therapeutic Encounter”, Sihot, 2:125.
Tustin, F. (1987) Autistic Barriers in Neurotic Patients. London: Karnac.

Listening in parenting and therapy as a

life-giving container and as preparation for the
capacity to play

Yael Ofarim1
Many psychoanalysts draw a parallel between the ways therapists listen to
their patients and the ways parents, mainly mothers, listen to their infants
and children. From this point of view, therapy and analysis are based on an
archaic primary encounter, albeit restricted to those areas of the mind that
psychoanalysis seeks to treat. In their listening, psychoanalysts are attentive to
their patients’ continuity of experience – their sense of existence and being,
their thoughts and feelings. At one and the same time, they are also mindful
of the ways in which patients cut themselves off from their own inner
experience.
Various forms of dissociation have the common aim of avoiding psychic
pain. Psychoanalysts, in their close listening to their patients, aim to help
them to restore the continuity of their experience, at times at the cost of
considerable mental pain.

5
 LISTENING

In what follows, I shall emphasize the psychic activity that makes listening
possible: we as therapists are active when we allow ourselves to be open to
stimulation from the outside and from within, and we actively attend to the
patient’s thoughts and feelings as well as our own, as we move along the path
to the elaboration of their meaning.
There are a number of references to listening in the Bible, where ancient
Hebrew refers to listening in a way that reflects its link with archaic psychic
experience. Various passages in the bible exhort people to listen in essentially
two, almost contrary, ways, as follows.

1. In the first form, listening is associated with “paying attention” in the

sense of obedience and discipline, as in: “attend to know understanding”
(Prov. 4:1) and “attend to the words of my mouth” (Prov. 7:24). For my
purposes here, I borrow this meaning for describing the dependent child’s
obedience to its parents, as in compliance with an order, or, fulfilling an
expectation. Such compliance at times compromises the child’s, and later
the adult’s, listening to himself. Here we have what might be termed
“outward listening,” which comes at the expense of an authentic internal
listening, which I call “inner listening.”
2. A second form of listening that appears in the Bible involves a longed-for
tender and compassionate responsiveness, as when a person is in need of support
and understanding in the face of dangers from without and/or from
within. “Listen to me and answer me” (Ps. 55:3). Once again, for our
purposes, I borrow this biblical meaning in order to describe the activity
of a parent who contains the overwhelming experiences of his or her child,
providing containment and support.

The parent’s listening to the child is of decisive importance in the psycho-

analytic theory of development, and is generally viewed as a vital element
that promotes the child’s capacity to give meaning to its experience, in itself
essential for proper development.
Most parents intuitively practice listening dozens of times each day in the
course of their participation in their child’s development, when they interpret
the sound of their infant’s crying, or look into his smiling face, or attend to
the music of his speech, and of course its content. This attentive parental
accompaniment contributes to the ongoing meaning that the child gives to
his developing self, and strengthens the child’s own ability to listen to himself.
This is inner listening.
In the normal course of development, the parent is, of course, also an
educator. It is only natural for parents to expect children to heed their instruc-
tions, their suggestions and advice, and to respect the boundaries that they
set. As children grow up, parents increasingly expect them to be attentive to
their (the parent’s) needs as well, hopefully without this entailing loss of their
own identity. In this context, one should take note of an important aspect of

6
 LISTENING

early development, in which outward attention is liable to develop at the

expense of inner listening; that is to say, the child’s exaggerated need to
comply with the people on whom he is dependent (usually his parents) –
absorbing and submitting to their expectations tends to come at the expense
of the development of his own self.
Winnicott (1971a) created a marvelous visual metaphor: the infant, from
very early on, while nursing, looks at his mother’s face, and there he finds
himself. This action strengthens within him the experience of being seen and
recognized, and allows him to feel that he has a witness to his becoming: that
he is thought about, and not merely dictated to. In this way his independent
existence is facilitated, and, most importantly, he is not left alone with what
is taking shape within him – there is someone with him; people are with him.
Infants and children see themselves when they look in their mother’s face, as
if she were a living mirror for them, and similarly patients may find in the face
of their therapist a living, breathing, experiencing, multi-dimensional mirror,
as the therapist processes, finds and formulates the meaning of the patient’s
lost experience.
Winnicott describes psychoanalytical treatment as a long-term accumulation
of “restorations.” The experience of therapy involves the repeated rediscovery
of what has been listened to, we might say; of various aspects of the self that
have repeatedly returned from the mother’s eyes.
When we place emphasis on the decisive importance of the “authentic” and
of the “spontaneous” for the child’s development, we are in effect interested in
disturbances in these processes of restoration and listening. In pathological
situations, the educational environment occupies an exaggerated place in the
child’s mind, leaving him lacking in room for his own voice and unable to
communicate properly with himself.
According to Winnicott, psychoanalysis developed as a most advanced
form of play, in the service of people’s communication with themselves and
with others (Winnicott 1971a: 69). Free association – a central tool of
psychoanalysis – involves an expression of spontaneous communication; in
other words, of the person’s capacity to play.
I use the word “play” here in accordance with Winnicott’s definition, which
is by no means self-explanatory. Play refers to the human being’s capacity to
be in touch with and spontaneously to use the reservoir of original resources
natural to them. It emphasizes creativity and subjectivity, and, at the same
time, the connection with reality and the human environment. According to
Winnicott, the concept of play is central for understanding the healthy
functioning of the mind. In the psychoanalytic context, both analyst and
patient learn to play. The art of being a psychoanalyst requires of the analyst
to be in spontaneous contact with both the patient’s and his own associative
resources. This is an ability that the analyst has developed and must rediscover
and use with each patient, in order to facilitate gradually this same capacity in
the patient.

7
 LISTENING

In the course of development, situations are created and encountered in

which the mind fortifies itself against an emotionally noxious environment,
with the goal of avoiding injury. While this may serve a necessary self-
protective function, such a defensive deployment may result in a chronic split
within the mind and between parts of the self. When the person’s contact
with the inner sense of continuity is severed, intra-psychic communication is
forfeited and there is little possibility of listening to the self. The massive
detachment that ensues is like a psychic death. In the face of such a defensive
character structure, psychoanalytical therapy offers conditions of ambiguity,
of inchoate aimlessness, so as to provide an opportunity for the patient to find
spontaneous and lively communication from within – a constant and secure
framework within which associative freedom may develop.
Winnicott (1971a) describes a treatment in which the patient spoke
at length in free association about having experienced hopelessness and
psychic death. In one session, while speaking in a fragmentary and inchoate
fashion, without organization or form, the patient said: “The trouble is I can’t
remember what I said to you – or was I talking to myself?” Winnicott said to
her: “All thoughts of things happen and they wither. This is the myriad deaths
you have died. But if someone is there, someone who can give you back what
has happened, then the details dealt with in this way become part of you, and
do not die” (Winnicott 1971a: 60, 61).
How, then, does this breakdown in communication take place – a
breakdown, after all, following which a person lives in constant yearning for
renewed contact with himself? And worse than that, in a situation of psychic
death, where he does not even feel such a longing?
In order to simplify matters I wish now to refer to the child’s daily
experiences in a general way. Some of the child’s experiences during early
development are difficult and at times even unbearable for him. The diffi-
culty in tolerating such experiences could result from a variety of causes:
failure of the parents (because of their economic or psychological state, lack of
love, lack of empathy, inability to tolerate anxiety, depression, and so forth); a
structural failure (a physical, cognitive, neurological or other defect or
handicap); a failure deriving from the child’s particularly strong impulses,
which results in a tendency to become flooded with urges and anxieties; and,
quite frequently, an experienced failure of mother–infant attunement. As a
result of this last failure, the child and later the adult may experience abysmal
loneliness, the source of which is unsatisfied yearning for proper attunement
between himself and the other (Erlich 1998). In all the preceding examples,
the infant or the child has experiences that are insufferable in the absence of a
parent who can share such experiences with him. It is in this situation of
isolation that the child is overwhelmed.
There is an infinite and fascinating variety of solutions that people may
adopt to alleviate their difficulties. Every infant, child, or adult finds a way
to alleviate intolerable pain in ways appropriate for them. The common

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consequence of all these solutions is a breakdown in internal and in external

communication. The child, as it were, says to himself: “My psychic experience
is too painful for me. I want to expel it from myself. I cannot bear it. I cut
myself off from it.” This dissociation may operate at varying degrees of
intensity and frequency. It may involve a temporary, one-time dissociative
response to what may be an unusual, but not critical event. Such a response
can be regarded as “normal.” However, for some, various forms of dissoci-
ation may constitute their principal and chronic mode of survival: that is to
say, a consistent inner rift in which the person remains in a situation of
alienation and lack of communication with others and with himself. This is
not “normal.”
I shall illustrate the temporary and “normal” use of the mechanism of
dissociative turning-away from a painful situation by means of a description
of an incident that I witnessed, which took place between an essentially
healthy group of girls.

There are four girls in the room. Two of them are eleven, and two
are two-and-a-half years old. The older girls are somewhat bored
and invite one of the little girls to join them in a close and intimate
game. The little girl who was not invited looks at them longingly,
in silence. She is sad. A moment later she takes a pillow to the side,
lies on it, and consoles herself with her diaper. At that stage, the
first little girl, who had been invited to join in with the big girls, and
who initially didn’t notice the plight of the second little girl, who
was left by herself, begins to take an interest in her friend. The child
who was left out refuses to play with the child who wasn’t, and
now the latter is upset and bursts into bitter tears. She is not used to
being refused by her friend. An adult woman comes because of the
crying and makes various suggestions for a solution. The little
girl with the diaper stands by her refusal to cooperate. She wants to
be alone with her diaper and pillow. When the second girl continues
to make overtures, she takes the pillow and diaper and removes
herself to another room. She repeats that she wants to be alone. Later
she tells her mother that the others had insulted her because they had
disturbed her.

This scene comprises a chain of events, the essence of which is a response to

the insult of having been left out: the older girls were not part of the event,
but perhaps they derived satisfaction from the replication of their situation,
their feeling of being out of place and not really belonging in this group. The
little girl they invited might have been a pawn for them. They were the ones
who established who was “in” and who was “out.” The little girl who was left
out arranged things in a way that allowed her to pretend that nothing had
happened, and that all she wanted was her privacy. The second one experienced

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everything. She felt rejected and cried because of the bitterly painful insult
that was invoked in her.
Here is a review of the process.

1. A simple judgment is made about the emotional event: “It is insulting to

be removed from the group.”
2. The judgment, which is painful, is attacked or denied. There is thereby a
turning-away from attention to the painful psychological truth.
3. As in Musical Chairs, the insufferable feeling of being “left out,” of not
belonging, was passed along from one to another. First the older girls felt
it, then one of the little girls, and finally the second little girl was left
carrying it.

When the adult woman who was present told the story to the girls’ parents,
the little girl who had armored herself by claiming that she simply desired her
privacy wanted her to tell it again and again. Mention of the chain of events
made her very curious. It was as if there remained within her an echo of the
connection to the source of her distress. Once together with her parents and
their loving hugs, she could listen to the story that previously, when she was
alone, she had to set aside and deny. This is a story about insult and pain at
being left out, about momentarily unbearable pain, and about the option,
when pain becomes intolerable, of attacking it, of removing it from its context,
and of expelling it.
The process described above exemplifies an episode in normal development,
at the end of which the cutting off is not complete, and the pain can be
contacted in manageable form, reworked and alleviated. In fact we can recog-
nize the little girl’s strength in consoling herself and establishing a sense of
privacy and control that she truly enjoyed. She can also take with her pleasant
memories of her mother’s embrace. Thus, all in all, she actually gained some-
thing from this painful experience, quite possibly having strengthened
her ability to cope with future situations of being left out – situations that
everyone experiences at one time or another.
However, when dissociation is the only option, and suppression of the
painful emotion is the only way to survive, this is pathology: a situation of
denial of experience is created, cutting off inner communication, interference
with communication with the self, shattering experiential continuity. A
person who has lived through childhood, youth, and adolescence in a
situation of alienation from his inner world needs help in order to renew
contact with it.
The chance observer of the group scene that I described looked, listened and
heard. She intervened in the process of dismissing the pain, and she provided
something very similar to psychoanalytic interpretation: she told the story
and restored the painful experience that had been almost entirely erased
from awareness. She brought something to the girl’s consciousness that had

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previously been removed and ejected, and thereby her listening, understanding
and her intervention were life-sustaining. Only when the little girl was no
longer alone could she begin to acknowledge what had earlier been unbearable
to her.
In order to demonstrate how crucial listening is, I will now describe an
episode in therapy with a man who is severely cut-off from inner communication.
In the session I wish to describe, the patient complained about a complicated
life situation. He spoke with apparent restraint, but I felt that he was, in fact,
full of rage and despair, and that he seemed to be quite unwilling to accept the
situation he was in. I felt various emotions. I identified with him and with his
helplessness and anger, and I felt like screaming with him. But as a person
with some experience in life, at the same time I maintained the knowledge
that one needs an active approach to life, and held on to a sense of hopefulness
that he, at that moment, could not entertain for himself. At the next session,
he told me with gratitude mingled with fear: “I need a listener if I need to deal
with your anxiety – I won’t listen to myself. I can only listen to myself via an
intermediary with you as an intermediary. There are two voices in me. I have
despair, and I have concern, concern for myself. I’m glad that you allowed me to
despair all the way. That reminds me of Liza Minnelli in the movie Cabaret,
who screams as the train passes by. I need you to enable me to listen to pure
emotions, without other voices . . . without intelligent interpretations . . .
without your anxiety.”
This patient felt that he was deaf to his own inner voice, that in the past he
had had to listen to his parents, to protect them from their anxieties. For
many years he suffered from inner detachment, from failure to listen to
himself, from a tendency to pay too much attention to other people and to the
outside world. He repeatedly placed himself in the position of acquiescing to
the needs of others, at the expense of his own spontaneity. When he began to
turn inwards and to listen to himself, for a long time he couldn’t tolerate his
own complexity. Now that he is on his way toward listening to complexity, to
various voices at the same time, I am required for the time being – and will, I
think, be required for quite a long time into the future – to “hold onto” the
voices and experiences that disturb him.
The patient speaks of his need “for there to be room” for his pure scream. It
is important to emphasize that human listening is different from a simple
catharsis, which does not require the presence of a human listener (for example
in the scream that may be swallowed up in the screech of a locomotive –
the patient’s association from the Cabaret film mentioned above). The
difference resides in the consistently special place that the scream receives over
time. As compared with the unheard cathartic scream, which may be simply
discharged into space and remain unheard, the scream heard by a human
listener can be repeatedly contained and its varying qualities and meanings
can be processed and formulated. The human listener does allow for a catharsis,
and this has some importance in and of itself, but its main significance in

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psychoanalytic therapy is in its maintaining full affective engagement with

various issues in the context of a human relationship. The therapist offers his
human presence, and by being emotionally and thoughtfully attentive to the
patient and to himself he is able to process the meanings the patient
communicates in the scream. In the course of time the therapist may share the
result of his having listened to the patient by talking with him about what he
has heard.
Daily activities such as listening, seeing, being impressed, feeling, respond-
ing, remembering, connecting, thinking, identifying and perceiving meaning
are all part of our experience of listening. Everyone naturally and automatically
gives meaning to what happens by means of the mental activities I have just
mentioned. Psychoanalysis, in all its divisions, is that process of transferring
experiences from listening and hearing to the giving of meaning. Psycho-
analysis assumes that listening is a curative factor, allowing the implicit or
explicit provision of meaning that facilitates the natural continuation of
development.
The therapist’s verbal interventions and his silence are both important.
Listening to the patient’s torrent of associations while attending to his own
internal responses prepares the ground for the analytic act – offered in the
form of various comments, explanations and interpretations. And sometimes,
by his very silence, the therapist enables the patient to listen to himself and to
develop the natural capacity that either has been lost or perhaps never
developed in him at all.
Different psychoanalytic theories emphasize different aspects of the child’s
development and, accordingly, different aspects of the therapeutic process.
Common to all of them is the central place accorded to listening to the
patient’s free associations. Thus, whether the therapist listens with a view to
discovering the patient’s unconscious fantasies or with the intention of finding
the empathic failures of the patient’s parents, listening to the patient’s
associations is central to the therapeutic project.
All psychoanalytic schools refer to the parallel between the psychoanalytic
situation and the original mother–child situation. Psychoanalytic therapy
allows for a process and relationship to develop similar to the mother–child
relationship: the therapist’s transient identifications with the patient serve as
the basis for understanding, the relative permeability and interpenetrability
of boundaries between the two parties, the presence of various modes of
primitive communication and the transmission of experiential knowledge.
I would like now to give particular attention to one of the many psycho-
analytic approaches to listening, i.e. to Bion’s (1962, 1967) model which
emphasizes the function of listening in the creation of an inner container that
holds experience and thereby makes mental life possible.
Many psychoanalysts of different persuasions continue to make use of Bion’s
contributions. I shall restrict myself here to two central concepts: of “con-
tainer” and of “reverie,” both of which refer to critically important maternal

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functions. Bion views containment as a central function of both the mother

and the analyst. Containing by the mother plays a vital role in the normal
development of the infant, and by the analyst it plays a central role in the
unfolding and development of an analysis. That which is contained is the
content, such as the unbearable emotions of the infant (or of the patient),
which are made manageable through the mediation of the mother or the
analyst. This mediation is accomplished via the provision of meaning.
“Reverie,” for Bion, refers to the special state of mind that allows the mother
or the analyst to fulfill their mediatory roles. It is based on transient identifi-
cations of the mother/analyst with the infant/patient, a willingness to be
affected and penetrated by the infant’s/patient’s emotional state. Reverie, Bion
(1962) explains, is the marvelous way that the mother understands her infant,
and it is through reverie that her love for the infant finds its expression. This
dreamlike modality of experience enables the mother/analyst to absorb, to
receive, and to contain the faint and ambiguous communication that the
infant/patient transmits. In the words of the poet Octavio Paz2 in his poem,
“As One Listens to the Rain:”

Listen to me as one listens to the rain.

without listening, hear what I say.
with eyes open inward, asleep
with all five senses awake

In this way the mother listens to the infant not only through her ears, but via
all her senses, via engendered images from her past, via her special capacity to
be with the child in partial separateness and partial symbiosis, all of which
contribute to her ability to identify deeply with her infant-child.
The mother’s essential task, according to Bion, is to contain all the infant’s
mental projections and excretions, and thus to enable him to begin to make a
life for himself. In this manner of listening, the mother may also give meaning
to the various elements that threaten the infant’s existence, which he is unable
to process on his own. Whether these are stimuli that come from within him
or from without, they arouse chaotic and disintegrative anxiety in the infant,
who has neither the capacity to give these anxieties meaning nor the power to
modulate or change the chaos. In contrast, the mother does have the tools for
thinking about the chaos and for attempting to change something. This early
containment is a precondition for the infant’s development of thought and
symbolization and for his development in general. This translation work, which
is partially unconscious, and which transpires in the experiential–emotional as
opposed to the verbal sphere, is the outstanding feature of Bion’s model of
analytic listening.
Communication between the mother, as a containing, cleansing, and
moderating instrument, and the infant, who is full of chaotic anxiety, may be
likened to the action of a dialysis machine that removes the infant’s psychic

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toxins. The infant projects or ejects from himself that which is unbearable, by
means of actual interaction with his mother. For instance, the infant cries for
no apparent reason. First the mother may feel helplessness. The crying infant,
waving all his limbs, pressures the mother, as it were, to feel something of its
dread and helplessness, and to process it on the basis of her life experience, to
listen to him, to think for him, and to ascertain what is distressing him and
what will be helpful for him. A similar process took place when the big girls,
described in the story above, put pressure on the little girls “to feel in their
place.” Experiences of not belonging are at times essentially unbearable and
are therefore projected into and onto others.
Here it is important to clarify the difference between the concept of a life-
giving container and a non-life-giving situation. In the observed example
there are projections and there is containing. The “projectors” (the older girls)
temporarily rid themselves of what pained them. The little girls, who received
it, were injured. They obviously could not bring the “projectors” to life by
thinking and modification. Instead of listening, thinking and processing
these projections, the younger children simply took in the abuse. In this
sense the container was not life-giving. Bion (1962, 1967) describes the way
that infants develop the capacity to experience their thoughts and emotions
on the basis of their experience with their mother: the mother can, on behalf
of the infant, think thoughts that the infant is unable to think and can keep
in touch with emotions that are unbearable for the infant, as if they were her
own, but this is on condition that she be willing to have the infant use her in
that way. A breakdown in this projective process on the part of either the
mother or the infant is liable to impede the development of thought in the
child. He will not learn to mitigate or to cope with difficulties, or lack, and
will tend to respond to problems by ejection, avoidance and dissociation from
the pains of life.
Similar phenomena take place in psychoanalytic treatment: the patient may
tell a story and some talk ensues about it. We are all acquainted with this kind
of dialogue. However, there are also events connected to the more archaic
regions of the mind. The therapist, who deals with repairing disruptions in
the continuity of experience or in the continuity of inner listening, sometimes
becomes the carrier of experiences that originally belong to the patient. In the
first phase, the therapist unconsciously takes in some part, feeling or attitude
of the patient. Later, when he is able to perceive what has transpired and to
think about it, he moves on to listening and containing. In any event the
therapist must be willing to be used in this manner, for otherwise this would
be a situation akin to abuse. This will require him, during the analytic hour,
to listen with interest to some strange thoughts of his own about the patient,
or at times, after the hour, he may find himself entertaining thoughts about
the patient of which he can hardly be proud, and may well be ashamed,
because they appear to be inappropriate or simply irrelevant. Most likely in
the course of these events he is encountering emotions and experiences that

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the patient cannot bear, does not conceive or simply ejects. This willingness
to bear the patient’s experience for him affords vital knowledge about him.
There may be long passages of time in which the therapist experiences
something meaningful yet remains unaware of it, and is only later able to
grasp and think about what he has been experiencing. This is the essence of
listening. This is what it means to be a life-giving container.
In their book on Bion, Symington and Symington (1996) give examples
of interpretative listening that make the containment of unbearable experi-
ence possible. I should like now to illustrate the great significance that
psychoanalysis gives to the encounter with psychic truth, by bringing a
brief segment from a therapy where a story about an unbearably painful
truth emerges, under conditions in which the patient is strengthened and
supported, and is not left struggling alone.
An analyst, in the course of treating a mentally handicapped man, had the
following experience. The patient, aged thirty-three, went each day to a
sheltered workshop where he performed the most menial tasks. The analyst
and some of the staff believed that he in fact had the mental capacity to do
higher-grade work.
During the sessions words would sometimes dribble out from the corner of
the patient’s mouth. I quote such a passage from the therapy.

“I am thirty-three years old and is that nothing?” And a moment

later: “Can’t you give me a picture of who I am?” The analyst said:
“The fact that you feel there have been thirty-three years of emptiness,
waste and nothingness is so painful that it is better to have people’s
picture of you than to face this ghastly nothingness.”
He replied: “Well, if you won’t give me a picture what do I come
here for?”
The analyst stood up, placed himself alongside the patient and said:
“It is like this. There in front of us is thirty-three years of waste,
nothing and emptiness. It is like sitting in a train and opposite sits a
man with a wounded and diseased face and this is so horrific that you
have to hold pictures up in front of you because it is more than you can
bear. But the reason you come to see me is that perhaps there is just a
possibility that if you have me beside you, then you can look at it.”

Our development – our “becoming” – depends in part on our capacity to

maintain contact with and own our painful parts, and for this we need a
properly functioning inner container. And when the container is not
functioning properly we need a person who will stand at our side until it is
repaired. These are the fundamental tenets of psychoanalytic listening. All the
vignettes that I have presented here exemplify these basic ideas: the observation
of the group of children; Winnicott and the woman who experienced her own
death; the analyst and the patient who does not believe he is alive.

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These understandings rest on what Symington and Symington (1996) call

the archetype of the infant and the mother’s breast. The archetypal scene is of
an infant experiencing unbearable anxiety (equivalent to the wild thoughts
of the patient), alongside the mother’s breast, or the therapist by his side,
serving as a life-giving container: listening, thinking and, of course, offering
interpretations.
This definition of listening is a broad one, reflecting truly satisfying analytic
listening. This is a life-giving listening, which lays the foundation for the
capacity to play, since it is directed toward the experience of psychic reality,
and toward the continuity of authentic being, which were lost in the course of
development, because of a failure in maternal containment.
Translated and edited by Dr Meir Winokur (psychoanalyst)

Notes
1. The Late Yael Ofarim (who passed away in 2002) was a training psychoanalyst at
the Israel Institute of Psychoanalysis in Jerusalem and this is her last paper.
2. Paz, O. www.poemhunter.com/poem/as-one-listens-to-the-rain

References
Bion, W. R. (1962) Learning from Experience (Chapter 12), London: Karnac.
Bion, W. R. (1967) Second Thoughts (A Theory of Thinking), New York: J. Aronson.
Erlich, S. (1998) “On Loneliness, Narcissism, and Intimacy”, American Journal of
Psychoanalysis 58:135–162.
Symington, J. and Symington, N. (1996) The Clinical Thinking of Wilfred Bion,
London: Routledge.
Winnicott, D. W. (1971a) Playing and Reality, London: Tavistock.
—— (1971b) “Creative Activity and the Search for the Self ”, In: Playing and Reality,
London: Tavistock.

Hearing, listening, being attentive and everything in between

Mira Zakai
I’ll let you hear crazy words, you listen to them crazy listening.
(Chuang Tzu)

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament

showeth His handiwork.
(Psalms 19:1)

Ever since the beginning of time, we have lived in a world full of sounds
and rustling. Creation stories bring man into a world where sound already
exists – the wind murmuring in the trees, the rustle and whisper of leaves, the
sounds of thunder and rain, the rush of rivers, and birds chirping. In all

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literary sources of the Ancient Near East the appearance of God is described
through forces of nature: fire, earthquake, thunder and lightning, the Shofar
sounding, or rain pouring; in the Bible story man was created on the sixth day,
into a world created by power of speech. Each succeeding paragraph describ-
ing the process of creation in the first chapter of Genesis begins: “And God
said . . .”
We should differentiate between hearing, listening and being attentive. We
cannot control hearing, for anything that occurs in our acoustic surroundings
penetrates through a physical audio system and is registered in our brain.
These are physical events happening continuously within us. Listening, on the
other hand, and more so being attentive, are conscious actions that isolate
whatever we wish to listen to from the complex arrangement of the acoustic
soundscape of which we are part. When we listen, we select the definable
elements from the mixture: the sound, its pitch, its kind, its relation to other
sounds. This path leads to the stages of consciousness – from hearing, to
listening, to being attentive.
“Give ear, ye heavens, and I will speak; and let the earth hear the words of my
mouth” (Deuteronomy 32:1). “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth” (Isaiah
1:2). According to interpretations of these verses, we hear the far off and listen
to what is near by. Moses, the man of God, is closer to heaven, thus he listens to
it, whereas Isaiah is closer to earth and so listens to it. These two phrases seem
to be opposites, but in fact they express a hierarchy by defining listening.
We may distinguish between hearing, listening and attentive listening. We
use the word “attentive” since paying attention brings the sound received in
the hearing system closer to the reception modes of the whole sensory system,
as well as the emotional system connected to it. This psycho-acoustic process
is what we wish to examine when we discuss music flowing into us via the
external ear.
While still in the womb, the baby hears her rhythmic heartbeat, and at an
early age she recognizes her voice and differentiates it among the noises and
other voices that surround her. This voice continues to serve as a protecting
and soothing anchor throughout her life, which explains the power of the
lullaby, whose sounds reach the baby in the mother’s arms via both the
auditory and sensory systems. We listen to it as toddlers and will let our
children listen to it in their adolescence, and perhaps we will listen to different
versions of it on the concert stage – an experience that will arouse longing in
us for long forgotten days, for the memory of an exciting performance or
artistic act, or for both together in a complex attentive listening experience.
Sounds reach our ears in waves and frequencies that influence our whole
nervous system, even affecting our pulse, and at the same time we hear the
breathing of those seated besides us, the cracking of fingers, or a sigh – each
sound a distinct rustle.
Our lives take place in an intriguing, complex acoustic landscape. We hear
its components and listen to some. The animals’ sense of hearing helps them

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find their way in the three-dimensional space. By locating the source of the
sound, they can isolate it from the mixture of noises surrounding them. Man
too can detect whether the source of the sound is on his right or left, and in
the modern world this ability is as valuable for saving lives as it is in the
animal world. Scientists who study hearing mechanically and functionally
understand the auditory system, and its mode of behavior is known to them.
Nevertheless the process enabling the brain to turn this sensory reception to
perception and interpretation remains quite enigmatic.
We are aware of the sounds around us, and out of the auditory chaos we
isolate those sounds that are meaningful, pleasant or disturbing to us. We talk
to a friend and hear his voice, the content of his talk, yet at the same time we
listen to the sound of his voice and to what lies within, a sort of discreet
subtext that transmits additional information on top of the spoken text – a
mood, a state of health, speaking truth or lying. This is how a mother listens
to her children, the psychologist to his patient, and the judge to the witnesses.
When one’s range of hearing expands toward the range of listening, it
makes possible fascinating, multilayered insights.
Although listening is not an objective experience, it has several measurable
components, such as the intensity of the sounds measured in decibels, the
frequency of the sounds, as well as the aspect of time – the duration of the
sounds or of the silences between them. Each musical sound has a measurable
frequency, and different frequencies affect us in different ways. Each person’s
voice has its own typical range of frequencies which define the unique voice
print, thus enabling us to recognize the person addressing us by his voice alone.
The sounds of nature can influence us powerfully: the sound of the waves of
the sea; the sounds of the wind, rain or birds. Some people go to the beach to
calm themselves and find inner balance with the help of its ever meditative
swish. The sounds and the voices, as noted, influence our body in all its
systems. Rhythmical dancing music also activates our whole body, at times
even before we are aware of it – whether by light foot tapping or shaking one’s
head – even making some people break out in spontaneous dance as they walk.
Musical instruments and the human voice have a set of overtones, which
give them a unique timbre, though not all the overtones are audible; they are
like a hidden pyramid of sounds, reverberating simultaneously, creating an
acoustic structure and influencing the quality of the produced sound. These
sounds rise and float in space or in the concert hall, creating a unique feeling
for the listener. One of the meditative processes of Tibetan monks is producing
complex sounds from their throats, containing at the same time the basic
sound and its formant (the overtone). Noa Blass, a gong therapist, dedicated
her book Sound and Soul (2003) to the influence of gong sounds on man’s soul.
Each gong, according to size, has a different set of overtones, or partials. The
frequency and the intensity of the gong sound physically penetrate the
patient’s body, not only through the sense of hearing, and each patient reacts
in his own way.

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A melody is composed of a series of sounds at different pitches, at different

distances from each other, and of changing durations. The relative placing of
all of these creates the whole: what we call a musical work, which may be multi-
layered and simultaneous (polyphonic). The silences between the sounds
belong to the whole piece and are as important as what we hear, for only the
sum of all the sounds and the silent gaps between them produce the emotional
experience, which is created along with the acoustic one. Although we can
define distinct characteristics of sound, the parts of the whole will never explain
the final product and its magic. The phenomenon that takes place in the trian-
gular space created between the composer, his music, and the listener cannot
be quantified scientifically. You only need to read several reviews of the same
concert or performance to realize that each writer heard and saw a different
piece. Even when everyone agrees about the success of an event, the angles of
viewing and the reasons given for the success are individual and personal.
In deciding whether a person’s voice is pleasant, fair, or irritating, we react
to his unique voice print, which is as unique as a finger print. When a group
of people hears the same music (such as a Schubert lied, a Beethoven sonata,
or a Haydn symphony), each listener experiences the piece differently. A
person listening to the music performed at different times in his life or in
different mental states will experience the very same piece in a different
manner each time. The experience of hearing also depends on place and
culture. There is no resemblance between someone who grew up in Florence,
with church bells ringing in his ears on the way to school, and someone who
was raised in the Sahara desert, where the bells would probably be hanging
from camels’ necks. The eyes of those two people also carry different internal
images with them when they contemplate a work of art.
The attitude to the speaking or singing voice and the use of its range varies
according to different places and cultures. The Inuit tribe of Canada (Eskimos)
holds vocal ceremonies and voice games in which women face off each other in
a sort of friendly vocal competition (Deschênes 2005). One demonstrates
certain vocal motifs, while the other repeats and imitates them. This is not
singing per se, but voice games or throat breathing games. In pictures of these
ceremonies, there is intimate emotional and physical closeness between two
women, virtually creating a closed electrical circuit. Sometimes they crouch;
at other times they stand. One leads and the other replies. The first produces
a short rhythmic motif that the other repeats. The competitive aspect is
heightened by the changes that each participant introduces, obliging the
partner to engage in very focused listening. The one who runs out of breath
first or fails to imitate the sounds precisely starts laughing, thus in effect con-
ceding the game. Each round lasts around three to four minutes; the winner is
the singer who beats the most other participants. The lips of the women
almost touch one another, so that each uses the other’s mouth cavity as a reso-
nator. Today, most singers in these ceremonies stand separately, holding each
other’s arms. Sometimes they perform non-vocal dance movements that

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accompany the inhaling or exhaling. As a result the singers develop a breath-

ing technique somewhat comparable to circular breathing used by some
players of wind instruments (especially oboists), enabling them to sustain a
note for hours.
The Inuit women use words and meaningless syllables; no particular
poetical or regular sense is assigned to them – at times these words can be
names of the tribe, syllables that portray sounds of nature or cries of animals
or birds, or merely the sounds of everyday life.

The ancient world was a rich verbal one, but the words were mostly unwritten.
Therefore the sources of written culture are the words that were first spoken,
sung, and performed. Telling or singing a story aloud was a tradition
engaging the speaker’s as well as the listeners’ presence. With the invention of
writing – signs, letters, neumes and notes – it became possible to preserve
works that would have existed previously only in the minds of the performer
and listener. A work was preserved and transmitted only if someone had
listened to the tribal storyteller, to the wandering actor–storyteller or
troubadour, and remembered the work in such a way that it could be passed
on to another listener. Tradition was transferred from generation to generation
by a combination of active listening and recitation. All the oral law – in
Judaism and other cultures – was likewise transferred for generations without
writing. For that reason, at the Passover Seder, the Haggadah must be read
out loud: “and thou shalt tell thy son in that day.” Visual reception of the text
is insufficient.The symbolic ritual foods enhance the experience of transferring
the story from one generation to another.
The written or taped documentation of an artistic event liberated it from
the art consumer’s need to be present physically at a certain time (of the
performance) in the place of the event (the concert hall or theater). He became
free to listen to the piece or read a play or poetry whenever convenient.
However, despite the development of reading ability, the experience of hearing
is still stronger than any other, as it activates many senses at once – the sound
of the storyteller’s voice, the ascent and descent of his speech, whose purpose
is to heighten the events being described – all these supplement the listener’s
inner hearing. His inner world also contains landscape images, an emotional
setting accumulated throughout his life, a personal soundscape that he brings
to the moment of listening. This inner soundscape combines with the one
presented to him by the storyteller, the singer, the dancer, the performer, or
the actor. This might explain why some twentieth century poets, not satisfied
with publishing their poems in print, went back to reading them poems in
front of an audience. We remember the Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko,
who toured the world reading his poetry aloud. His audience was not only
Russian-speaking people, but also non-Russians came to listen to him and
experienced an emotional thrill, no less than others, just by listening to
his moving and excited voice. The same is true of Dylan Thomas’ special

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reading of his work Under Milk Wood – a reading that adds a powerful aspect
to his written poetry. In Scotland and Wales such a poet was called a bard,
in Germany a Minnesinger, and in France a troubadour. Indeed Shakespeare
is called “The Bard of Avon,” and in England Homer is known as “the
Blind Bard.”
There is nothing like listening to an actor reading poetry or a poet reading
in his own voice. It seems that the alienated industrial mechanical world
creates a strong yearning for the direct impact created by a personal voice.
If only we could join Franz Schubert’s intimate list of friends, to whom he first
presented his song cycle Die Winterreise (Winter Journey), sitting by the piano,
singing and accompanying himself. We know about this singular event from
a letter written by a friend of his Mr. Spaun, in whose house this magnificent
evening took place.

Listening is experienced in different ways in different places. Being present in

a concert hall, including the formality connected to it, the customary
conventions of behavior and reaction, is nothing like sitting in an embracing
armchair at home with one’s eyes shut, when the whole body, all the senses
and attention, focus on the outer ear and move from there to the inner ear.
One closes oneself off from the external world and creates an isolating,
protective wall with the screen of sounds. Home listening, however, is itself
not immune from the noises of life, voices, and sighs. Sometimes a bird
chirping on the window sill, the sound of the wind and rain and thunder,
noises of the street, the ringing of the telephone, a child’s cry, suffices to
remind us where we actually are. It is hard to seal off the sounds and isolate
the components of hearing, so that we hear only what we wish. For that a
special room would be needed, where one would close oneself off and devote
oneself totally to music. For such a purpose, in fact, we usually go to concert
halls, theaters, or opera houses, which are supposed to serve as little temples
for the silence that is supposed to envelop the personal experience. Yet even
here the rustle around us penetrates, and in a completely sealed and soundproof
room, we would still hear the beating of our own heart.
In listening one ought to be well adjusted (tuned in), unlike hearing, which
can be incidental or indeed accidental. In the concert hall it is acknowledged
by everyone that silence must be maintained, so as to enable full listening:
no talking, no coughing, no murmuring, and no rapid turning of pages, so
that no noise will emerge suddenly and break the spell of a magic Mahlerian
pianissimo . . . In fact we are asked to give ourselves over to the inner echo
voice that a certain type of music arouses in us – longing for a different time or
place, or even an imaginary nostalgia – asking time to stand still for a moment.
Unfortunately, experience proves again and again that most people are not
aware of the tiny noises that constantly invade their ears, for noise, the acoustic
landscape that we now live in – speeding cars, whistling planes above us, air
conditioners and engines – raises the level of tolerance and weakens sensitivity

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and the listening level, not to mention the noise in clubs and in the street,
which has become inseparable from everyday life.
In the past there were places of refuge where people suffering from noise-
exhaustion could seclude themselves and heal their souls. They could do this
in the forest, far out at sea, or on islands of quiet in the heart of the cities – in
churches and even libraries. Nowadays, however, such places are less and less
available. In the concert hall relative silence envelops the audience when the
playing begins, so that the music is placed in a container of silence. In this
way you can listen both to yourself and to the music, to which you have
addressed all your mental resources, which long for the embracing music.
Yet the senses are connected to each other. “And all the people perceived the
thundering” (Exodus 20:14) points to a greater and a more multi-sensual
reception experience than just hearing it by oneself. Since the speed of light is
faster than that of sound, the voices accompanying the revelation on Mount
Sinai arrived after the vision and created the exciting experience depicted in
the biblical story. Siegfried Lenz in his book Die Klangprobe (The Sound Test)
(1990) describes how the artist in stone chooses the one that matches his
purpose by checking and listening to the sound coming from the massive
block, which has not yet been chiseled by the stonemason: “Just to be fully
sure that the stone has good characteristics and is flawless, they did the sound
test. With the first beat of the hammer, when a clear sound was released from
the block of stone, I felt shivers coursing through my body . . . and I believed
I saw light colored like the rainbow.” And so, he believes, should the human
character be tested. There is no doubt that the ancient (biblical) “voice vision”
is echoed here, a special listening that drains all the senses and activates them
far beyond what is needed for a simple hearing.
A visual experience is added to the auditory experience in the concert hall.
The soloist or the conductor’s character is seen from the stage, each with his
own body language, which is an inseparable part of the performance, for better
or worse. Leonard Bernstein’s ecstatic, dance-like conducting movements
differed profoundly from the minimalist gestures of Leopold Stokowski. And
there is the more refined body language, somewhat hidden: the mostly shut
eyes of Von Karajan that did not prevent him from communicating with his
orchestra players, or the gleaming, blazing eyes of Georg Solti, the blue
angelic eyes of Rafael Kubelik – yet how much of it all did the audience see
before the age of television? The conductor’s back does not convey his facial
expression to the audience. There is no doubt that with the help of the
close-up, the media has brought us closer to a vast spectrum of components in
the experience of perception; in hearing a CD or watching a performance
we experienced in the concert hall documented on television, we recall the
details or discover new ones that were hidden from us and experience the
event in a totally new way. The ability of the camera to follow the instru-
ments playing a certain motif at a given moment may add new insights to the
listening.

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The rule of the media has therefore vastly changed the modes of listening;
also the connecting thread between the performing artist and his or her
audience is greatly influenced by the awareness of both sides of visual options.
Some people, when watching Bernstein’s body language, will shut their eyes
so as to fully listen with no visual distraction, seeking to submit themselves
to the music in its purest form; for others the visual aspect will strengthen and
empower their listening insights. Each person has his own needs and a unique
structure of personal–subjective receptors.

In the painting by Edgar Degas (1834–1917), Concert at the Ambassador Café,

a singer is seen with listeners sitting around her, listening to her in contem-
plative concentration. It is quite clear that the music has taken them to
faraway places of personal memories. The stream of consciousness, clearing the
path to our emotional world by dedication to the music and by listening, can
carry the listener to places of longing, to childhood memories, to events that
are connected, consciously or unconsciously, to the music that is heard at a
given moment. This is true also of works with a ritual–religious significance
that may arouse a stream of associations that would be different for a secular
listener than for a religious one. For a secular music lover, the Catholic mass,
in its many versions, would be a beautiful work, tremendously emotional and
powerful, but it is unlikely that it would remind him of an event from his
earlier life that is connected to listening to mass in church or participating in
it as a young choirboy in his home town. For the Jewish listener, one of the
pieces based on the Kaddish will evoke a strong emotional reaction, since this
prayer is associated with funerals and mourning; moreover it may even arouse
the feeling of belonging to a community, whereas the non-Jewish listener
would react only to the ensemble of sounds that are entwined into an emo-
tional tune, touching one’s heart, exciting, yet not connected to a common
community or ritual–religious past. Perseverance of musical memory of a per-
sonal occasion reminds us of the words of the Little Prince: “The grain, which
is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to
listen to the wind in the wheat” (De Saint-Exupéry 1943).
The myth of Orpheus and the power of his singing is well known, yet even
great composers could not imagine his original song, which they knew about
only from the story; instead they compose the story of his love and loss when
he is punished because he did not obey the gods’ order not to look back at his
beloved as they return from the underworld to life. The story of Orpheus’
double loss has been set to music by Monteverdi, Gluck, Haydn and others,
yet Orpheus’ own tune – the one that moved rivers and changed their flowing
track – remains a secret (Abbate 2001). The operatic Orpheus does not sing
his mythological song, but rather his personal song, describing his pain, his
longing for Eurydice, and complaining that no one hears him. Only the echo
replies, and actually there is no response to his song. The listening audience is
not present at the dramatic scene, but listens by “permission” of the operatic

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convention which, as in the theater, removes the fourth (front) wall, enabling
us to peer at the events that take place both on stage and on the emotional
stage of the hero’s soul.
In listening to an opera or concert many other components, in addition to
the basic melody, influence the auditory experience – the personality of the
player or the singer who performs the aria or concerto, the artist’s special
voice, the tone that distinguishes him or her from other singers and players,
his virtuosity, dramatic or lyrical ability, his body language, the emotional
content of the aria or the musical work, which kindles a similar emotion in us,
the orchestration supporting the aria or the solo instrument – some instruments
have a happy tone, while others are sad or especially soft. Even the language
used for the song plays its role: sometimes it is our own language, while at
other times we need a translation, and at times there is such power in it that
overcomes the language barrier . . . At times the artist’s name and fame create
a frisson even before she gets on stage – all these unite to form a multi-layered
mixture of the auditory experience, making it hard to separate the parts from
the whole.
Another convention is added in the world of opera, which asks the spectator
to agree that a woman (with a mezzo or alto voice) may sing a man’s role in
works by Gluck and Handel (Orpheus, Julius Caesar) or a boy’s role (such as
Cherubino in Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro), or a young lover in Strauss’
Rosenkavalier. All those are sung by female singers with a high mezzo voice.
The virtuoso voice transcends the natural boundaries of the human voice, as
does that of the castrato, which is a high feminine voice in hue, but at the
same time masculine, the voice of a male eunuch, but perfectly appropriate for
the illusion that is in the essence of the opera. Over the years the technique of
producing such a voice has improved; nowadays it is produced by male singers
whose basic voice is usually baritone, out of which they produce the high-
pitched voice, detached from the sound convention to which we have been
accustomed since childhood, whereby a woman has a woman’s voice and a man
a man’s voice. In the twentieth century, works designated for a man with a
high voice (counter tenor or male alto) were written. Benjamin Britten in his
opera A Midsummer’s Night Dream assigned the role of Oberon to a counter
tenor, whereas in most productions of Handel’s heroic operas it is preferred to
cast a male looking singer (acting as Julius Caesar or Xerxes), whose voice
must comply with the composer’s request for mezzo-alto tone color (Handel
used both male altos and female altos/mezzos in his performances). Upon
arrival at the concert hall or the opera, we are asked to listen, ignoring the
ordinary conventions of voice matching, and just to enjoy the artistic work on
stage. That is to say, multi-layered listening and being attentive is needed.
The listener must be more active and might have to redefine the well-
established conventions that exist in every art lover’s mind.
However, opera supplies some more interesting listening situations. The
opera Tannhäuser und der Sängerkrieg auf Wartburg by Wagner is based on a

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German tale from the Middle Ages named “Der Sängerkrieg” (The Singers’
War). This tells about a Minnesinger, a singer whose songs describe love and
noble beauty, who often ponders material life and life’s pleasures and love of
heaven; in his twilight days he becomes a singer who abstains from physical
pleasures. Within the plot of the opera a very special event takes place – a
singers’ competition on the subject of love and its praise. All the people
present in the Wartburg Hall are shocked and amazed by the hero’s vicious
and harsh singing, as he sings and praises the pleasure of sensual, corporeal
love. The women leave the hall in frenzy.
Where are the listeners placed? Some are on stage in the hall and a much
bigger audience sits in the opera hall. There is a circle of listening containing
another circle of listening. Are they all listening in a similar manner?
In the opera Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg there is also a fascinating
element: in the sixteenth century a competition of the singers’ guild took
place every year. A folk poet, a cobbler by profession, is a registrar of the
singing competition. He strikes with his hammer every time an error is
heard in one of the contestants’ singing. Now we know that this operatic
character has become the point registrar. Wagner used his name, Sixtus
Beckmesser, to draw a caricature of the famous critic Eduard Hanslick, and it
can be presumed that all listeners of his time knew that. The question arises:
are we part of the group on stage listening to the actual competition which
the opera describes, to Wagner’s music; are we aware of Hanslick’s character
or persona, hiding within the sounds? Does this knowledge intensify the
hearing experience, or is it perhaps insignificant? Did the composer want us
to know that, or maybe merely he directed his satirical arrows to a chosen,
knowing few?
Professor Judith Cohen in her lecture entitled “Musical Listening &
Musicological Listening”, given at The Levinsky College’s Department of
Music Education (Cohen, 2000), mentioned Nicholas Cook, who in his book
Music, Imagination, and Culture (1990) talks about a dichotomy between the two
kinds of listening to music – one by the musically uneducated listener, who
enjoys music without knowing why, an aesthetic musical listening according to
Cook; the other musicological listening, carried out by the intelligent listener,
who can follow the musical form as he or she listens, can distinguish melodic
and structural processes, react to harmonic depth – intelligent listening based
on knowledge and analytic ability. Theodor Adorno (1962) also refers to two
kinds of listeners – the “expert” listener and the “good” listener.
We know that the Ancient Greeks believed each mode had its own specific
state of mind, and they probably also assumed that those who listened to the
modes could identify them and react to the grave Phrygian mode, to the
restrained, masculine Dorian mode or to the soft and pleasant Hypophrygian
mode (Dovev 2003).
Yet will the wide extent of knowledge actually enhance enjoyment? Not
necessarily. Music, according to many philosophers, stands on its own. Cohen

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suggests we all go back and recall S. Izhar’s article from the seventies in which
he asked for a return to the pleasure of listening to a poem, almost in Gertrude
Stein’s language – “a poem is a poem is a poem” – and urged that first one just
experience it (Izhar 1974).
The listener – the decipherer – is asked to remain attentive to what lies
before him. In fiction, suspense is created by the development of the plot and
the creation of perplexity and riddles, which we expect to be solved in a
satisfactory or exciting manner by the end of the story. Music, too, uses means
of suspense followed by relaxation – two dominant elements in our lives. The
breathing and the heartbeat – the physical elements of the existence – respond
to this pattern, thus music activates in us a spectrum of physiological reactions,
such as changes in the rhythm of our heartbeat and muscular energy. The
noises surrounding us have become stronger and stronger since the industrial
revolution. The noise of planes is different from that of horse carriages, not
only in its power but also in the speed and sharpness with which it penetrates
our bodies. The noise of a horse and carriage is a mixture of the movement of
the wheels and the sound of the shafts, hooves stamping, the horse’s whinnying,
and the voice of the person who drives it – a collage of different sounds, out of
which the rhythmic pattern creates an acoustic event that has significant
elements of a musical piece.
Some of the most moving works by Beethoven (1770–1827) were written
when his hearing had already deteriorated. In a letter to his friend Amenda
the priest, he describes his bitter fate: “Your Beethoven is awfully miserable.
I wish to bring to your knowledge that the exalted part in me, my hearing,
has deteriorated significantly,” and in another letter of the time, to Dr Vogler,
he writes: “I live a miserable life. For two years I have been running away from
any society, as I have no way of conversing with the people: I’m deaf. If I had
another art, maybe it could still be withstood, however in my profession –
terrible is the situation.” At that time Beethoven wrote the “Pathetique”
Sonata Op. 13 and the Third Sonata Op. 10; in both of these works one can
discern echoes of tragic sorrow. However, at the same time he also wrote
surprisingly bright works such as the Seventh or the First Symphony in
C major (Rolland 1903/1927).
Despite the silence surrounding him, Beethoven continued to create and
write music for many more years and reached exceptional peaks, which
accompany and enhance our own lives. In the concert hall, as we hear and
listen to one of his enormously powerful works, listeners might wonder about
the composer’s deafness, but the river of sounds will overwhelm and make us
forget everything but the emotional thrill of this spiritual essence, embodied
in works that have influenced generations of composers and artists.
In many of his works the deaf Francisco Goya painted people screaming
with mouths wide open; in fact he preceded Edvard Munch’s famous “Scream”
(lithograph published in the Revue Blanche, Paris, 1895). One year later
Strindberg wrote in the same journal: “music must accompany Munch’s

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pictures if they are to be well and truly explained.” Looking at this work by
Munch, one experiences not only the visual picture: there are also waves of
sound drawn in many lines, reverberating again and again, enabling us, as it
were, to hear it.
Thus great works of art overcome the conditions of their own creation.

We hear, listen and are attentive – to heartbeats, to forces of nature, a parent,

a child, an old person, a friend, a lover, an officer, a teacher, a lecturer, a judge,
a doctor, a patient, a therapist, every day’s noises; prayers in synagogue, in a
church; in a church concert, in a hall concert, a soloist, an orchestra, a choir;
music connected to a holiday, the same piece in different performances – each
listening strumming a concealed string, reverberating within us.

References
Abbate, C. (2001) “Orpheus: One Last Performance”, In Search of Opera, Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press (pp. 1–54).
Adorno, T. W. (1962) “Typen musikalischer Verhaltens” in Einleitung in die
Musiksoziologie, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag, pp. 16–17
Blass, N. (2003) Sound and Soul, Tel Aviv: Modan Publishing House.
Chuang-Tzu (4th century BCE) Sounds of Earth, Selections from Chuang-Tzu. Trans.
from the Chinese by Yoel Hoffman (1977), Tel Aviv: Massada Edition.
Cohen, J. (2000) “Musical Listening & Musicological Listening”, The Levinsky
College – Department of Music Education (personal communication).
Cook, N. (1990) Music, Imagination and Culture, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
De Saint-Exupéry, A. (1943) Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince), trans. Katherine
Woods, New York: Reynal & Hitchcock.
Deschênes, B. (2005) “Inuit Throat Singing”, Musical Traditions [online] www.
mustrad.org.uk/articles/inuit.htm
Dovev, L. (2003) Six Modes of Painting Music, Jerusalem: Bialik Institute.
Izhar, S. (1974) “About Education and About Education towards Values”, in
Education – Aims and Objectives, Culture & Education Series, Tel Aviv: Ed. ’Am
’Oved.
Lenz, S. (1990) Die Klangprobe, Hamburg: Hoffman & Campe Verlag.
Rolland, R. (1903/1927) Beethoven: Les Grandes Époques Créatrices, Paris: Edition Albin
Michel (1966).

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 2
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND PLAY

Introduction: Play from Freud to Winnicott

Emilia Perroni
Psychoanalysis was born after the distinction between the concept of the child
and that of the adult were deeply rooted. It started off as a method for
investigating the mental life of adults, but it rapidly turned its attention to the
mental life of children and to the childish parts of adults. While it is true that
this distinction between the child and the adult, as indicating different
developmental stages, has been retained to this day, it has now lost its dichotomic
character: the concept of “adult” has expanded, and there is agreement that
every “healthy” adult has childlike (and not childish) components.
In his introduction to Winnicott’s book Playing and Reality (1998), Raanan
Kulka points out that psychoanalysis has a significant role in Western culture
among educated people and among those who deal with mental life. However,
psychoanalysis is still mainly known as a therapeutic method and as a theory
that investigates sexual and aggressive drives, an aspect that certainly
characterized its first stages. In my view, Freud’s discovery that all of us
are influenced by unconscious instincts was a big blow to the Western society
of his time. The shock was too great and too hard to digest. The public
tendency to relate to psychoanalysis as a reductionist doctrine of instincts
is indicative of a traumatic response to Freud’s ideas. Hence it is not surpris-
ing that most people are unable to see a connection between “play” and
psychoanalysis.
From its origins until the present, many changes have occurred in psycho-
analytic thought. As stated by Kulka (1998), psychoanalysis has moved on
from the search for hidden instincts to dealing with the essence of man, with
subjective experience, and with the relation between people and the world –
and these are the areas where play takes place.
Another echo of the change undergone by psychoanalysis can be found in
the softening and in the expansion of the psychoanalytic language: Freud, in
his views of the psyche as a well of dangerous instincts and in order to describe

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mental phenomena, made frequent use of decidedly military terms. Concepts

such as “drive,” “defense mechanisms,” “pawns,” “soldiers,” and the very con-
cept of “resistance” represent a world of combat, where the therapist puts
himself into the role of someone who has to treat the symptoms by engaging
in a frontal attack.
Today the image of the therapist is different and other dimensions are
emphasized: that is, how the child, the adult – indeed all of us – constructs
our world; how we relate to external reality; where we get the power to love.
Hence, words that describe relations such as trust, amazement, longing, and
play have been added to the psychoanalytic vocabulary.
Play has concerned many theoreticians from the beginning of psychoanalysis
to the present. Consequently, changes in the concept of play – like the upheavals
in the concept of the child – also reflect a development in psychoanalytic
thought.
It is fascinating to trace Sigmund Freud’s various attitudes to play: at first
he described play as a symptomatic act that was to be interpreted as an
expression of the unconscious (for example, his patient Dora playing with her
purse (Freud 1901), or Little Hans, playing at imitating a horse (Freud 1908)).
Later he regarded children’s play as a form of creativity similar to that of poets.
Subsequently, he viewed the play of an eighteen-month-old child with a
wooden spool as an active form of control over its anxiety of separation, which
derived from the absence of its mother. Freud also believed that during
puberty the adolescent ceases to play; play is being replaced by the adolescent’s
capacity to imagine (or to daydream). For Freud, human greatness lies in
the ability to subdue the instincts, and he did not see in play the essence of
human beings.
Nevertheless, his impressive intuitions about play paved the way for the
developments that took place in that area. Among Freud’s many followers,
who converged in various currents within the psychoanalytic movement, the
figures of Melanie Klein and Anna Freud, Freud’s daughter, stand out. Klein
(1987) regarded children’s play as an activity with central importance and
argued that play was parallel to the dreams and free associations of adults. She
showed how play expresses unconscious fantasies and wishes and serves as a
stage for the appearance of internalized images, which are represented
symbolically. Klein regarded the incapacity to play as a symptom of deep
anxiety, which could be cured only by interpreting it.
Anna Freud (1945, 1965) believed in the importance of a direct observation
of children’s play, which can be a convincing channel of information about
children’s reality. In addition to the psychoanalytic interpretations of the
therapist, she also emphasized the children’s behavior. According to her, play
is at the service of ego functions. The capacity in play to control instincts and
to use them in constructive ways allows the child to move from the pleasure
principle (Freud 1920) to the reality principle. In this way the capacity to play
becomes the capacity to work. She explained to the parents that their children’s

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suffering was due to difficulty in adapting to the environment, and her

approach was also pedagogical.
Another student of Freud, Erik H. Erikson (1963), saw play as a liberating
activity, which was meant to help the child strengthen the powers of his ego
and to prepare him to build reciprocal relations with his environment.
Winnicott’s great contribution was that he saw play as a creative act. When
a child plays with a blanket, or with a piece of cloth, he may endow the object
with a new meaning: it is an act of play, of creativity, and of faith. One of these
objects can become special and, when this is so, it is called a “transitional
object,” because it points to the movement that bridges between subjective
experience and external reality. When the child grows up, the transitional
object loses its special meaning as “first possession,” which usually represents
also the mother’s softness, and it undergoes a transformation.
Thus, for Winnicott play is much more than a phase in the normal develop-
ment of the individual. For him, play characterizes all of human development:
it evolves into a religion, an ideology, and it gives the capacity to create
within and from what already exists. It develops into culture, which is a kind
of variation of play. According to this approach, culture is a transitional
phenomenon in itself, and not only an expression of sublimation of instincts
as it was conceived in early psychoanalysis. Indeed, we all play with our ideas
and we cling to them – just as we clung to a blanket when we were babies –
either rigidly or softly, but mainly subjectively. Play is the basis for the arts,
for philosophy and for religion, and it gives color to the life of every human
being.
Winnicott’s definition of play, as a bridge between inner and outer reality,
does not contradict earlier definitions. Rather, it gives them a new quality:
play is grasped as a means for attaining mental health, as the main tool by
means of which a person can fulfill himself and as the kernel of real life.
Moreover, Winnicott saw psychoanalysis as the highest and most sophisticated
form of play.
A great deal has been written about play in the psychoanalytic literature.
Various definitions of play (spontaneous and symbolic) have been offered, and
its functions and uses in the development of the individual have been
investigated. Thus, for example, play has been used as a tool for diagnosing
normal human development as well as pathological development; the con-
nection between play and trauma has been studied, as has the relation between
spontaneous play and games – play with prescribed rules. There have been
studies of play in childhood, latency, and adolescence, of the relation between
play and time, of play and perversion, of the lack of play or of over-playing,
and also of the boundaries of play. Theoreticians have listed a variety of
functions of play, including: play as a defense mechanism against sorrow, as
consolation, as a means to remember, as a channel for interpersonal com-
munication, as a way of experiencing loss, as a way of creating separation
between the self and the non-self. According to Kohut, children enjoy games

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in which body parts are again isolated – counting toes, for example: “This
little piggy went to market, this little piggy stayed home, this little piggy ate
roast beef, this little piggy had none, and this little piggy cried wee-wee all
the way home.” Such games seem to rest on the setting up of slight frag-
mentation fears at a period when the cohesiveness of the self has not yet
become totally entrenched. The tension, however, is kept in bounds (like the
separation anxiety in the peek-a-boo game) and when the last toe is reached,
empathic mother and child undo the fragmentation by uniting in laughter
and embrace (Kohut 1971). Parents use play in order to induce their children
to do certain things, such as softening a necessary act like taking medicine, or
in order to avoid confrontation.
On both social and political levels, the use of play by the establishment is a
known phenomenon. It is used for the purpose of attaining personal profits or
political status or other kinds of goals. For example, Julius Caesar introduced
gladiatorial contests as a way of promoting unity within the Roman Empire
and also to prevent rebellion against himself. Today as well, we see the use of
sport for political purposes.
Despite the many different definitions of play in psychoanalysis, we can
point out five principal characteristics that are common to all of them: (1) the
uniqueness of play as a combination of thought and action; (2) play always
includes a component of pleasure; (3) play combines pre-existing elements in
different ways; (4) play puts the inner phantasy into external reality; (5) play
uses different parts of ourselves – playing between our ego and our self, playing
in the field between the subject and the environment. To these five definitions
we can add a sixth one, which defines playing as a unique instance of selfobject
and as a transcendental event. This new definition extends the boundaries of
the Winnicottian formulation of playing as a field.
We can even say that our attitude to play is a way to understand our
personality: some people are anxious about their play and are unwilling to
share it with others; some focus on knocking down the towers that others have
built; some try to find faults in the towers of others or in those that they have
built by themselves. Some play out their lives by injecting repeated drama-
tizations. Sometimes paranoia is a kind of mental puzzle, in which a lot of
systematic thought, as well as a concern to coordinate the various elements, is
invested. Which of us does not know a person who never stops playing hide
and seek?
Although this book does not deal with social play or with games, it is
important for me to devote a few words to this issue. There are several
conceptions of games: Solnit (1987) argues that engaging in them is resistance
to spontaneous play. In contrast, Rivka Eifermann (1987), an Israeli
psychoanalyst who has conducted much research on the subject of social play
and games for many years, has shown how unconscious fantasies and desires
are expressed in social games. Although social games are not individual,
spontaneous creations, there is nevertheless a great deal of freedom within the

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boundaries of the game. The archetype for understanding this conception of

play is the individuality in the performance of a musical or theatrical work: on
the basis of a given text and clear rules, “the center of creation” is the personal
expression of the performer.
Social games are usually traditional and belong to the culture of children:
they are transmitted from one generation of children to another without
the intermediary of adults. Like fairy tales, social play and games have
withstood the test of many generations. Games such as tag, catch, chess, and
checkers link us to very ancient nations: the world has changed, but these
games remain as they were. However, in comparison to fairy tales, social
games have not received the same level of theoretical attention. Eifermann
(1987) showed in her research that in social play we are all partners in a fantasy
or unconscious universal conflict, but each of us connects with it in a personal
way. According to Eifermann and other researchers, the rules of the game
do not necessarily limit freedom, but rather the contrary: the rules are
understood as preserving and protecting against the destructive potential
of spontaneous play, and they represent authority – rigid or flexible, cruel
or friendly, but in any event alternative to the authority of parents – and this
is the authority of the game. It is certainly interesting that it is possible to
challenge the authority of parents, but there is no challenging the authority of
the game.
The game of tag is described as expressing universal fear of contamination.
In a similar vein, I thought that blind man’s bluff expresses the desire not to
get lost and to know how to find other people without seeing them. Perhaps
musical chairs are meant to warn us against the dizzying strength of music,
for if you sink in to it, you can lose your place in the world, as with the song
of the Sirens.
In my view, even games with rules sometimes have an element of a
transitional object: many soccer players sleep with the ball, talk to it, pat it,
and get angry at it when they lose.
The next two papers deal with playing as a field and as a transcendental
event.

References
Eiferman, R. R. (1987) “Children’s Games, Observed and Experienced”, Psychoanalytic
Study of the Child, 42:127–144.
Erikson, E. H. (1963) Childhood and Society, New York: W. W. Norton.
Freud, A. (1945) “Indications for Child Analysis”, Psychoanalytic Study of the Child,
II:119.
—— (1965) Normality and Pathology in Childhood, New York: International
Universities Press.
Freud, S. (1901) “Dora’s Case, Fragment of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria”, Standard
Ed., VII, London: Hogarth Press.

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—— (1908) “Analysis of a Phobia in a Five-Year-Old Boy”, Standard Ed., X, London:

Hogarth Press.
—— (1920) “Beyond the Pleasure Principle”, Standard Ed., XVIII, London: Hogarth
Press.
Klein, M. (1987) Contributions to Psychoanalysis 1921–1945, London: Hogarth Press.
Kohut, H. (1971) The Analysis of the Self, London: Hogarth Press.
Kulka, R. (1998) “Introduction to Hebrew Version” of Playing and Reality (1871) by
D. W. Winnicott, Tel Aviv: Am Oved.
Solnit, A. J. (1987) “A Psychoanalytical View of Play”, Psychoanalytic Study of the
Child, 42:205–219.
Winnicott, D. W. (1971) Playing and Reality, London: Tavistock.

Play as a world of magic and drama: Winnicott’s ideas about

play and their application to children’s psychotherapy

Liora Lurie
Donald W. Winnicott (1896–1971), a British pediatrician, psychiatrist and
psychoanalyst, was a unique figure in the history of psychoanalytic thought
and practice. One of his major contributions is his theory of play. Using
evocative and experiential descriptions, Winnicott (1971a) brings to life for
the reader what it feels like to be a child at play. He formulated the
developmental stages that children go through in their play, and he described
the relevance of play in the therapy of young children.
The purpose of this paper is to present Winnicott’s thoughts concerning
play and to show how these ideas are being applied in the therapy of young
children. The paper focuses on the spontaneous play of a child with a toy or
object rather than on games. The examples are taken from the play of children
in therapy sessions: play in which they can develop their own ideas, using the
materials the therapist provides for them. The first clinical examples are taken
from the therapy of different children. Finally an example of the development
of play within one particular therapy will be presented.
Winnicott (1971a) regards play as a major component in the emotional
health of people in general and children in particular. In daily life we are so
used to seeing children at play that we take this behavior for granted. However,
when a child does not or cannot play, we worry that he or she is not physically
or emotionally well. Even very young children play in the sense that they use
objects to enact internal dramas and scripts, behavior that joins curiosity
about the nature of the outside world with their imagination and inner wishes.
A stick can become a sword; a leaf can turn into a boat; dolls and toys live a
world where they develop plots that appeal to the child’s heart.
Playing therefore takes place both in the inner and in the external world,
and this in itself creates excitement. According to Freud, play is expressed as
a libidinal excitement, whereas Winnicott stressed the difference between the
excitement involved in play and the libidinal excitement: “Play is immensely

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exciting. It is exciting not primarily because the instincts are involved, be

it understood! The thing about playing is always the precariousness of the
interplay of personal psychic reality and the experience of control of the actual
objects” (Winnicott 1971a, p. 55).
In order to understand this precariousness, let us consider the experience of
watching a movie as an area of play with which many adults are familiar.
While watching a movie, viewers may immerse themselves in it. They may
identify themselves in one of the characters, become emotionally involved in
the events, or they may add their own fantasies to the scenes. In this manner
the observer is involved in a process of play. However, this involvement is
fragile and it can be shattered by various forces. If the emotions aroused
become too strong, the person may withdraw in order to avoid these feelings.
He can distance himself by thinking “It’s only a movie, a fiction” – thus
breaking the illusion needed for immersing oneself in the film. Other
disturbances can interrupt the process of play: internal events such as hunger
or external annoyances such as other people making noise. Inhibition or self-
criticism can also disrupt the “suspension of disbelief ” needed to experience
oneself in other lives and roles.
A child at play is threatened by similar forces, which can disrupt the
experience of illusion needed to allow for the fusion between imagination and
reality. When this happens the child will lose this unique balance and will fall
into reality, or fantasy, and will stop playing.
Winnicott thought that this fragility of the play space is a source of
excitement during play: an excitement that results from the child’s daring to
combine the experience of omnipotence, within his or her fantasy life, with
the risky world of objects beyond his or her total control. During play the
child steps beyond the limits of his internal world in order to realize his
fantasy within the “pretend world,” within the illusory space of his play. At
the same time play involves the actual manipulation of objects, which requires
an awareness of the external world. Winnicott labeled this unique psychic
place the “potential space.”
During play, unexpected things can happen. Winnicott stresses the impor-
tance of surprise and spontaneous gesture as experiences building the self.
This is one of the important contributions of play to the emotional life of
individuals. A child who stays within his fantasy life retains a sense of total
control over the events, but precludes the possibility of surprise and growth.
Play means taking the risk of losing some control but allowing self-
actualization, vitality and self-expression. Playing at being a football star is an
opportunity to experiment with new aspects of emotional experience. A child
can find out how it feels: is he able to identify with success, or do shame and
doubt preclude experimentation with other versions of the self?
The possibility of play to preserve the illusion depends on the facilitating
environment, especially the people closest to the child, such as his/her parents.
When a child wears a cape, calls himself Superman, and runs around the room

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roaring and saving the world, he is dependent on the sympathetic eye of his
parents. He will not be able to play if he is asked teasing questions regarding
his magical powers. He also needs his parents’ help in preserving the cape
itself. In play, the objects themselves acquire value and there can be a danger
of their loss or damage. Play involves more risk than daydreaming. This risk
and the feeling of being Superman and possessing magical powers are a part of
the tension and the excitement of play. In play children turn passive experiences
into active ones. When they feel weak and helpless or inferior, they will
play the opposite, expressing prowess, control and superiority. By turning
themselves from passive into active, they try to restore their strength and the
sense of self. Playing therefore has a reparative function in children’s lives.
Playing happens within a specific place and a specific time. Some places are
safe for playing. In these environments children feel emotionally and physically
secure, they find materials that they can use and they can control their play.
There is also an aspect of time in relation to play. A child can only play and
remain within this unique bubble of existence for a limited amount of time,
just as a viewer may find a film long enough. The length of the time span is
dependent on the child’s temperament, mood and the nature of the game
itself. Another time factor is developmental. Forms of play that were engross-
ing at one age become boring or irrelevant at a later age. Winnicott (1971b)
considered play an important part of life of adults as well. He saw the ability
of adults to engage in artistic and scientific creativity, and to enjoy cultural
experiences as expressions of play in their adult life. He considered the capacity
to play both as a derivative and as a protector of the vitality and experience
of self.

I will now present a few examples from the play of children in therapy. Even
very young children can be treated by using toys, colors, crayons, and various
other materials. Therapy rooms provide a safe environment where children
can play, run around, get dirty, and try out new experiences. The therapist
may be an active partner in play or a facilitating presence in the background.
As an example of the richness and the complexity of this kind of play, I will
describe children using finger paint. In play there is always an influence of the
bit of reality the child uses. Their fingers, covered with thick paint, with its
strong smell, its creamy texture, and its ability to mix different colors, become
a tool for creating surprise and amazement. One four-year old boy, whom I
treated for anxiety, opened the jar, smelled the paint, touched it and rubbed it
on his hands. He then smeared the color on a piece of paper. Here his play was
mainly sensory, involving excitement and at times disgust or fear as well as
pleasure from the sensations he experienced. Once his hands were coated with
paint, he made hand-prints and used his fingers to draw as well as to mix
colors. The main point here is his freedom to experiment, try out, touch and
be curious: What will happen if I add yellow to green? And what if I now add
red? His play is accompanied by the tension in breaking his rules of cleanliness

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and by the danger of an emotional overflow as well. A child will stop playing
or will fail to start if either internal rules or external restrictions prevent him.
Conversely, a child will stop playing if he becomes overexcited, goes wild, and
smears paint all over himself, the room, or the therapist. The therapist,
functioning as the facilitating environment, must navigate between these two
extremes, because play can happen only when these two threats are removed.
Throughout this initial experimentation and hesitation there will be
surprises. This is a very important component of Winnicott’s understanding of
play. In our example, while the child spread paint on his hands or on the paper,
unexpected new colors were created. He looked at these colors in amazement,
impressed by what happened and by his new creation. He asked me “Did I
make this new color? Or did the blue and red make the purple? And what will
happen if I add white?” The little boy impressed me with his seriousness.
He looked busy, trying to investigate the material, and at the same time
experiencing himself as an inventor and discoverer of something new.
Winnicott describes the child’s absorption in play as awareness that he is
engaged in something important. Children often come into the therapy room
with a no-nonsense facial expression. Indeed, Winnicott labeled the attitude
of one of his under-three-year-old patients as “coming to work” (Winnicott
1977, p. 3). He viewed this ability to concentrate in play as a forerunner of the
ability to be involved, at an older age, in science, in art or in other cultural
enterprises. While at play, the child is exploring the external world of
materials, as well as becoming an active creator excited both by his discoveries
and by his feeling of active self. This feeling of active curiosity and experimental
risk-taking has a vitalizing effect. It provides a sense of omnipotence: “I made
it, I wanted this.” At the same time the child experiences surprise, like the
little boy I described above, who was amazed by what the colors were doing;
that is, by his experience of the external world. Winnicott’s “potential space”
(1971a, pp. 47–48) is the borderland between what the child discovers as
“superman” and what the therapist (and parent) provides from without. He
emphasizes that in this emotional place, one must never ask the child whether
he created the object or whether it was there outside of him waiting to be
discovered. The paradox of this double existence must not be challenged, out
of respect for the precious and fragile qualities of the playing field.
While working with fingers impregnated with colors, as I did with this
child, and, by mixing and using more colors during the process, the final
painting became more brownish. Therefore the final outcome did not do
justice to the process the child went through. For Winnicott this is true of all
kinds of play: the process is more important than the result.
In my next example I will describe a five-year-old boy whose father died of
an illness. Instead of smearing colors on paper, this boy went to the sink,
poured some finger paint into it, and then diluted it with water. He then filled
a plastic bag halfway with the liquid, and tied the bag. I wondered: What
meaning does this bag have for him? While he was playing I began to

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understand that he was telling me how he felt while visiting his father in the
hospital. His father was connected to an intravenous infusion, which was
hanging on an upright hanger on wheels, and he used to take his son around
the ward while the boy rode on the hanger. In therapy this little boy used his
play to recapture moments of closeness to his father as well as to tell me of his
experiences. During those visits to the hospital he had felt as though he was
riding on his father’s shoulders, while at the same time he was also adjusting
to his father’s weakness and vulnerability. Later in his therapy he made other
bags of paint into magical potions, which could heal his father and bring him
back to life.
This evocative example poignantly demonstrates how play can allow a very
young child to both express and deal with painful feelings in a language that
is meaningful and available to him. The child knew what he wanted to express.
When I showed him that I could understand his language, he was able to
share his thoughts and feelings with me. Together we could recognize his pain
and his efforts to delay his acceptance of death, i.e. reality, until he could
tolerate the knowledge that his father would not return. As he said: “It’s hard
to give up having a father for the rest of your life.” Here his play had emotional
impact beyond his verbal communications. It created a strong experience
almost without words by evoking rich associations and feelings in both of us.
Speech between us served to ensure we were on the same wavelength and to
confirm an understanding between us.
To take another example, one of my patients was a seven-year-old boy who
felt hurt, angry, and sad because “I haven’t any friends,” and “Nobody loves
me.” He was brought to therapy because of his social isolation and violent
outbursts at home. After a few months of therapy he asked me to bandage his
hands, using a roll of tissue paper. In his play I had been given the role of a
healer. He instructed me how to wrap his fingers one after the other, then his
whole hand, so that eventually he was covered with many layers of bandage.
He then asked me to smear black color on his bandaged hands. I interpreted
that he was telling me that he was feeling deeply wounded, hopeless, and that
all looked black to him. He asked me to put another layer of bandage over the
black paint and then again he painted his hands with black. I interpreted that
he was telling me that I was the doctor who should help him recover and feel
better, but that the wound was so big that it kept bleeding through the
bandage. In this second interpretation, which may sound similar to the earlier
one, I actually introduced a change. In the “bleeding” there is “life” in contrast
to a deathly despair. Later I told him that I could sense his pain and understand
his wish to be bandaged by someone else, since he could not be able to treat
himself. I added that he was in such a pain because he did not feel sufficiently
protected by his own skin, and therefore everything could hurt him. In
response he asked me to paint his hands in red.
His demand was an indication that he had heard me and that he had
accepted my input; that he was not black, burned-out, dead, but still alive and

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shouting and feeling pain – that is, “bleeding.” After a long period of therapy,
he moved on by using other colors, such as yellow, blue and green, and my role
in his play was still the one of the healer. In this play I put bandage around his
hands and then removed them at the end of the play. In order for me to play
this role, he had to let me stand close to him and touch his hands. Initially he
had been hostile and perhaps a bit scared in allowing such a physical closeness.
During our work, which took place almost wordlessly, I did not always know
the meaning of his bleeding wound, but I knew his pain. At the same time his
parents told me that at home he was happier, and in school he had begun to
play with other children. He had gone through an important transformation.
This therapeutic relationship, briefly described, shows that during a therapy
session with play the child worked both with me and within himself. By
learning to relate to his emotional reality and to what it meant for him to live
in this world, a transformation took place within his inner world. During his
play he rarely told me about any event that took place outside therapy, yet he
progressed and changed from within the space of play, of illusion.
The examples I have presented so far are only a partial description of the
richness and power of play, as well as the tension inherent in it – tension that
arises out of the need to preserve a fragile world of illusion, of acting out an
internal scenario that incorporates bits of reality.

Winnicott’s developmental stages of play

The capacity to play relies both on the child’s development and on the
supportive response of his environment: parents, caregivers, teachers, etc. An
important aspect of this development involves leaving behind the omnipotence
of a fantasy life for a growing involvement with the material and the social
environment, in understanding the limits of one’s own abilities, and in
recognizing one’s own strength and creativity.
Winnicott (1971a) pictures four stages in a child’s development. I will try
to describe them.
A. In the beginning a child lives in an internal, subjective environment
composed of sensations. He and his mother are one entity; he does not separate
her from himself. He experiences only himself. When he feels a need and that
need is met, in his experience he has created this need-fulfillment (i.e. the
breast and milk). He lives in a subjective world that can exist only because of
his parents’ devotion, because they in fact do fulfill his needs. In Winnicott’s
words: “Baby’s view of the object is subjective and the mother is oriented
towards the realization of what the baby is ready to find” (1971b, p. 54).
B. The next stage involves a complex process of rejecting and reaccepting
the object. Through this process the object comes to be experienced as real
(“perceived objectively,” Winnicott 1971a, p. 55). When the mother plays her
part in this process, “the mother . . . is in a mode of ‘to’ and ‘fro’ between
being the thing the child is able to discover, and being herself waiting to be

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discovered” (Winnicott 1971a, p. 55). This allows her baby a sense of omnipo-
tent control. “Confidence in the mother makes an intermediate playground
here, where the idea of magic can originate, since the baby does to some extent
experience omnipotence . . . I call this a playground, because play starts here.
The playground is a potential space between the mother and the baby or a
means of joining the mother and the baby” (Winnicott 1971a, p. 55).
In regard to the fragility of play, he adds: “Playing is immensely
exciting . . . The thing about playing is always the precariousness of the
interplay of personal psychic reality and the experience of control of actual
objects . . . This is the precariousness of magic itself, magic that arises in
intimacy, in a relationship that is being found to be reliable. To be reliable,
the relationship is necessarily motivated by the mother’s love, or her
love–hate, or her object-relating, not by reaction-formations” (Winnicott
1971a, p. 55).
The child takes its first step into the world of objects by incorporating an
object into his world. Winnicott (1953) called this a “transitional object.” It
is usually a soft toy or cloth that can be carried wherever the child goes. This
object is experienced as existing both in the internal fantasy world and in the
external material world, while combining the features of both. A teddy bear,
for example, belongs to the objective world in that it can be hugged, it has
volume and mass. It is affected by reality, it can acquire unique odors and it
can become more personal, but it can also be damaged, lost, or taken by a
sibling. The teddy bear belongs to the internal world in the sense that the
child feels it is completely his and under his control, being created by wishing
it into being. The teddy bear also belongs to the external “not-me” world, so
the child can feel loved by it. Thus the bear is a friend one can talk to and can
share feelings and experiences with.
The teddy bear is also a transitional object between the child and his mother.
As the child comes to understand that his mother is not a part of him and is
not completely under his control, he becomes filled with fear when she is not
near by. The transitional object is suffused with maternal characteristics, and
can ease the gaps in the maternal presence. As such, it strengthens the child’s
ability to be independent of its mother. The transitional object reflects both
the tie to the mother and the ability to sustain oneself without her. The bear
stands for the mother in that it “loves” and “protects” the child. The ability to
experience it in that way is based on the internalization of a loving mother. It
signifies the child’s independence, since with its bear a child creates a world of
stories and events that do not directly involve its mother. While children can
use transitional objects as substitutes for maternal presence for a while, the
object loses its power if the mother’s absence is too long. The magic depends
on a refueling by its source.
The ability to create a transitional object, and to use it, depends on the
help from other people. In particular, they must not force the issue of whether
the object is subjective or objective, or if it is the creation of the child’s

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omnipotence or if it is under their control. That is why it is important

for parents to treat the object in the same way as the child does. They must
refrain from washing it, protect it from getting lost, and avoid dictating what
it says or feels. That is, they should not play with it as though it was their
object too.
C. In the next stage the child develops the “the capacity to be alone” in the
presence of someone else (Winnicott 1958). In this stage a child can play in
the presence of a protecting, reliable and loving person. The mother gauges
her distance from the child sensitively in accordance to the child’s needs. If she
is too far, the child will seek her contact or cry out for her in fear and rage. If
she is too close, in the sense that she may appear to intrude on the child’s play
or to be too much involved, the child will not be able to experience its play as
its own. This initial stage of play is exemplified later in a young girl’s wish to
play in a tent. The tent is built with the purpose of creating a private space in
which to be alone, although in the presence of an adult person nearby.
D. In the next developmental stage, the ability to enjoy the participation of
two players is developed. Now the child can enjoy play with the presence of
the mother as a player. The child enjoys having another person participating
in its own world, in its creativity and illusion. At first the child may set limits
to the movements of the other player. It may control and dictate the other’s
moves in great detail. For example, I had in therapy a ten-year old girl with
many school-related issues. The girl chose to play the teacher and I was
assigned the role of the stupid, failing student. She asked me difficult questions
in arithmetic and told me how I was to respond. Occasionally I did get
permission to respond as I wished, and then I sometimes surprised her. This
child risked opening her play to my moves but retained some control over my
responses. In this therapy I was using her ability to play in order to help her
work through her feelings of failure, by bearing them for her and verbalizing
them through my role.
At a more secure stage a child will want the therapist to make some
spontaneous moves, so that it can experience the contact with another person,
and accept the fact that the external object is not completely under its magical
control. When that happens the child allows for mutual play and for even
greater possibilities of surprises, though it may also risk being deprived of its
play-space. As I explained above, Winnicott believes that the element of the
unpredictable is a central part of the excitement within play. Thus in ballgames
(soccer, basketball) I am expected to play in earnest and make unexpected
moves. In the verbal domain I could be allowed to surprise the child by saying
what I thought was therapeutically important to say.
An example of the role of the “unexpected” in play can be illustrated by the
case of an eight-year-old girl who was in constant war with her disapproving
mother. In her play she was a ballerina, dancing before me (the audience). She
instructed me to be very critical, so I said that her dance was “not special,” and
“what a show off she is.” Then, using another tone, I added “Because I am

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jealous. Why is she dancing and not me? I dance a lot better!” This surprised
the child and she liked my addition. I had added motivation to the critical
object in the language of envy, and she accepted this idea. One can see my
intervention as an interpretation using the language of play and the role I was
assigned.
Winnicott stressed that play is a universal activity and that in play-therapy
we adults join the world of childhood in order to be able to do healing
work with the child, by making contact with their world. “Psychotherapy
is done by overlapping two play areas, the one of the patient and the one
of the therapist” (Winnicott 1971b, p. 63). This place of play can only be
created in “relaxation in conditions of trust based on experience” (Winnicott
1971b, p. 66).
Some children come to therapy without the capacity to play. They might be
hyperactive; they move rapidly from one toy to another. For other children
every movement is experienced as forbidden or dangerous. In this context,
Winnicott noted that “when a patient is not able to play the therapist must
attend to this major symptom before interpreting other fragments of behavior”
(Winnicott 1971a, p. 55). A seven-year old boy, who was brought to therapy
by his parents, sat on a chair, slumped and silent. He sat there waiting, frozen
and scared and with an extremely passive attitude. I knew I had to try more
than one approach in order to move him and tell him what we could do. I tried
various ways to make him feel more relaxed, but my efforts were pushed away
by his blank stare. When I asked him to play “the squiggle game” (Winnicott
1989) with me, he drew a line that copied my line exactly, making it a double
line, without form. He appeared to be telling me that he had no spontaneous
movement, no line of his own; he could only follow mine. I felt that he had no
space in which to move. Months later, as he gained trust in me, he was able to
play and be a willing participant in his therapy, but his initial frozen position
was striking.
I will now present some further examples of play, as they evolved in different
developmental stages, in regard to the therapy of a six-year-old girl whose
mother died when she was a toddler. In the beginning she built a tent using
large pieces of cloth, in which she sat, creating a hiding place, a separation
between her and me. In the tent she had enough room to move, to sit, to lie
down, and to prepare “food.” As I was sitting outside the tent, an entire
life was being played inside it. She kept checking whether I was going to
facilitate or disrupt the existence of this world-in-a-tent. She was worried that
I might spoil it or not permit it. At first she was surprised that I had the
materials to create this special space, which proved to her that I was probably
not offended by her need for privacy. In time, she allowed me a supportive
role, “the helper” – I was commanded to fetch some necessary utensils. “Get
me . . .,” “I need . . .,” “Fix that corner of the tent, I can be seen through a hole
there.” Later, I sensed that she was peeking at me from behind the fabric of the
tent, while feeling secure inside it.

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Then one day she invited me to join her inside the tent for a meal and for
some company. This qualitative change in her trust in me and her acceptance
of me inside her tent came about quite smoothly. It was the product of a
spontaneous growth in our relationship and her invitation seemed to her the
most natural thing to do. This is part of the magic of play: complex emotional
transformations occur during play in a straightforward, simple manner. The
important transition here was from playing alone, with complete omnipotent
control, to playing in the presence of another. This transition could be
compared to the act of moving from an “imaginary friend” to creating an
actual relationship with someone else. When the girl gave up the need of total
control and turned to me as a partner to play with, she had risked disappoint-
ment. The risk is that the other person will make her own spontaneous moves
in such a way that it might spoil the texture of the child’s illusionary world.
I had to be very careful in earning the trust she was giving me. I had to be
present in a way so as not to destroy her play. When she invited me to visit her
inside the tent, to sit with her while she fed me with clay food, we felt very
close to each other. There was a feeling of a special intimacy in our relationship,
like mother and daughter.
She then developed a play of day and night, light and darkness. I was in
charge of changing the lights and of fulfilling her wishes. She played cycles of
sleeping and waking. I followed her instructions, turned the lights off and on,
or closed and opened the shades. I described the coming of night and day
verbally as I moved around the room. While obeying her instructions, I
thought about the possible meanings of her play. Was it to recapture the sense
of the safe natural rhythm of life? Was it to tell about loss and separation
followed by a wish of re-finding and resurrecting her mother? Was she the
creator of her own world, who through the use of words separates chaos into
light and darkness, inside and outside?
One day, after she came out of the tent, she suggested a game of “hide and
seek.” I understood it as a game of searching, of separation and fear of loss. We
played this game in many variations. She suggested a version called “blind
man’s bluff” in which the searcher’s eyes are closed with a blindfold. When it
was my turn to be blindfolded, I experienced what it was like to feel disoriented
even in my own familiar room. I had to find her by listening very carefully to
the sounds she made while she was moving in the room. I felt like I was
searching for someone without the certainty of finding her, and many times
I felt helpless. I thought it was a way for her to tell me about her search for her
mother – a very experiential way. When it was her turn to have her eyes
blindfolded, she tied the cloth so that she could be able to peek through it.
I thought that she had to do so because the feeling of blindness and helplessness
would have been too frightening for her and it would have stopped the play.
I hesitated; I did not know what to say or what this play could mean for us. I
chose to speak from within my role in the play. At first I spoke as the one who
could not see her, who was trying hard to find her but could not. I said that

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perhaps her role was of someone who wanted me to try very hard to find her,
to reach her and to touch her. When it was her turn to find me, I told her that
I was thinking about what she could not see. Later we were able to talk about
the play: that it was about a mother searching for her daughter and about the
daughter looking for her mother. She said that she often thought about her
mother in the sky looking at her. This felt good but also bad. She did not like
it that her mother could see all her mistakes, her failures, her bad thoughts.
Her mother was “all good,” as everyone had told her, so she probably could
not please such a mother. Here her play stopped. It could not carry all the
emotions she placed in it. However, we had opened a conversation about
losing her mother, and where she might be now. She spoke of her mother in a
mixed manner of living–dead that is typical for a child of her age. This
conversation about her pain created a deep closeness between us.
Hide and seek, a game with so few materials, became rich with emotional
content, with therapeutic value. Now we could relate it to the personal and
private meaning it had for her, thanks to the safety of our relationship. She
could not have dealt with her pain on her own.
Later she began to wonder if indeed her mother was such a good woman.
“Why did her mother die?” “Had God punished her mother? Why, what had
she done?” These questions are typical of grieving children and reflect two
central themes in the children’s mourning: their anger and the need for control
when they feel helpless. They feel often also tormented by guilt. Have they
done anything to deserve this terrible loss of their parent? In her play she
began a new story line. She began to prepare a stage set for the story of Noah’s
ark. In this game she focused on the sinners’ survival strategies as a response
to the death penalty that God had given them. She was very much on God’s
side; she was furious with the sinners for their cheating. She also played out
Noah’s family life in great detail. By using the toy animals available in the
room, she put in the ark the animals Noah intended to save. Noah’s wife had
to look after the animals and the people on board, and she had to feed each one
with the appropriate food. The sea was full of sinners, drowning in agony,
trying to climb aboard the ship, but being pushed back into the water “because
they are bad.”
I was given the role of the sinners, as well as some of the ship’s crew. She was
Noah, the captain of the ship and she was pushing away with fury the sinners
from the ark, as well as saving the good people and looking after all those on
board. She instructed me how I should scream and fight for my life when I was
in the role of the sinners. She also instructed me how I should push away the
sinners who were trying to climb on to the sides of the boat; how I should not
be swayed by their begging for mercy when I was in the role of a boatman. The
scene on the whole was very charged with emotion and very painful. This scene
was done years before the movie Titanic, and she described the disaster in
great detail. Here, her main role was that of a director, and she was devel-
oping the scenes in order to convey her emotional turmoil. She was using her

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play in order to represent a dramatic story through a multitude of minute

details.
From the different subplots in this representation I sensed that I could
detect her anger at the death of her mother, and the questions she had about
her own guilt, her mother’s guilt, as well as the doctors’ failure to save her
mother’s life. These emotions were also directed toward me. I did not convey
my thoughts to her at this stage by direct interpretation. I thought that direct
speech would stop her play and interfere too early with her emotional process-
ing by breaking the illusion and pushing reality into the transitional space.
I therefore remained only a character in her play, while keeping my thoughts
to myself and not intervening as a therapist. I believed that at some point the
play would stop being sufficient for her. I felt I had to wait for the right
moment when she would begin to need something more from me. But how
much and for how long would she be able to tolerate this experience, and
when would she be ready? I finally decided to make some gradual connections
between the story she was playing and her life, first by speaking within my
character in the play, and later by speaking openly about her feelings toward
me and then toward her mother. This gradual process allowed her therapy to
reach her inner world in a meaningful way.

The emotional climate during play

The example of Noah’s ark suggests my final topic: the emotional climate
during play. Children often approach their play with a serious attitude. As I
have mentioned earlier, Winnicott called it “coming to work” in therapy.
Children know that playing is very important to them, and they become very
upset if someone – either a parent trying to put the toys away in order to tidy
up the room or a sibling moving or taking a toy in the middle of the play –
interrupts or spoils their play. They are aware that they are very busy with
something that means a lot to them. Sometimes the play is directed in order
to achieve some purpose, and it is terrible for the child to have it interrupted
before it reaches its goal. Adults often misunderstand children’s insistence
in finishing their play and they get angry because, to them, it seems silly, or
they think that the child is being difficult or domineering, or just looking for
a fight.
As we have seen, the main feature of play is the emotional place where it can
be carried out. This place lies on the border between the child’s inner and
outer worlds. Moreover, the emotions aroused and expressed during play are
characterized by the same dualism of “pretend” and “real.”
The feelings evoked during play can be dramatic and we may question their
relevance to the child’s inner world. The feelings involved in play are both
personally meaningful and dramatized. The sadness or the pleasure in imper-
sonating a character are feelings related to the imaginary events in the play.
But these feelings are also relevant to the girl who is in charge of the play.

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This dual aspect is similar to our understanding of dreams, where internal

issues take on a visual and a dramatic form that allows for emotional contact
with blocked thoughts and emotions. In regard to dreams Grotstein (1981)
wrote: “Who is the dreamer who dreams the dream and who is the
dreamer who understands it?”. Bollas (1992) wrote about the dual role
of the dreamer as actor and director in the dream.
Sometimes in children’s play this double role is very pronounced. The child
is both an actor (even several actors) and the director of the story line. In a
dream the director’s presence is felt only indirectly. In play, by contrast, the
child’s presence in the capacity of director is marked. A child may run from
one corner of the room to another in order to take different roles and she will
make big shifts in her emotions, as required by the plot. When she is ready to
let her therapist play too, she may give very strict instructions, just like a very
thorough director. She will have a conception of the feelings she requires from
different actors in the story. She may also assign to the therapist one or more
roles in the same play. All this requires divided attention on the child’s part.
Every role involves a complex array of feelings.
In allowing the therapist some freedom of movement the child takes a risk;
that is, that the therapist might spoil the game, the illusion, by his spontaneous
movements. Playing together is only possible if the child and the therapist
have an overlapping area of play and when the therapist has the capacity to
play. This means that the therapist must adjust, at each moment, his level of
presence to the level the child can tolerate, and the child must be able to
tolerate the therapist’s mistakes. Therefore there will be moments when it
is the child who will dictate the therapist’s lines and movements, and the
therapist will be a puppet in this theater. There will also be moments when
the therapist is asked to decide on her own or to develop a character or a plot
by herself: “How should I know, you’re the wolf!” Even then there may be
director’s instructions: “You’re giving in. You are being nicer than you’re
supposed to be.”
At times a therapist may feel unable to understand the meaning of the
child’s play or that the child is not yet ready to let her into its internal world.
At other times the therapist may feel very much involved in the play, and
experience very strong emotions together with the child. This depends on the
therapist’s allowing herself to be permeable to the child’s inner experiences.
Just as the child is both the actor and the director during play, so is the
therapist simultaneously the participant player and the adult in the room.
Winnicott sometimes did this by using different voices. Using one voice he
would speak like a baby, expressing his character in the play, and using another
voice he would express his interventions as a therapist (Winnicott 1977). A
therapist may also introduce new characters or new lines into the plot in order
to try out an idea. These moves may be experienced by the child as intrusive,
or they may be experienced with pleasure and with relief in being understood,
and the discovery that during therapy something more can be expressed.

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The emotions felt during play have a special quality. There is room in play
for a great variety of emotions, but when these become overpowering the play
will stop. Consequently play takes place in a middle ground where events of
strong emotional meaning are felt from a certain distance. For example, in the
play of Noah’s ark the little girl’s pain and loss were experienced by displacing
them on the characters of the plot, and even then with a certain detachment.
The child did not cry or shout; it was the actor who shouted and cried, and the
emotional distance between actor and director was very pronounced. The
child frequently led the therapist to experience a difficult feeling for her, such
as failure, rage, helplessness, loneliness, humiliation. The therapist must
experience these emotions in order to contain them and to process them into
a fitting response for the child.
One can definitely question the importance of interpretation during play: if
playing in itself is regarded as therapeutic, if play is a self-healing activity,
how much does the therapist need to spell out what she understands in the
child’s life? (Winnicott 1971a, pp. 58–59).
I think that interpretation has an important therapeutic value, but its
timing and intensity must fit the child and her readiness. Interpretation
pushes the interaction from the transitional space into a direct communication
with the child concerning her internal world, the events in her life, or her
relations with other people including the therapist. When a child connects
her play to her feelings in her life, the split between actor and director dissolves
and the illusion of the drama is shattered. A self-awareness is created and it
can burden and spoil the pleasure of the play. For these reasons great care is
needed in deciding when and how to interpret play. However, therapy requires
the therapist’s and the patient’s joint effort to understand and verbalize the
child’s emotions, thoughts and concerns.
Finally, I would like to point out that Bollas (1987, 1989, 1992) describes
a form of knowing without thinking that is present in dreaming. Similarly,
while playing different characters, a child can figure out her internal world for
herself and can bring it to fruition.
Winnicott (1967, 1971b) emphasized the importance of play for people of
all ages. For him playing and the capacity to stay in the transitional space are
vital for expressing and developing the self. Playing is not only a part of
childhood, but a necessary cultural and spiritual component of the self that
seeks expression in the life of adults as well. Some adults have difficulty in
entering children’s play, while others miss it and they look for opportunities
to engage in it. However, play is also present in creative adult activities, such
as art, music, and science. Indeed, play is a dimension of existence that
promotes emotional health. It is a channel of expression of the part of the self
that Winnicott (1960) calls “the true self.” In therapy, treating play as
an expression of the true self opens up possibilities for experiences of joy
and growth, as the child tests her feelings and her limits of omnipotence
in a safe environment. The activity itself very often creates a climate of

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accomplishment and pleasure, which unites the child–patient and the

therapist as partners in the shared transitional space of play. This pleasure, as
well as the closeness and trust developed during play, have great importance
for the therapeutic process.
In the cases discussed above, play became the medium for healing, for
grieving and coming to terms with the loss of a parent, as well as working
through feelings of anger, envy, failure and social isolation. These are just a
few examples of the uses of play in the therapy of young children. The purpose
of this paper was to show how Winnicott’s ideas about play can inform the
therapist and enrich the therapeutic process.

References
Bollas, C. (1987) The Shadow of the Object: Psychoanalysis of the Unknown Thought,
London: Free Association Books.
—— (1989) Forces of Destiny: Psychoanalysis and Human Idiom, London: Free Association
Books.
—— (1992) Being a Character: Psychoanalysis and Self Experience, London: Routledge.
Grotstein, J. (1981) “Who is the dreamer who dreams the dream and who is the
dreamer who understands it?”, in Grotstein, J. (Ed.) (1981) Do I Dare Disturb the
Universe? A Memoir of Wilfred R. Bion, Beverly Hills: Caesura Press.
Winnicott, D. W.(1953) “Transitional Objects and Transitional Phenomena”, In:
Through Paediatrics to Psycho-analysis, pp. 1–30, London: Hogarth Press.
—— (1967) “The Location of Cultural Experience”, International Journal of
Psychoanalysis, 48:368–372.
—— (1971a) “Playing: A Theoretical Statement”, In: Winnicott (1980 [1971]),
pp. 44–61.
—— (1971b) “Playing: Creative Activity and the Search for the Self.” In: Winnicott
(1980 [1971]), pp. 62–75.
—— (1977) The Piggle, London: Hogarth Press.
—— (1980 [1971]) Playing and Reality, London: Penguin Books.
—— (1965) The Maturational Process and the Facilitating Environment, New York:
International Universities Press.
—— (1958) The Capacity to be Alone, pp. 29–36.
—— (1960) Ego Distortions in Terms of True and False Self, pp. 140–152.
—— (1989) Psycho-Analytic Explorations (C. Winnicott, R. Shepherd and M. Davis,
Eds.), London: Karnac Books.

Psyche or soul in psychoanalysis: Towards the conceptualization

of play as a psychoanalytic transcendental selfobject

Raanan Kulka
During a visit to the Anna Freud Centre a little over ten years ago, the late
George Moran showed me his treatment room. There, alongside the
paraphernalia familiar to child analysts, stood an “analytic sofa” – a modest

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iron bedstead covered with an ordinary plain, somewhat shabby but soft
bedspread. When I asked my host with some curiosity how the children used
the analytic sofa, he told me a touching story. A patient, a boy of about ten
years old, suffered from a variety of anxieties concerning his body and from
narcissistic and neurotic inhibitions which severely impeded his psychic
development. The boy, George Moran recounted, was an ardent fan of a
London football team and particularly of its goalie, and many analytic sessions
were spent playing football in the treatment room. George would make
practice shots to the boy, who stood on the sofa giving instructions and
stopping the balls with magnificent saves, the sofa both serving as the arena
for his breathtaking performance as a famous goalie and protecting him, with
gentle softness, from any harm.
Could there be a more analytical use of the analytic sofa? The sofa itself
becomes not only a playground but also a nurturing foundation for the child,
who uses it nonreflexively for the growth of his selfhood. What was the sofa
for that child if not a holding and facilitating environment, a subjective object,
to use Winnicott’s metaphysical term? Or was it perhaps an organic part of
the child himself in those exalted moments of experiencing his brave body
and his daring soul, a kind of merged mirroring of himself, a selfobject in
Kohut’s language? The same is true of the analyst. He, like the sofa, was not
only part of the play and not only the one who was playing with the child; he
was the play itself – the reality of an authentic presence. And so, the child, the
analyst and their football sofa became the field of this moving event.
Of course, there are various ways that play can be reduced to its constituents
of drive and fantasy. It is also possible to decipher its representational and
symbolic meaning, or to see its place in the child’s linear development. But
such an essentialist approach, in which play is defined by the basic elements
that compose it, misses its quality of totality and even more importantly its
existential significance, which extends beyond the ontic condition of being to
that of coming into being itself. George Moran’s naive answer, which was not
given out of a knowing self-awareness, is an outstanding example of an
intuitive definition of play as a transcendental event, a definition that for me
has acquired greater depth over the years.
Now, as we stand at the close of one century of psychoanalysis and in the
early decades of another, these ideas are crystallizing into a new certainty. It
can be claimed that the most recent decades of psychoanalytic activity have
shifted the focus from its former historical phases of energy and structure to its
present center of gravity, which is the immersion in human experience (Kulka
1988, 1991). Thus, the present generation demarcates the new boundaries of
the psychoanalytic discipline at the very center of the postmodern context,
which has adopted as one of its keystones the transition from the rational,
cogitative and analytical man, Homo sapiens, to Homo ludens – the playing man.
In essence, this change has seen the turning of psychoanalysis from a linear
depth psychology into a non-linear psychology of the field. This is not only a

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shift from a one-person psychology to a two-person psychology but the

transformation of psychoanalysis from a Newtonian epistemology, which
deciphers existing entities, to a quantum ontology that touches not on mere
being, but on the unending potential of becoming.
It is painful to note that child psychoanalysis is not part of this historical
movement, and it is regrettable to observe that the unique voice of those who
treat children, and who always embodied in their contributions the most
dramatic innovations in the development of psychoanalysis, is now completely
silent. In a previous paper (Kulka 1990), I proposed that as long as psycho-
analysis was a depth psychology it was precisely child analysis that preserved
the special quality of the analytic encounter as an interactive field of one
person and an other. Indeed, in a somewhat ironic retrospective look, it seems
that most of the special characteristics of child analysis, and first and foremost
play, which were always considered parametric modifications contaminating
the purity of the analytic work, are those that in fact constitute and preserve
the field components of psychoanalytic work.
The most crucial significance arising from the potential of psychoanalysis to
become a comprehensive field theory is the resultant view of a human being as
both immanent and transcendental (Kulka 1995). In other words, the human
subject is at one and the same time a finite and an infinite creature, and that
is the essence of which life is made, not only at the moment of birth and at
the moment of death, but at every moment of its occurring. Traditional
psychoanalysis, which moves between Freud and Klein to Lacan and early
Bion, defines an individual in terms of his or her immanent quality – his or
her separateness from the world, imperfection and finitude – and sees a person’s
development and realization as an ongoing process of the rational acceptance
of the limits of his or her existence, a kind of cumulative process of awakening
from an illusion, and a sort of mature mourning. In contrast to this modern–
positivistic view, the revolutionary concept of the psyche as a field brings into
psychoanalysis the postmodern quantum notion of the constant creation of life
and the world by the human being. Where the classical idea spoke of the
uncovering of the existing psyche via the disclosure and deciphering of what
already is, this fascinating approach presents the notion of a re-created soul,
emerging via its constant becoming (Kulka 1997). Thus, our genera-
tion completes the picture of mankind bequeathed to us by the founding
fathers by adding the transcendental aspect of existence, that which knows
that the unceasing human desire to ascend beyond one’s humanity is not a
denial of one’s humanity but an organic part of it, not only a wish but a real
happening.
When, during the preparation for this presentation, I tried to define the
psychoanalytic transcendentalism in which I believe, I recalled Heidegger’s
determination that transcendence is the primordial constitution of subjectivity,
and that to be a subject means to transcend (1968). This position, with which
I completely identify, represents the existential roots of psychoanalysis; roots

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that, despite the positivistic hegemony that has always accompanied its
crystallization, indicate that psychoanalysis was born in the midst of the
events that established Western existentialism in the middle of the last
century. But it is no less awe-inspiring to note the relevance of Heidegger’s
statement to the psychoanalytic drama of our era, an era that has placed
subjective selfhood in the center and has transformed psychoanalysis from the
ultimate psychology of individuality into the most promising psychology of
subjectivity (Kulka 1994).
The gradual infiltration of transcendentalism into psychoanalysis has been
resonating in every one of its schools: whether subtly, as with some of the neo-
Freudians (for example, Loewald 1980), or more explicitly, as with some of the
intersubjectivists (such as Sorenson 1997), or passionately, as in the surprising
call made by Grotstein (1996), a disciple of the Kleinian–Bionian paradigm,
to declare transcendence as a psychic position representing the highest sphere
of human development. But I would like to return to the moment of the
“beginning.”
The year is 1971; two events occurring on either side of the Atlantic signal,
in my view, the beginning of the evolutionary voyage of psychoanalysis
towards becoming a field theory. D. W. Winnicott dies in London, and his last
work, Playing and Reality, appears posthumously as a kind of final testament.
This work presents, for the first time, a psychoanalytic theorization of playing
as a potential space for the creation of significant life, and from now on, even
if not always consciously, play will become the psychoanalytic code word for
the concept of field.
In the very same year, Heinz Kohut’s book, The Analysis of the Self appears
on the other side of the ocean, marking the explicit beginning of self
psychology. And it is perhaps not coincidental that the book was published
under the auspices of the Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, the highest authority
on child psychoanalysis. At the center of the new theory stands the empathic
matrix of selfobject relations, the first systematic attempt to form a complete
psychoanalytic theory based on the concept of the field of two persons as a
creating occurrence of the human self.
These two events are seemingly coincidental occurrences within a huge and
inclusive, non-coincidental happening. Just as the fluttering of a butterfly’s
wings in Brazil makes it rain in Texas, so these events have resounded
powerfully ever since. It is no wonder, then, that these are the two historical
events that I will be conjoining into my theoretical proposal about the
conceptualization of playing as an analytical transcendental selfobject.
What is a selfobject and what are selfobject relations? Even after almost
three decades of theoretical and clinical investigation into the meaning of
the term we are only on the threshold of recognizing its potential extensions,
and thus I will present here what I believe to be the very heart of the matter:
any other whose presence in relation to me is experienced by me as generat-
ing and constructing my self is my selfobject. The unique word “other”

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indicates that a selfobject can be anything – a person, an environment, a

phenomenon, an idea, a work of art, an event, or an object; but despite the
infinitude of forms that the selfobject can take, this other must fulfill one
criterion: it has to be at one and the same time itself, in itself and for itself, and,
in a seemingly mysterious way and via the osmotic processes of its devoted
immersion in me, it must be me: a kind of “I-ness” that is outside me but
without which I am not, and only through processes of merger with it do
I become, and I am me.
My main assertion in the present work is that the play that occurs in the
analytic treatment of children is a unique instance of a selfobject. In this I wish
to extend the boundaries of Winnicott’s formulation of playing as a field,
called a potential space, and, via the comprehensive field approach of self
psychology, to pave the epistemological way for that systematic definition of
play as a selfobject. The significance of this assertion is that the playing of a
child, whether alone or with a treating other as an integral part of the play, is
not a projective product of the child’s inner world, nor is it a relational dialogue
with another. The playing of a child in fact perfectly fulfills the ultimate
criterion of the other as a selfobject – someone or something outside me
who is me; not an other who is painted with my projections, nor even a
product of my imagination located outside of me, but a distinctive entity, an
otherness whose returned devotion to the player is absolute. The elusive
emergence–dissolution of the ontological–logical rupture between the playing
child and his play carries with it a transcendental message relating to the
paradoxical, even mysterious, situation of a selfhood extending from itself to
be itself.
My proposal to regard play as a transcendental event is connected to a
necessary fundamental change in the psychoanalytic definition of human
consciousness, which has always been identified with reflexivity and awareness,
with the transformation of psychic materials from an unconscious to a
conscious state, and with the conscious product of this process. This world
view is basically materialistic and sees in consciousness a kind of container of
materials produced and stored within it. Intentional entrance into this
container is given to us only through the methodology of free association or
its substitute in child analysis – play.
The view of play as an aperture into the mysteries of the unconscious
was shared by Melanie Klein and Anna Freud from the very beginning of
the psychoanalysis of children. Despite their historic disagreement, which
began in their seminal contributions to child analysis (Freud 1926–1927;
Klein1927/1932), they both maintained that play corresponds to free
association and saw these two phenomena as the channels through which one
could reach the unconscious and the material extracted therefrom.
The concept that views play as a mediating medium, which enables a
knowing penetration of the depth of the inner world, is natural to all of us to
this day. It is this hegemonic view, which sees consciousness itself as identical

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with its products, whether unconscious and hidden or conscious and manifest,
which I believe has to be radically changed.
A transcendental point of departure sees consciousness in a completely
different light: not as material but as an emptiness, a kind of empty tissue of
no content, the wave modality of human existence, the mere tendency towards
existing rather than its realization in a phenomenal projection. To paraphrase
Daniel Stern’s profound and almost Zen statement on the human sense of self
(1985), consciousness from this point of view is a non-reflexive awareness; it
is the thing in itself, the noumenon and not its phenomenal reflection.
What has play to do with this non-structural definition of consciousness? It
has often happened to me that at the end of a session with a girl or a boy, when
I stand in the field of play that they have left behind, wandering unthinkingly
between the toys, papers, paint puddles, soldiers and animals, I have felt as if
I am walking not among the projected materials of the unconscious but in the
landscape of unconsciousness, in the unconscious itself. It is the experience of
being in the thing itself, in a wholeness that cannot be broken into components
because it has no components besides itself. I suggest, then, that the ontological
status of playing is that of consciousness itself. It is consciousness!
The transcendentality of play is, then, three-fold: it is beyond the phenom-
enological. It is beyond the solid, particle, mode of existing. It is beyond
the rupture between subject and object or between subject and other subject
or between the subject and himself/herself. Playing, then, reaches the climax
of its selfhood not through being a self-conscious awareness, which thus lives
in the Cartesian cleavage within which I am not the subject that I am but
rather the object of myself, but through being an unaware consciousness.
To demonstrate existentialist and spiritual issues didactically and via
isolated instances in clinical material is a paradoxical task and it is comforting
to draw on Winnicott for this purpose. In what is, in my eyes, the most
awesome description of the treatment of a child in psychoanalytic literature
(1931, 1941, 1971), Winnicott presents the story of an analytic crisis inter-
vention with a baby girl. The child, about a year old, spent the entire first year
of her life in a state of constant discontent, incessant crying, and difficulties in
eating and digesting, which even developed in some instances into infective
gastro-enteritis that necessitated hospitalization. At the age of nine months
she began to develop an alarming symptom of convulsions, increasing in
frequency to as many as five times a day and accompanied by involuntary
urination and tongue biting. Between the fits, she was thrown into a kind of
compulsive sleep. No organic reason was found for her deteriorating condition.
And thus writes Winnicott:

At one consultation I had the child on my knee observing her. She

made a furtive attempt to bite my knuckle. Three days later I had her
again on my knee, and waited to see what she would do. She bit my
knuckle three times so severely that the skin was nearly torn. She

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then played at throwing spatulas on the floor incessantly for fifteen

minutes. All the time she cried as if really unhappy. Two days later
I had her on my knee for half an hour. She had had four convulsions
in the previous two days. At first she cried as usual. She again bit my
knuckle very severely, this time without showing guilt feelings, and
then played the game of biting and throwing away spatulas; while on
my knee she became able to enjoy play. After a while she began to finger
her toes, and so I had her shoes and socks removed. The result of this
was a period of experimentation which absorbed her whole interest.
It looked as if she was discovering and proving over and over again,
to her great satisfaction, that whereas spatulas can be put to the
mouth, thrown away and lost, toes cannot be pulled off.
Four days later the mother came and said that since the last
consultation the baby had been “a different child.” She had not only
had no fits, but had been sleeping well at night – happy all day,
taking no bromide . . . I visited this child one year later and found
that since the last consultation she had had no symptom whatever. I
found an entirely healthy, happy, intelligent and friendly child, fond
of play, and free from the common anxieties.
(emphasis in original)

This illustration, as he calls it, demonstrates Winnicott’s first interest in

play, and constitutes, according to him, the theory of play that he was offering
to psychoanalysis. Despite understatement that characterizes the passage, one
cannot but be aware of the life and death drama which occurred in the few
days of the baby’s treatment.
I have no doubt that if Winnicott had not given the child back her faith in
her real existence she could not have lived except within the experience of
death, which was embodied by her convulsions and subsequent bouts of sleep,
to the point of becoming absolute reality. But Winnicott in his modesty
refrains from unfolding the fundamental issue for us: the child’s playing with
the spatulas as symbolic objects representing the certainty that her body
existed, was whole, and was in no danger of disintegration and obliteration –
this playing came into being through the testing of the continuous reality of
Winnicott’s fingers, despite or perhaps through her terrifying bites. Every
time I read this drama I am amazed that Winnicott does not tell us whether
he grimaced with pain, whether he groaned or whether he had to overcome his
ego instinct to remove his fingers from that mouth, tormented as it was with
the terror of oblivion. In my view, it was the parts of her own body that the
child was biting in Winnicott’s fingers, as he became her selfobject – someone
outside her body who was her own body, the body on which she had to test
her fear of dying before she could symbolize this fear and play with it, and
finally dare to put her own toes, her own body, her whole existence, to the
acid test.

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I hope that the analysis of this example shows something of the enriching
potential in conjoining Winnicott’s virtuosity with the systematic quality of
Kohut’s conceptualization for the establishment of a comprehensive psycho-
analytic stance on the transcendental aspect of human existence. Such a stance
revolves, I believe, round three fundamental axes: (1) An unending re-creation
based on the Heraclitean principle of humankind as an everlasting becoming;
(2) the unceasing quest for the hidden aspect of human selfhood, for the thing
itself, a concept that views the search for the real, for the noumenon, not as a
stubborn regressive pull or as resistance to growth, but as a constant act of
development of a higher order; (3) the recognition that neither of these
processes can occur except within an affinity in which one person takes an
ethical responsibility for an other – an affinity that is not a relationship in the
mutual meaning of the term.1
The emergence of the transcendental aspect in analytic treatment and the
creation of the appropriate fabric for the correct way to touch it, even remotely
like Winnicott does, a touch which of course exists in each of us, is once again
something that is difficult to demonstrate specifically. However, the several
vignettes from an analytic treatment that follow might, I believe, show all
three of the axes I have defined above and the special way they accompanied
the analyst and the child under his care.2
Sharon, an eight-year-old girl, was referred to analytic treatment because of
her aggressive and uncontrolled behavior with other children and at home. She
wanted to be a boy, behaved like one and referred to herself in the masculine
gender. As an infant, Sharon was breastfed until the age of a month, when
she was weaned by the mother for no clear reason. In her first year of life, the
mother was the family’s breadwinner while Sharon’s care was entrusted to the
father. This arrangement probably met a complex matrix of the parents’ needs,
and especially a hidden and rather severe difficulty in the mother’s relation to
mothering. The father did in fact function as a mother, but in the raising of his
daughter there existed a hidden wish for a son. Both parents were caring and
devoted, but each brought his or her personal difficulties to the relationship
with the daughter: the father, a tantalizing blend of abundant warmth and
narcissistic vulnerability that created in Sharon a great confusion concern-
ing father–daughter roles, and the mother, carrying on the family history of
women who had, in one way or another, avoided good enough mothering.
A short time after the beginning of the treatment all the behavioral
symptoms abated and the analytic work revolved around a long and systematic
process of returning the child to the girl that she was through a long series of
a dramatic role playing which unfolded a complex ongoing plot. At the center
of the drama was Avi, the role assumed by the child, an authoritative, famous,
rich and powerful man, holding various executive and leadership positions.
Avi had a son called Benny towards whom he was a perfect father: gentle,
generous, empathic and attentive. The therapist, on the other hand, was given
feminine roles which, during the co-construction between the child’s direction

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and the therapist’s empathic immersion, created and mobilized something

like a complete developmental trajectory. This course of development, which
began with the wife of Avi and the mother of Benny, a woman who was much
more of a wife than a mother, was continued by a varied array of empathic
female figures, who paved the way for the retrieval of a restored and good
mother figure.
The intensity of identification assumed by both the child and the therapist
during the role playing was the core of the therapeutic process. Despite the
therapist’s fear of “going all the way” with his feelings towards the child under
his care as a man and towards himself as a woman, it was the devoted immersion
that turned the playing into a transcendental selfobject in which, through the
therapist’s wholehearted stance as a woman-mother for the child, a girl was
gradually created out of the man she was.
The Hebrew language makes a gender difference, which is lost in translation
into English, both in person and in the conjugation of verbs. This difference
makes the reading of the session notes a surrealistic experience: the therapist
as the mother writes to himself of himself in the feminine, and his references
to Sharon, not only those aimed directly at her but also those that he writes to
himself about her, are in the masculine, as if it really were not a girl in
treatment but Avi, a man.
Each session began with a kind of concrete–symbolic act that substituted
for the child’s former need to come in accompanied by her mother and sit on
her lap at the beginning of the session. Now Sharon comes in by herself, with
her coat pulled over her head and eyes. Bent over, she gropes her way into the
room. The therapist gently guides her with his words into the room, and
when she reaches the center, he says: “You are inside.” Both participants in
this recurrent act probably know that they are reconstructing Sharon’s birth
into a world where it was not at all certain that she would be accepted for what
she was. The phrase, “You are inside” really encoded the meaning of “you are
out, you are born, but you are inside, now in our hearts, wanted and belonging,
in the outer womb of life with your mother and father and family.”
The following is part of a session from of the first stage of the therapy:
Following the ritualized entrance, Sharon whispers: “Avi and Grace” (at
this stage of the therapy, Grace is Avi’s wife and Benny’s mother). The therapist
nods. Sharon portrays Avi in his office. He acts very self-importantly. There
are many messages for him. The child motions the therapist to be Avi’s wife
who is visiting him in his office.
Grace: “Avi is very important. People want him, need him.”
Avi receives her with an outstretched hand and with a certain affection and
informs her that he will be absent for a few days on a business trip: “Tell
Benny not to worry.”
Grace: “Yes, he might worry that you have disappeared, that something has
happened to you.”
Avi: “Yes, but it is only for a few days, it’s not a long time.”

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Grace: “Yes, but for us it seems a lot. We’ll miss you very much.”
Avi: “Yes, I know that. Do you know what? Call Benny, I want to speak to
him.”
Grace brings Benny, a little boy doll. Avi hugs him, wraps him in his coat
and whispers in his ear: “Don’t worry, I love you.”
This is a moving moment because of the gentleness and emotion that Avi
puts into the hug and the words.
Grace: “Benny is very lucky to have a father that takes care of him, hugs him
and covers him up.”
Avi: “Do you want something to eat? I’ll order you a hamburger.” He
grandly lifts up the receiver and places an order for a generous meal for his
son, his wife and himself.
Grace: “You are very generous and give us a lot and fill up our hungry
stomachs before you go, but I’m not sure if that will be enough when you are
not with us. We will miss you very much.”
Within the free mandate that Sharon gave the therapist–mother, the
therapist took on himself the persistent expression of the child needing his
father. But furthermore, thanks to the fact that it was the mother who held
the attunement even when she was admiring the father for his empathic
fathering, and that it was she who was attentive to the moments of neglect
and abandonment of the child by his father, a mother figure was created not
only for Benny, their shared child in the play, but also for Avi, who was Sharon,
the girl who, in the absence of good enough mothering, entrenched herself in
the protective identification with the man – the father.
The total acceptance of the illusory bubble of the play, so highlighted by
the gender reversal between therapist and child, imbued the play with its
noumenal quality, as a thing itself. The fiction was not only fantasizing or
creative imagining but the event itself, a creative occurrence in which, as a
result of the therapist’s almost lunatic readiness not to observe the play but to
live it, the symbolic was the real. And what about the therapist’s observation
that was always simultaneously taking place during the play? This observation
served not the cogitation that splits the noumenon from the phenomenon, but
only the total intentionality of attunement.
The therapist, who systematically held the maternal preoccupation in his
portrayal of the wife of Avi, the mother of Benny, constructed an empathic
mother figure. This process led to a series of episodes in which the child gave
the therapist the character of the owner of a bar-diner, Angela, who was both
Avi’s personal assistant and Benny’s devoted baby-sitter.
The psychic development facilitated through the changes in the plot will be
demonstrated through a number of episodes from this phase of the treatment.
Avi is now a very senior commander in a special police force. He enters the
bar where Angela waits for him. He begins a pleasant conversation with her,
while displaying his special pistol. He asks for a cigarette and his special
drink – a strong beer (while many of the requisites for the various episodes are

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satisfied by a flexible and symbolic use of the toys and play things in the
room, the drink has to be real, and the beer is a bottle of mineral water).
Avi: “How are you? Everything OK?”
Angela: “Fine, and you? I remember how I looked after Benny on Wednesday
while you went to the movies with your wife.”
Avi: “I want to bring Benny and my wife to you again. Can you take care of
them here?”
Angela: “Sure.”
Avi brings Benny and his wife and asks Benny: “What do you want to
drink? Hot chocolate? Angela, make a hot chocolate for Benny.”
Angela makes a hot chocolate and says to Benny: “You’re with me now and
I’ll take care of you and your Mommy when your Daddy leaves.”
Avi puts Benny into Angela’s arms and Angela holds him in a feeding
position and gives him a glass of hot chocolate. Avi kisses his wife passionately.
Angela says to Benny: “Now Daddy Avi is very thirsty to feel Mommy very
very close, just like you are thirsty for this sweet hot chocolate.”
Avi places his wife in a chair. She keeps falling down but he keeps picking
her up and putting her in the chair till she is sitting firmly.
A few days later, Sharon wants to continue the bar episode with Angela.
Avi comes into the bar with Benny and seems to be waiting, looking up at
Angela.
Angela: “Hello, how are you? Good to see you.”
Avi says to Benny gently: “Go to Angela, OK? I’ll be there in a minute.”
Angela: “Do you want something to drink?”
Avi: “Give Benny a hot chocolate and cookies.”
Angela: “And for you, Avi? What would you like?”
Avi: “Me? [as if considering] I’ll have a beer, but a light beer.”
Angela: “Yes, so you won’t have an accident while driving. We have to take
care of you.”
During the same session, close to its end, the process is completed:
Avi, who returns to the bar after performing the task for which he left his
son with Angela, takes Benny and goes with him to the movies. There, in the
cinema bar, following Sharon’s instructions, waits the therapist, now as the
owner of the cinema. The owner, on his own initiative, offers Avi a private
screening, for himself and his son. Avi is delighted with the suggestion,
accepts enthusiastically and, as if casually, orders popcorn and hot chocolate
this time for both Benny and himself . . .
The task is now half done. While it is still the man-father, the owner of the
cinema, who nourishes the girl in the guise of Avi, nonetheless, a transitional
process has been completed: from whisky, via strong beer and light beer finally
to hot chocolate – the food of all the babies of this world.
Angela, the substitute mother-figure whom the therapist must continue to
weave, was born out of the need for a woman in whom there would be no
rupture between femininity and motherhood, someone who could at one and

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the same time be a caring, supporting wife who accompanied her husband on
his life’s voyage, and an attentive and competent mother in her care of her
baby daughter. The present mother, the one embodied in Avi’s wife, a figure
who could not be trusted as a mother because she kept falling off the chair,
could perhaps finally come into being only in the presence of a different kind
of woman, like the one realized by Angela.
Even though I tried to find a name in English that would be equivalent to
the Hebrew name that the child gave to the Angela figure, I could not find
one that could transmit the meaning in all its depth. The original Hebrew
name was Ruhama, a word which means “she who has been rewarded with
compassion.” This word is composed of two elements – womb (in Hebrew:
rehem) and spirit (in Hebrew: ruah) – and forcefully testifies to the fact that the
play taking place between therapist and child was not just the representation
of an existing inner world but a real-transferential field which created a
new mother–child dyad. Moreover, the combination of femaleness and spirit
contained within this total empathic compassion was not only an exact
reflection of the fundamental problem of this child, who needed a womb so
that she herself could emerge in the world as a daughter, who would grow up
to be a mother, but also charted the actual transcendental course of this
treatment along all three of its axes.
But the process of returning Sharon to the bosom of the girl that she was
could not take place without returning her to her mother in a more direct way
within the plot unfolding in the play, and that process constituted the next
phase of the therapy. It began with an episode in which the family went on
vacation and Avi invited his mother to join him, his wife and Benny. The
therapist was the one who took on the role of the grandmother, playing,
following Sharon’s instructions, an egotistical and detached woman. Although
she was a little warmer and indulgent to her grandson, Benny, it was the
working through of her chronic lack as a mother to Avi that provided the
opportunity to establish the necessary foundation for the crucial phase in
the process of bringing Sharon back to her mother, first only covertly but
finally explicitly.
Avi, his wife and Benny are invited to a party at a friend’s house. The host’s
adolescent daughter flirts with Avi, who enchants her with his personality and
manliness. The girl completely ignores both Avi’s wife and Avi’s fatherly
attitude to the infant in his arms. This overlooking is expressed in Sharon’s
persistent instructions to the therapist playing the admiring adolescent to
keep the girl innocent to the point of massive denial of the fact that this was
a whole family. The therapist, following the general instruction creatively, has
the girl repeatedly say to herself: “I bet that boy is the son of that woman and
she is only a kind of friend of his, that’s all.”
While the overt material of this exchange contains various Oedipal issues,
it seems that in the transcendental vein of the therapy this was a critical
moment: the baby was no longer the man’s baby, but was returned to its

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natural place, to a dyad with the mother. Thus, seemingly casually and under
the cover of questions belonging to the higher developmental order of the
Oedipal constellation, Sharon made the really daring move of returning to the
mother. And once again, like Winnicott’s infant patient, she could take this
critical step only through the therapist who gave back to the girl he was
playing the knowledge that the baby belonged at his mother’s breast.
This return to the mother’s breast moved forward to its completion a few
weeks later when Sharon began a new period. Now that the mother’s figure
had been restored and it was possible to return to her, there remained the
question of the identity of the returnee: was it Avi, the powerful man who
leans on his masculinity as a constant compensation for his authentic infantile
neediness? Or a different figure, closer to Sharon’s real being as a girl?
This was the main change of this period. It began with several situations
in which Avi needed a courageous and assertive deputy to rescue a girl from
an avalanche of rocks, and continued with his confession that he could no
longer keep control over and resolve all the problems. Thus, through the
changing figure of Avi, the child was saying that the masculine could no
longer compensate the girl who had been so injured, and, moreover, that the
male element could no longer bring about the renewed emergence of the girl
that she was. At this time Sharon created an episode in which the figure of Avi
for the first time no longer existed. Instead, as she directed–whispered to the
therapist, she became “Eli, an eleven-year-old boy, new in town and school,
but very cool and popular with all the girls in the class.”
I have chosen to end this demonstration with a fragment from the continuing
saga of this eleven-year-old boy, who, while still not a girl, is nevertheless
already a child who leans on a loving and understanding mother, who recognizes
that an organic part of her healing empathy also contains her acknowledgment
of the empathic ruptures in her original mothering.
And this is what the therapist wrote in his notes: Eli, at the end of school,
comes home to me, to his mother. He asks my permission to go out with a
friend to buy a hamburger. I allow him to do so. In the next scene I am the
saleswoman who takes the order. Eli orders two beers, but, according to Sharon’s
instructions, I do not agree to this because they are under age. Only adults are
allowed. Eli repeatedly insists and I continue to disagree. He runs home to
Mommy. I, now his mother, come to the restaurant and explain to the
saleswoman: “You know that Eli has been drinking beer since he was a year old,
or even earlier. He drank beer instead of my milk, which wasn’t good for him.
He was very thirsty and looked for something else to fill him up and he found
comfort in his Daddy’s beer. So, do you see? With us, he did drink beer.” In the
ensuing conversation with the saleswoman I repeat the explanation and add:
“Something happened to him with me at the beginning of his life: I didn’t give
him the thing that could fill him up and make him feel understood and as if he
belonged, and then he began to feel different and began to search for
adult things, perhaps as a compensation.” As I finish this sad reconstruction,

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Eli turns to the saleswoman and says: “OK, forget the beer; I want a chocolate
milkshake.”
Sharon’s therapy still continues and time will tell whether the process of her
complete attachment with the girl that she is will mature totally within the
field of play that is co-constructed by both partners.
Something in human nature, Winnicott tries to entice us to believe,
transcends both primary and secondary processes. That something is the
existential element that distinguishes between psyche and soul and which can
only be given a basis for reflection through a transcendental perspective. Play
is perhaps the outstanding representative of such a view. But that is not true
of all play nor of all the ways we use play. Transcendental play, that which
facilitates the retranscription of the past (Modell 1990) and even perhaps the
actual change of the psychological genome (Herzog 1996), is only the play
that is played out of a total empathic intention which transforms it into a
selfobject occurrence. Such a playing mode turns the transference into an
event that creates the thing itself, and the interpretative deed inherent to this
transferential event is not an external act, foreign to the material, but the
actual role that the therapist takes on herself or himself to be.
From this new vantage point, psychoanalysis as a field theory brings, I
believe, two issues to the center of our awareness as thinkers and as therapists:
the ethical aspect of our ontological responsibility towards our other, and the
centrality of the feminine aspect to the act of psychoanalytic treatment. If the
soul is continuously recreated as the field of one person with another for whom
he or she is responsible, then the ethical question becomes not just a peripheral
component but an organic part of the field. No less radical is the question of
the relationship between the masculine component of the therapeutic act, a
component that achieved such amazing sophistication in classical psychoanaly-
sis, and the feminine component, which necessitates an articulation that is
still in its primary stages for all of us. These two matters suggest a new
conceptualization of depth, no longer an easily assimilated linear concept, and
a new insight relating to transference which is no longer just the return of
what has already occurred but also a non-linear return of what should be both
in the past and in the future.
I can only end by offering my deep conviction that as the feminine aspect
and the ethical responsibility for the other mark the future horizon of the
analytic field, it is all the more natural for those who treat children to be at the
center of the great changes in contemporary psychoanalysis. And I can only
hope that as individuals, and more importantly as a community, we will fulfill
this emotional and philosophical commitment.

Notes
1. For the philosophical basis of the empathic position of being a selfobject I owe a
debt of gratitude to many aspects of the inspiring theory of Emmanuel Levinas, the
French-Jewish thinker, one of the greatest ethical existentialists of this century.

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2. I am grateful to Aryeh Green, a colleague and Candidate at the Israeli Institute of

Psychoanalysis, for his generous agreement to let me use this fascinating clinical
material.

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—— (1997) “Quantum selfhood”, Psychoanaytic Dialogue, 7:183–187.
Loewald, H. (1980) Papers on Psychoanalysis. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Modell, A. (1990) Other Times, Other Realities: Towards a Theory of Psychoanalytic
Treatment, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Sorenson, R. (1997) “Transcendence and intersubjectivity. The patient’s experience of
the analyst’s spirituality”, in C. Spezzano and G. Gargiulo (eds.), Soul on the Couch:
Spirituality, Religion and Mortality in Contemporary Psychoanalysis, Hillsdale, NJ:
Analytic Press.
Stern, D. (1985) The Interpersonal World of the Infant, New York: Basic Books.
Winnicott, D. W. (1931) Clinical Notes on Disorders of Childhood. London: William
Heinemann.
—— (1941) “The observation of infants in a set situation”, International Journal of
Psychoanalysis, 22:229–249.
—— (1971) Playing and Reality, London: Tavistock.

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 3
SPACE AND PLAY

Introduction: Play as a movement of the soul:

Some thoughts on order and disorder

Emilia Perroni
Let me begin by telling a short story. One day, while walking along a Jerusalem
street, I saw two children near a kindergarten. From their resemblance to one
another and their clothes, I took them to be brothers. The older one was about
six years old and the other perhaps four. The younger one was sobbing
piteously and refused to budge. The older brother was trying in vain to
convince him to continue on their way. I approached them and asked the
younger child why he was crying, but he was sobbing so much he couldn’t
talk. The older one told me that his younger brother wanted to go back home
along a different street than the usual one that day, but that he had promised
their mother they would take the fixed route. The small child was a little bit
calmer now, probably because his brother had expressed the reason for his
anguish in words or for some other reason, which I don’t know. While still
sobbing, he complained that people can’t follow the same route all the time;
that it is impossible to do such a thing. “Today,” he said, “I want to go a
different way.” I told him he was absolutely right, that each of us needs a
change now and then and that one cannot do the same thing every day.
I suggested to them that after they got home, they should ask their mother’s
permission to change their route now and then. The child stopped crying and
the two brothers continued on their way home.
That little boy’s unusual wish to break the everyday routine and to
create something new expressed the need to bring elements of chaos into
routine life.
In ordinary Israeli speech, the expression beseder, meaning “in order” (and
also “okay”), is very common, and in general “order” is identified with a good
and satisfactory situation. Indeed, the word seder (order) has a strong presence
in the Hebrew language, and it is used in countless ways: the order of marriage,
the prayer book is ordered, there are six orders of the Mishnah; order can mean

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the regime, it can mean a systematic, linear arrangement, and so on. On the
other hand, in everyday speech, this word can have a negative connotation,
meaning to deceive or to cheat someone, to get them.
Luciano De Crescenzo, a former engineer who became a writer and a
philosopher, wrote in his book Ordine e Disordine (Order and Disorder, 1996)
that few people can be unambiguously categorized as being on the side of
“order” or of “disorder.” As he sees it, most people express both these tendencies
in different proportions. For example, most of us demand order in the pilot’s
cockpit, but are not interested in order when there is a party going on;
we demand order in the operating room, the pharmacy and the arrange-
ments for garbage collection, but with regard to freedom of expression most
of us are not interested in order. In this area there are stereotypes and surprises:
contrary to the stereotype whereby the artist enjoys absolute freedom,
sometimes an artist must mobilize self-discipline far greater than that
demanded of an ordinary human being. If we play the intellectual game of
listing famous people characterized by order and disorder, we will find
geniuses and criminals in both categories. “Order” and “disorder” are not
parallel to “good” and “bad.”
We find fans of both order and disorder: there are philosophers of order and
philosophers of disorder, scientists of order and scientists of disorder, artists of
order and artists of disorder, and this is equally true of psychologists, writers
and politicians. Disorder might arouse more sympathy than order, because
disorder is perceived as synonymous with spontaneity, intuition and freedom.
In psychotherapy, the setting of hours and rules of treatment creates a
framework well enough defined that it is possible to permit some lack of order
in it. Order and disorder can also change places. It can happen, for example,
that a patient who lives in chaos will relate to the therapist as a representative
of the establishment, restricting freedom and spontaneity through rigid and
cruel rules. But the very same therapist, an hour later – when suggesting free
association to an orderly patient who plans sessions according to topics and
subtopics – will be perceived as the representative of chaos who undermines
the foundations of well-run society. In this context, let us recall the warning
of Heinz Kohut, in his book The Analysis of the Self (1971), that rapid intuition
and spontaneity can express narcissistic impulsiveness when they do not take
the other into account.
This phenomenon occurs not only in the therapeutic situation, but also in
general human relations.
Moreover, everything is relative: beyond people’s response to roles, order
and disorder are apparently cosmic forces, and equilibrium demands that they
be intermingled.
One finds an expression of that equilibrium in the rabbinical Midrash (see
footnote in the General Introduction) about the story of the Creation in the
phrase, “on the day that God made.” According to the Midrash, God was in
doubt as to whether to create the world according to Judgment (i.e. order), or

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Compassion – a doubt that is certainly familiar to every parent. The Midrash

goes on to ask:

What is this like? It is like a king who has empty cups. The king
said: “If I put boiling water in them, they will crack, cold water, they
will bulge.” What did the king do? He mixed boiling and cold water,
poured it in them, and they withstood. Thus said the Holy One,
blessed be He: “If I create the world according to the quality of
compassion, sins will be plentiful; with the quality of judgment, how
will the world subsist? So I will create it with the qualities of both
judgment and compassion, and let us hope it will subsist.”
(Breshit Rabba 12)

The most absolute “order” among the Jewish holidays is related to the
Passover Seder (“Order for Passover”). Surprisingly, though, this holiday
contains elements of both order and disorder. The Seder is composed of a
combination of prayers, blessings, and narrative in the form of a ceremony,
which symbolizes and simultaneously creates identification with the collec-
tive memory of the Exodus from Egypt as well as the transition from chaos to
stability.
For observant Jews, the order is preceded by chaos. Housecleaning in
preparation for the holiday consists, among other things, in moving about and
changing almost all the objects and kitchen appliances in the house. Chaos is
dominant. It happens very often that women who suffer from psychiatric
disturbances ask to be hospitalized during that period so to avoid facing such
an exhausting experience. Another element of chaos lies in the fact that
before approaching the Passover holiday, bread, the primary human food in
most countries of the world and symbolizing also “absolute good,” becomes a
kind of “enemy” that must be removed or isolated. In the Passover book,
“Haggadah” – which is read on the first night – the confusion is also expressed
in one of the “Four Questions” asked by the youngest child at the dinner table:
“Why is this night different from all other nights?” Hence, the Passover Seder
tells, among other things, that the essence of freedom is “the process of
becoming through movement between order and disorder.”
The difficulty of finding a balance between order and disorder is described
in Anton Chekhov’s story “The Man in a Case” (1898). He tells of Byelikov,
who lived with a compulsion of enveloping himself and each and every item
he carried in a protective garment. Even in the very finest weather he wore a
warm wadded coat, and could hide his face by raising the collar and by wearing
sunglasses. He always wore galoshes and never forgot to take with him his
umbrella, which he kept in a case made of gray chamois leather. Even his
pencil and the penknife to sharpen it were kept each in a little case made of
the same material. His appearance and his behavior denoted a compulsive
need to wrap himself in a “case,” like a sort of cocoon, in order to isolate

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himself from any external influence. Byelikov was a teacher of ancient Greek,
and his focus on the past was yet another form of living in “a case.” And it was
in the past that he lived. The present and the future could be a threat.
One day a young woman comes to the village and, to everyone’s astonishment,
a relationship develops between the flamboyant and cheerful woman and
the “man in the case.” There is a huge sensation in the village: at first everyone
laughs at the new couple, and then they quite enjoy seeing the “man in the
case” in the company of the young woman. But the story does not end happily:
Byelikov does succeed in developing a relationship with the woman, but later
he cannot withstand the chaos brought by the experience of falling in love.
It appears that Chekhov’s “man in the case” knows only two kinds of
reality – internal and external reality. He does not know the intermediate
space between the inner and the outer, which is the space where play is
played. The potential space is a free zone, where many contradictions exist
simultaneously, order and disorder among them. Play is also the breaking of
something permanent, changing the rules and creating new combinations or
not creating them at all. Play is a mixture of order and disorder, and there is
an interaction between ego and self: order expresses the ego, and disorder the
self. In waking dreams, in play, in dreams, and also in falling in love, we
all feel anarchy: by means of it we manage to do our daily tasks. Nietzsche
wrote that there has to be chaos within us, so that we can give birth to a
dancing star.
The following essays relate to the place of the soul and describe the term
“potential space,” and the space in which play occurs.

References
Chekhov, A. (1898) “The Man in a Case”, in Stories, New York: The Modern Library,
2000, Random House.
De Crescenzo, L. (1996) Ordine e Disordine, Milan: Arnoldo Mondadori.
Kohut, H. (1971) The Analysis of the Self, London: Hogarth Press.

Rites and games for creating sacred holy space

Avi Bauman
What does ritual have in common with authentic experience, about which
Winnicott writes? Today rituals appear to us as something adult, quite serious,
formal, collective, organized, and conducted according to rules. In this essay,
I discuss experiential rites that cause change – significant rituals and not
ceremonies that merely mark something external. Nevertheless, we shall
attempt to understand the marvelous connection between the order so vital to
ritual and the experience of the kind that touches our soul, and how both of
them together lead to change and self-development.

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I will introduce this topic by reference to Winnicott’s concept of the

potential space. The potential space of which Winnicott writes is a transitional
realm in which the child experiences himself and learns to play, to develop his
world, to experiment in order to expand, and to cope with the physical and
mental world in an internal and symbolic manner. This is a transitional realm
in which trials and experiences occur through which the child, still dependent
on his environment, maintains authentic contact with himself each time anew.
In this place, the connection with the real self is preserved, and the encounter
with this place constitutes a basis for experiencing initiation, instruction, and
self-exploration in the transition that the youth will later experience, as does
the adult (Winnicott 1953).
This experience will also enable the youth to learn to connect to transitional
areas that are transcendental, beyond ordinary life, in his continued develop-
ment. Even the adult individual who lives a gray, quotidian life and runs the
Promethean race to attain more knowledge, more success, and primarily more
Ego, seeks play areas that both relieve tensions and express higher needs, as
moments of redemption where he will feel more at one with himself. The
individual seeks a sacred realm, a sacred time or moment, delineated places of
significance, in which he can go back and contact and experience lost,
forgotten, and evolving parts of the Self, in Jungian terms (Jung 1946).
From time immemorial, the human capacity to be part of an experiential
ritual, to relate to ritual activity in symbolic fashion, to play a role in the
ritual himself, and to connect ritual to the general myth of his life has
enabled him to retain the equilibrium between contradictory elements in his
personality, to undergo change, to develop, and to give his life a higher
meaning.
People have always possessed the ability to cross a threshold, known as a
liminal state in anthropological literature (Turner 1969), and to enter
experiences of connection with higher worlds, onto which they project quite
a bit of their self, like the baby and child who project parts of their self or of
their mother onto the transition object.
The rituals to which we refer could be rites of passage, religious rituals, rites
of connecting with the past and even modern rituals in which people depart
from secularity and enter a domain with special significance. An example of
this could be psychoanalysis or another form of significant treatment where an
area of demarcation is created, providing access to an emotional, mental, or
spiritual state, and in which the patient reconstructs events from his distant
past and even undergoes rebirth and significant transformation in the presence
of another individual.
The roots of the potential to play, to symbolize, to enter the sacred area, and
even to undergo a significant process, are found at the outset of life, in early
childhood, as well as at the cradle of human civilization. Subsequently, we
shall see how this process transpires in new variations, like an old bottle that
is continually filled with new wine (Campbell 1988).

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The historian and theologian Mircea Eliade (1959) asserts that ever since
human beings became conscious, they in fact became religious creatures.
Hence, they had to create vital order in their life by allotting spaces and
occasions for the sacred and the profane. In his opinion, in sacred places and
times, people have always acted out of an inner center of their self, whence
they drew direction. In the place and time defined as sacred, forces of creation,
renewal, and change acted within people. At these times and places, people
underwent special experiences, in contrast with the secular state, in which
there was no central point from which they acted out of inner direction, but
rather out of what we define as the Ego, which is the center of consciousness
and responsible for functioning and adaptation to reality.
Sacred time and space helped people to break through the secular, to leave
the ego to a certain extent, and, like the Creator, to create the world each time
anew, always somewhat differently. On these occasions, as it were, the gate to
heaven, symbolism, significance is opened. As with Jacob’s ladder, which
connects heaven and earth, a possibility was created for approaching another
dimension. In Eliade’s opinion, even in prehistoric times, people found various
signs that symbolized the sacred for them, and when they indicated it as such,
they created it as a defined place. They selected mountains, trees, stones, wells,
various structures, and these were the places from which sensations, memories
and myths arose.
It was always possible to return to these primary places, to create a sort of
consensual ritual order, and to relive experiences. An order was created within
experience, a symbolic one that heightened its meaning. Sanctification was
therefore linked to demarcation, in setting boundaries and creating signs –
places of “put off thy shoes from off thy feet” – and experience took on meaning
by means of the order. Over time, the signs, boundaries, and order became
tied to general and private occasions, to periods of transition, or to life events
in which transformations or crises transpire.
Turner (1969), a social anthropologist who dealt with ritual processes,
expands on Eliade’s theory within modern society. He maintains that “crossing
the liminal threshold,” the objective of which is access to the realm of
experience, identification with ancestors, the forces of creation and creativity,
takes place today as well: the concept of a sacred place or a special occasion can
be extended to places of powerful and significant experiences.
We shall attempt to discuss places and times that are beyond the threshold
as areas where there is a transformative container, where one sacrifices the ego
and approaches the self or parts thereof, high and low; places where one feels
a fuller sense of self; places where entry brings about change and expansion of
the self. Sacrifice of ego in these places occurs with the arousal of emotions
characteristic of rituals: anxiety, pain, mercy, and empathy.
From the Jungian viewpoint, the Self represents the evolving inner essence,
and the archetype of spiritual wholeness that is expressed in the union of
opposites in the mind, such as conscious and subconscious, male and female,

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or anima and animus (Jung 1944), partially parallel to Winnicott’s being and
doing: the material and the spiritual, the good and the bad.
The Self, according to Jung, develops and becomes increasingly aware of
collecting the lost parts, which were projected or suppressed, and of the
integration that our personality undergoes in the process of individuation.
The individuation process occurs experientially while creating a certain inner
order, an order with meaning. The Self, which is the main archetype in the
psyche according to Jung, propels the personality to development and fulfill-
ment, and therefore it requires people to seek special moments of connection,
meaningful symbolic moments, in order to unify the opposites. Therefore,
people will seek areas and times of threshold-crossings. The threshold-crossing
gives impetus for evoking experiences for every possible facet of the psyche. A
facet of the psyche, for present purposes, might even be a darker part of the
soul, perhaps an instinctive or mad facet. Thus, the threshold crossings of
carnivals or – by contrast – of satanic cults and all sorts of other perverted
rituals are created. The ritual occasionally fails, and the transition is not a
transition or a significant connection, but rather merely an experience of
repetitive compulsive release, without resolution. It should also be remembered
that not every experience, even if it arose in a special place and time, is an
experience of change.
In the Greek pantheon, which included all types of gods that are like
spiritual archetypes expressing one facet or another of the soul, each god had
a myth, shrine, altar, time of worship, and ritual. While participating in
worship, the participant joined with one or another facet of his soul (Wosien
1974). I shall cite several illustrations here.
Apollo, the god of sun and wisdom, represented balance and sublime
individuality. In contrast, Dionysius, the god of wine and nature, represented
creativity, emotionality, orgiastic madness, and intermingling, like fermenting
wine. Both of them – although they are opposing gods – could constitute a
platform for a transformative ritual in contrasting fashions. Thus, the myth
recounts that Orpheus, the creative artist, was torn between the two, and his
mission was to connect between them by means of the art.
Additional examples are the goddesses Demeter, Cora, and Persephone,
whose cult features the mysteries of seed and growth, departure, and the cycles
of nature. Their cults were observed primarily by women in states of transition,
such as female puberty, marriage, birth, and leave-taking from mother or
daughter.
Additionally, the gods of healing demanded rituals of healing in the
Temenos, the temple of Aescalepius, with the symbolic assistance of Chiron
the injured centaur, a symbol of “the wounded healer.”
These rituals, which afforded a place for one facet or another of the spiritual
life of the individual, were connected to the cycles of nature and human life.
However, if we examine them from the psychological aspect, they were also a
function of the preservation of the person’s equilibrium and of the diverse and

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contrasting parts of the individual at the crossroads of transition. For example,

women who participated in the ceremonies of Dionysius took part – soon
before becoming young brides or mothers – in the mystery rituals of Demeter
and Cora.
The ceremonial character was always connected to the myth in terms of
content and symbol, and each action of dance and use of an object reconstructed
parts of the myth and connected them, but they also led to something new.
Therefore, it appears that even gods became objects for projections of the
various components of the psyche.
To illustrate, I will focus on rites of transition and initiation of Australian
tribes, referring to the ceremonies of Demeter and Persephone in Greece, and
I will discuss rituals of therapy as a transformative threshold-crossing
according to principles and stages in the rite of transition.
The transition from child to adult is an important and significant concept
in modern society, and much reference to this concept exists in education and
sociology. It is interesting to see how this concept appears in Australian
coming-of-age rituals, conducted by the aborigines at least until the beginning
of the twentieth century, and in which the focus of the ceremony was
“trans-transformative.”
The youths, aged ten to twelve, for whom this was the first time they went
out into the world, were removed from the village, and, as the women danced
around them, the men would toss them into the air several times. On the chest
of each youth was drawn a personal image that was related to his group and the
family to which his future wife was related. While hurling the boys aloft, the
men said, “May the boy reach the belly of the sky, may he grow to the belly
that is above, may he proceed directly to what is beyond.” Each boy received a
mythological figure from the fathers, a twin image for which he tried to
perform the tasks of the ceremony. The character was from the period of the
dream, the imagination, the chronicles of the tribe, and it was supposed to
accompany him during the rituals. Throughout the entire period of the rituals,
the boy had to be in the company of boys only, to cease hunting small creatures
(such as lizards), and to participate only in kangaroo hunting. Hunting, which
belonged to the world of animals and plants, was central in the ritual, since it
was central to the pursuits of this society, which worshipped nature, over
which it also attempted to attain mastery. In addition, this society was highly
collective, and the individual did not stand at its center. Indeed the youth
underwent a form of second birth, from the mother unto the sky, and his self
expanded beyond individual physicality to the spiritual–collective self of the
father. The transition to the patriarch and the masculine denoted social and
spiritual birth. The rituals therefore connected the boy to mythological figures
and to an order beyond the temporal: thus, myths and rituals would be a part
of his life from now on. Concerning this, Campbell says:
“Life, the here and now in a society such as this, is also an ongoing projection
of mythological life from the dream era” (Campbell 1987). The rites of the

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second birth, therefore, are connected to the fears and pain of leaving the
mother, and the compensation for loss of mother earth is expressed by directing
intellect, spirit, and desire inward toward his personality and outward toward
his masculinity. The logic that underlies these rituals, like ceremonies in
general and even psychoanalytical treatment, is the reorganization of libidinal
and aggressive impressions that were inculcated in infancy and childhood.
This reorganization is made possible by means of an encounter with a transfer-
ring intermediary in the ceremony, by arousing and resurrecting experiences
that are interwoven with fear and pain (physical as well), which are characteristic
of the early period, and by pity and empathy at a later stage in history,
experiences that have become central in the current therapeutic process.
Emotions of pain and fear that emerge in such a process in no way resemble
the depression and panic of the late twentieth century, which express precisely
the opposite; namely, the absence of the sacred in rituals and places, a vacuum
in the spiritual domain.
As the ceremony of the youth in transition continued, the main ceremony
took place. It would begin suddenly one evening, in the men’s camp. The
youth was seized by three strong men, who shouted at the top of their lungs,
wrestled with him, and frightened him. They led him to the site of the
ceremony, where they prepared him for circumcision. The entire community,
men and women together, was present on the spot and blessed him. He was
placed in the group of men, and the women, like the women who danced in
the patriarchal period, danced and threw shields up as in the dream world. All
this time the men sang. The boy stood and listened for the first time. Leather
straps were bound tightly to his forehead and a sash of plaited hair was tied to
his waist. Three men led him through the dancing women to tall bushes,
where he remained for several days. Afterward, they drew a symbol on his
body and the youth had to enter a period of silence, and he was forbidden to
tell the women or the children what happened to him. The secrets that were
revealed to him would become his own secrets. He had to answer tersely, keep
silent most of the time, and not stand out. Thus, the boy sat in total isolation
all night long, and he heard the singing and dancing from afar. On the next
day, he was led to the camp by his aunts and his future mother-in-law. His
mother watched the fire in the camp, and from that fire she removed two
burning staffs, one of which was passed to the boy’s mother-in-law and the
other to the boy himself. The men sang stories about fire. The mother
approached him, placed a leather strap on his neck, and blessed him that he
might succeed in preserving the fire, which symbolized his vitality. In
preparation for the ceremony, the boy was taken into the forest with the
burning rod, and sat there silently, partially fasting, for three days, so that his
imagination and fears increased. On the fourth day, he returned to the camp,
and on the same night the circumcision ceremony began, lasting about a
week. An elder recounted and sang a legend about one of the original patriarchs
to whom the rite of the circumcision was revealed. At midnight, the boy’s eyes

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were blindfolded, and he was taken to a central spot, where the games and
rituals were conducted. Opposite the boy lay a costumed, painted man, with
the face of a wild dog. Another costumed man with a kangaroo face stood with
his legs spread, holding two eucalyptus branches, moving his head from side
to side in protective motions, emitting kangaroo cries. The dog-man rose,
barked, and started running on all fours between the legs of the kangaroo
man. The kangaroo caught him after two attempts, dashed his head onto the
ground, pretending to kill him, and he lay on the ground for a short while as
if dead. Then four disguised men came: the eagle-man, the mouse-man, the
kangaroo-man, and the dog-man. The boy had to support their weight for two
minutes. The kangaroo games were replicated with the boy’s cooperation over
the course of two more days, symbolizing the overcoming of the animal in
myth and in life. On the seventh day, the boy was anointed with grease, as
three men took charge of him, painting a white pipe on his back. The blast of
a horn was suddenly heard in the air; the boy lay on his back, the men held
rods above him and swung them while lightly striking him. Strains of
chanting accompanied the ceremony, everyone entered a state of excitement,
the fire was made particularly bright, and the men who performed the
circumcision, their beards in their mouths, their legs open, and their arms
stretched forward, took their place alongside the boy. They stood in silence,
everyone saw the knife, and the father-in-law, who participated as well, held a
shield above the boy’s face. Loud horn blasts were heard, symbolizing the
voices of the spirits. The boy lay like a sacrifice among the rods, and two men
moved him, placing him atop the shield. The circumcision was carried out in
haste, everyone disappeared, and the boy who was in a semi-conscious state,
was blessed: “You did well, you did not cry . . .” The blood of the circumcision
flowed into the shield, and the horn was positioned on the spot of the wound.
Everyone introduced himself to him, and he received a gift of several horns.
The youth stood in a cloud of smoke as when he was baptized in smoke after
his birth.
All the boys had to undergo this ritual, and it was believed that youths who
did not receive the same induction constituted a danger to society, primarily
in that they were liable to become demons that would fly up to heaven and
bear away the souls of the elders. The ceremony brought them down and kept
them down. The circumcision symbolized the boy’s death and devouring.
Nevertheless, the adults received the youth with empathy and great identifi-
cation, even wounding themselves and feeding him their blood. The blood of
the adult men flowed onto him and created a symbolic connection to the
blood of the father. The blood that flowed and was collected served for painting
in rituals but also for glue. The blood symbolized spiritual food: it was not
mother’s milk, not food for infants; rather it was masculine food, the alchemical
force, both terrifying and fascinating, of the second birth (Campbell 1987).
The boy thus underwent a second birth by traversing a difficult threshold,
from a state of dependency on his mother toward taking part in the nature of

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the fathers, not merely by physical alteration due to circumcision, but rather
through spiritual experience, arousal of fantasies and fears, concomitantly
with the organizing of childhood imprints. As Freud wrote, adults arouse,
receive, and redirect Oedipal urges, and along with that, the desire to live and
to love.
Interestingly, the concept of a second birth as a symbol for this age appears
in many cultures. For example, in Greek mythology it is recounted that
Dionysius was born twice: the goddess Demeter concealed her daughter
Persephone in a cave while she was in Sicily, watching over her with the aid of
a pair of serpents. In her cave, the girl knitted a dress and embroidered a
marvelous image of the universe on it. The god Zeus appeared in the cave in
the form of a snake, impregnated her, and she bore Dionysius in his first birth.
He grew secretly in the cave, where his playthings were a ball, a rattle, blocks,
a golden apple, a ball of yarn, and a horn. When he grew into a youth,
Dionysius received a mirror as well, and began to look into it with pleasure.
As he gazed into the mirror, two Titans, which his stepmother Hera had sent
in revenge, appeared behind him. They were painted with white chalk and
attacked the boy, tore him to pieces, and saved his heart, cooking all the other
parts of his body in a large cauldron. Athena rescued his heart and brought it
to her father Zeus who swallowed it and then gave birth to Dionysius anew.
Hence he became a symbol of the transformative god and of rebirth.

What are rituals and symbolic ritualism in our own times?

The Bar Mitzvah ceremony is a religious ritual that symbolizes transition
from childhood to maturity. Military service in Israel can be mentioned as
partially a rite of passage. Likewise, religious marriage ceremonies can be seen
as rites of passage, (as can a civil marriage, insofar as there is a ceremony), as
well as various funerary rites.
Even today people clearly seek to connect rituals to repetitive cycles, to
myths, and to symbolic meaning. What transpires in religious and secular
ceremonies under the wedding canopy or at the graveside is intended to be
something from beyond, imbued with a certain symbolic significance. In all
rituals, we should search for the place and time suitable for that, the proper
emotions, the leader of the ritual, which transmits the connection to a story, a
myth, and to meaning.

Ritual and transition in a therapeutic setting

Even in the psychoanalytical therapeutic setting, there is a search for rituals:
for example, the way Freud performed therapy by use of the sofa, whether his
patients lay down or sat. We search for what will create the ultimate threshold
crossing, which will create the greatest contrast to everyday life and the most
fitting setting for another connection, outside of treatment.

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In his article about rituals, sacred space, and healing, Robert Moor (1991)
presents the therapeutic parallel of our time for the ancient rite of threshold
crossing. The caregiver is the leader of the ceremony, who brings the patient
over the threshold. In Moor’s opinion, the place of the treatment with its
boundaries, times, and the leadership of the therapist are not mere ethical and
methodological characteristics, but rather significant means for creating a
suitable place for development of the self. The place, with its boundaries and
its empathic enclosure, also makes the experience and the order possible. The
therapeutic location actually exploits the human potential and need to enter a
sacred space, in which unconscious topics are aroused. This is parallel to a
shrine or Temenos, a symbol of a temple of healing. The boundaries of the
location are important and are created not only because of the method and the
power of the therapist, but rather with the power of the environment to arouse
deeper processes. This is an awakening, not a directive. Both the therapist
and the patient will develop a language, symbols, and shared codes, the
intimate ritual of the therapeutic enclosure. Each therapist creates a number
of important and principal conditions for creating this sacred space, which
promote healing and transition. Several reasons can be given for the significance
of this space.
First, it is important for most therapists that there should be a certain
threshold crossing that distinguishes from mundane existence and provides a
different way of being and a special meaning for everything that occurs in this
sphere. Second, reference to this space is to a place that brings wholeness and
a certain maturity. Third, it is important for the place of treatment to be able
to arouse, but it must also contain emotions, fears, and pain or suffering.
Fourth, the message of this place is one of separation from the mother figure
and from parents in general or of the possibility to resolve problems that were
created due to these bonds. However, in our era, when individuality and the
self stand at the center of life, it is particularly important to deal with personal
mythology and the personal story, as a part of the same separation and
uniqueness. Formation of that uniqueness will enable significant connection
to society later on. The fifth point is the symbolic character of the place of
therapy, which is similar to the womb which we enter and then exit as
transformed people. Thus the therapeutic womb can enable rebirth as well.
We have seen that in ancient times or in primitive tribes, emphasis was
placed on social context, social responsibility, religious or cultural awakening
of mythologies of ancient forebears. In therapy in our time, in the twenty-first
century, the emphasis is on individual responsibility and awareness in the
framework of collective life. Individuality depends on arousal of experience of
the self, to which the therapeutic process connects. In rituals of the past, there
were diverse elements that emphasized the connection to the whole, such as
the symbolism of being swallowed in the jaws of a monster or entering an
actual place within the earth that symbolized the womb of Mother Earth.
Today, when the individual and the I–self–you connection are the focus, the

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system of relationships and its characteristics constitute an event similar to

those of ancient times. The ancient initiate, like the modern patient, touched
the forces of creation and attained a higher state of being, although it was
always identified with the powers of the ancestors and to tradition.
It is important to note that Turner (1969), following van Gennep (1960),
discerned three principal phases that appear in rituals, and these should be
mentioned in the context of therapeutic ritual: separation, transition, and
incorporation (assimilation). Separation creates the boundary, transformation
takes place beyond the threshold, and in this period a regressive, cloudy,
transpersonal experience takes place, in which there is a loss of primal things
that are stronger than the leader of the ritual. In the final stage of the ritual,
incorporation, the individual reconnects with his original environment and
prepares himself for new demands. In therapy as well, incorporation and
internalization occur for the most part precisely after connection to reality.
In every therapeutic process, there is a certain destruction of the old order,
but the connection with it is preserved, and the leave-taking, which is similar
to death, requires a unique ritual of its own. In this ritual, the gathering of
what has taken place and the ordering of the most important things occur
through the ability to internalize, after the leave-taking.
Hence, the ritual model whose roots are in our ability to play, to imagine,
to cross thresholds, and to enter another world, was always possible and
important both for balance and joining opposites and also for self-development
and maturity. This model has been illustrated with the aid of rites of passage
to adulthood in tribes in Australia, where the youth underwent a series of
rituals and symbolic games and experienced his birth into the male world as
mediated by transitional figures. We have seen that this model is also likely to
take on new expressions in our world. Even today, the sacred space, which, for
the individual, was an area of connection between substance and spirit, past
and present, childhood and adulthood, the id and society, can constitute a
place of connection between being and doing, order and experience – which
together make possible the formation of the self and proper internalization of
spiritual processes. Expression of this in our day is found in the areas of
separation between everyday life and special occasions and places, when
meaningful experiences occur there.
A unique catalyst that illustrates the creation of such a state is the mental
or spiritual process that occurs in deep psychological therapy. In Jungian
terms, this is the area of the alchemical vessel in which the therapist and the
patient meet, and the unconscious and the conscious encounter one another,
and there the Self evolves to unify the opposites.

References
Campbell, J. (1987) Primitive Mythology. “The Masks of God”, Chapter 2, “The
Imprint of Experience”, London: Penguin, pp. 50–118.

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—— (1988) Myths to Live By, Chapter 3, “The Importance of Rites”, New York:
Bantam, pp. 43–61.
Eliade, M. (1959) The Sacred and the Profane, Orlando: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich
[Willard Trask, trans.].
Jung, C. G. (1944) Psychology and Alchemy, Collected Works, Vol. 12, London:
Routledge and Kegan Paul.
—— (1946) The Psychology of Transference, Collected Works, Vol. 16, London:
Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Moor, R. I. (1991) “Ritual, Sacred Space and Healing: the Psychoanalyst as Ritual
Leader”, Chiron: 13–33.
Turner, R. L. (1969) The Ritual Process, Structure and Anti-Structure, Chicago: Aldine.
Van Gennep, A. (1960) The Rites of Passage, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Winnicott, D. W. (1953) “Transitional Objects and Transitional Phenomena”,
International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 34: 89–97.
Wosien, M. G. (1974) Sacred Dance: Encounter with the Gods, New York: Thames and
Hudson.

The dream’s navel and the hunt in the forest:

Comments on the structure of space

Itamar Levy
“Man is an open–closed creature,” writes Gaston Bachelard in The Poetics of
Space (Bachelard 1969). In this essay I write about open–closed spaces, spaces
that permit the play of imagination, which builds the figure of the psyche in
the image of space and the figure of space in the image of the psyche. I propose
calling this open–closed space a grotesque space.
We are familiar with the concept of the “grotesque body” (Bakhtin
1965/1984) from literary and art criticism. The grotesque body is in many
respects the opposite of the ideal body, or of the ideal of beauty and classical
harmony. The ideal body is well proportioned and moves harmoniously. The
grotesque body, in contrast, is characterized by distortions – a giant nose, a
prominent mouth and protruding teeth, huge breasts or belly, conspicuous
sexual organs, clumsy, exaggerated, or vulgar, uncontrolled movement. The
ideal body is correctly scaled. The grotesque body can be a dwarf or a giant.
The ideal body has a defined sexual identity and control over sexual activity
and appetites in general. The grotesque body, by contrast, is lustful, greedy,
drinks to excess. Its behavior is impulsive, sexual and socially unrestrained,
and sometimes the sexual identity is blurred – a woman with a beard, a man
with breasts, androgynous–sexual creatures. The classical body conceals its
openings. It presents a uniform envelope of smooth skin. In the grotesque
body, by contrast, all the orifices are wide open – it gobbles and vomits, sniffs
and defecates, urinates and ejaculates semen. It knows no shame. The orifices
that distinguish between inside and outside yawn open, they are active, they
mingle areas of cleanliness and filth, modesty and publicness. In this respect

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the classical body is the body of social conformity, the body that confirms the
ideal of beauty and the order of the existing world. The grotesque body, by
contrast, is anarchistic, egocentric, a body that challenges the existing order
and subverts it. From time to time – carnivals, feasts, sexual orgies – the body
unites with its dark, hidden side; the interior becomes the exterior, or, more
extremely, the distinction between interior and exterior collapses.
In the wake of the familiar concept of the grotesque body, I wish to formulate
the concept of the grotesque space as a space in which there are distortions
in proportions and scale. Instead of the elegant movement of muscles and
skeleton, there is peristaltic, throbbing motion, the movement of soft tissues,
or of softness and hardness intermingled. The grotesque space has an obscure
sexual identity and pronounced sensual qualities. It places emphasis on
orifices, on the free flow of materials through them, and on confusion between
inside and outside. I wish to show that the grotesque space is not as strange as
one might imagine. We encounter it again and again. Our mouth is a grotesque
space, we imagine the interior of our body as a grotesque space, the female
sexual organ is grasped in culture as a grotesque space. The interior of the
psyche, the inner world, is viewed as a grotesque space and described, even in
theoretical writing, with metaphors and similes that arouse grotesque associa-
tions. The dream space is often grotesque: we were in a room and suddenly we
are outside; there was a door that led to a more inner room, and what happened
there in that inner room? Suddenly a lot of people came, and there was
confusion, it was like this room, but different from it. The therapy room,
especially in analysis, becomes a grotesque space: sometimes it seems that the
room is large and empty, and we are too far away from one another, and
sometimes the room is cramped, and the proximity is oppressive. Sometimes
it is warm and comfortable and soft, and sometimes it is cold and hard. The
womb can be flexible, protective, but also stifling, rigid. The embrace, the
holding, the imaginary space in which we keep and contain our patients can
be a grotesque space.
From now on I wish to focus on two examples of a grotesque space: one
example is from the theoretical literature, Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams; the
second is from the area of painting, Paolo Uccello’s The Hunt in the Forest –
which preceded Freud’s book by 350 years. Neither example is an attempt to
depict a grotesque space. On the contrary, the space was meant to be rational,
classical, and the grotesque sneaked into the space, as it were, surreptitiously.
I will begin with a quotation from Chapter 7 of The Interpretation of Dreams,
where, for the first time in his writings, Freud (1900) presents a complete
model of the psyche, known as the topographical model, which is of course a
spatial metaphor. The model divides the psyche into three areas: the conscious,
the pre-conscious, and the unconscious. Again he depends on architectonic
(hence spatial) images of two rooms on two different stories. Consciousness
is on top, the unconscious is in the basement, and there are guards on the
stairs – the censor, which regulates the movement between the stories. The

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dream, according to this model, is an expression of a wish that derives from

the depths of the psyche and climbs up from the dark sea-floor to the surface
of the dreamer’s consciousness. When the dreamer awakes she (usually) comes
to her analyst, recounts the dream, and the analyst seeks the meaning of the
dream and follows it on the royal road to the unconscious. The work of
interpretation is therefore the story of a male journey, a story familiar from
European romanticism and folklore – the story that takes place along a road
that is swallowed up in a forest, in darkness. This story has many variants; in
analysis it begins, as noted, with the conscious contents of the dream, and
from there the road leads to the events of the previous day and to earlier
formative events, in childhood and infancy, and even beyond that, beyond
words and images, to the memory of the body, to the blind action of neuronal
energy and hormonal excretions, regions of pleasure and pain, something
extremely basic, some primal rawness beyond description, thought, and
consciousness. We seek, therefore, the Heart of Darkness, the place where the
main road leads, the bottom of the basement of the unconscious.
Here is Freud’s account of the “navel” of the dream, the place where one
loses the way:

There is often a passage in even the most thoroughly interpreted

dream which has to be left obscure; this is because we become aware
during the work of interpretation that at that point there is a tangle
of dream-thoughts which cannot be unraveled and which moreover
adds nothing to our knowledge of the content of the dream. This is
the dream’s navel, the spot where it reaches down into the unknown.
The dream-thoughts to which we are led by interpretation cannot,
from the nature of things, have any definite endings; they are bound
to branch out in every direction into the intricate network of our
world of thought. It is at some point where this meshwork is
particularly close that the dream-wish grows up, like a mushroom
out of its mycelium.

In a certain respect, this is a description of the psyche’s inner sanctum: the

deep, inner place, the most inaccessible place one can imagine, the unconscious
of the unconscious, the place where it “reaches down into the unknown.” And
where is that “unknown?” Here we find a kind of collapsing of the structure
of space, since the most inner place reaches down to something external to it,
while at the same time it is even more interior. The “unknown” is inner, the
interior of the interior, and also exterior, something that is no longer the
psyche but the psyche reaches down into it, something that descends, perhaps
something enveloping the psyche from outside. The peak of innerness is thus
its being brought outside, by a reversal of the existing spatial order. The
tunnel of the umbilical cord is not just a dark tube but a flexible tube in which
liquids flow in and out, the connection with the nourishing placenta and

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through it to the surrounding womb. The analyst’s masculine gaze is swallowed

in the darkness and replaced by blindness. The decisive and certain line of the
royal road is swallowed in the tunnel of the umbilical cord that twists and
turns on itself, becoming its own enveloping space, the darkness that surrounds
everything.
Now I wish to leave Freud’s dream navel for a while and discuss The Hunt in
the Forest, one of Uccello’s last paintings.
The Hunt in the Forest is not typical of its period. It is not based on a religious
or mythological narrative, and it is not painted in bright daylight, as was the
custom of the time, but in gathering darkness. It is a painting of an event in
the landscape: a band of hunters is swallowed up in the thickness of the forest.
On the right and left of the painting, hunters on foot and mounted on horses
enter, moving toward the center, and next to them run quick hunting dogs,
some of them in advance of the riders; and the closer they get to the center of
the painting, the smaller they get, growing distant in the depths of the forest
on the trail of four deer that are running for their lives.
The hunters enter the picture in two bands, as if they split in order to go
around the pool that appears at the bottom of the picture, and now they are
joining together again, flowing into the center, as if they were streamed in a
visual funnel that directs the hunters and, in their wake, the flow of the
viewer’s gaze and thoughts, toward the vanishing point of the painting, the
heart of darkness (with some exaggeration it can be said that this dark heart
turns over onto itself, is drawn out and becomes skin, the dark envelope, the
darkness of night that surrounds the forest from without).
Uccello creates a space here that begins in the light, outside of the forest
(where the viewer is situated) and extends gradually into gathering darkness.
The darkness bounds the area of vision, leads it to non-vision. However,
the boundary is not a sudden barrier but a soft, osmotic border, gradually
engulfing. The band of male hunters, equipped with daggers and javelins,
opens a lane into the darkness, a path that is lost again in the amorphous
space, a more feminine space, even if the femininity is merely hinted at, both
by means of the fleeing deer and by means of the stream visible at the right of
the picture, the outward flow, which also moves from the center, from the
vanishing point, from the place toward which the gaze and the hunt move.
Somewhere, in infinity, where the hunt will end with teeth sinking in, with
blades slicing, with flowing blood, there, too, is the well, the source of the
fresh water. As in Freud’s image of the umbilical cord, the orifice that leads to
the unknown also leads the masculine to the feminine and the feminine to the
masculine.
The image of the umbilical cord is not the only case of bidirectional flow. In
The Ego and the Id (1923) Freud writes that the ego merges into the id in its
downward flow, and that it grows out of it “more or less as the germinal disc
rests upon the ovum” (p. 24): once again the image is not only bidirectional,
but also feminine, nutritional, liquid. A page later, in the same essay, Freud

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again compares the relations between the ego and the id to the relations
between a rider and a horse, a variation of the dialectical relationship between
master and slave, where the rider imagines that he is in control, even though
all the power is that of the horse. The horse, in this sense, is the ovum, the
seed, the placenta, feminine nature, and perhaps it is not coincidental that the
meeting between the rider and the horse is in the pubic area, and the flow is
that of loins. As in Uccello’s Hunt in the Forest, the masculine gaze, the
horseman, the hunter, is swallowed up in the feminine, but it also flows out of
it. This is the romantic dialectic of culture and nature, masculinity and
femininity, light and darkness.
Up to now I have focused on the visual funnel in The Hunt in the Forest, and
on the image of the umbilical cord in Freud. However, in both instances the
picture is more complex. Seven visual images are crammed into Freud’s short
passage: obscurity, a tangle (which cannot be unraveled), a meshwork that is
particularly close, an intricate network branching out in every direction, the
navel of the dream, which is the path leading inward, and the dream wish, the
way leading outward, “like a mushroom out of its mycelium.”
First, let us consider darkness. John Pope-Hennessy (1950), a major auth-
ority on Uccello and the Renaissance, calls The Hunt in the Forest a “romantic”
painting, for in contrast to the light that floods the Euclidean space of the
Renaissance, The Hunt in the Forest depicts an obscure place with the gradual,
osmotic boundaries typical of the romantic “sublime.” The darkness makes it
possible to depict a space that is closed and limited, impervious to the gaze,
and at the same time it invites fusion with no borders. After Freud has dimmed
the lights, he compares the psyche to an intricate and endless network that
branches out in all directions, again an invitation to coalescence, to loss of self
within the sublime of vast proportions. At the same time the analyst is stuck
in his place, unable to move, blocked in the tangle that cannot be unraveled,
and in the dense mesh. The images of the mesh and the infinite network are
in fact the same image, the image of warp and weft, the grid, the map of the
coordinates of the world. However, this image appears in two different states:
dense mesh versus a diffuse and open-ended network.
Freud creates tension between images of corporeality, closure, placement in
space, and images of open borders, a diffuse world without form or direction.
Only by means of darkness can one soften that contrast, create a paradoxical
space, closed and open, solid and fluid at the same time. The beginning of the
Royal Road is in the upper stories of the psychic space, in the brightly lit,
rational world of the Renaissance. However, as the road leads farther and
farther down, to the depths, the space becomes baroque, dusky, twisting, and
infinite. In the space of the psyche, one may say, there is a mixture of styles.
The idea of the infinite is also inherent in the Renaissance space, although
it is well lit, although everything in it has a precise place and size. Unlike the
osmotic infinite of darkness, the infinite of the Renaissance is hidden in the
laws of perspective. Perspective is the infinite grid spread over the world, a

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daylight grid, a mathematical, rational grid, susceptible to consciousness. In

Uccello’s earlier paintings we can see how fascinated he was by the grid itself.
In St George and the Dragon, the furrows and boundaries of the fields, the road
leading to the castle, and the patch of grass in the foreground of the painting
are parallel to the warp and weft of perspective. It is easy to imagine the
breadth lines, but mainly the depth lines, the main one being the high road,
leading to infinity, in every direction, and back to the depths of the painting.
The grid is indeed the embodiment of reason, the graph paper on which the
world is drafted, and therefore it symbolizes the rationalism both of the world
and of human consciousness, which is capable of understanding the world (for
both of them were created in the image of divine reason).
In The Hunt in the Forest as well, though in a more subtle way than in
St George and the Dragon, we see the infinite grid lines. The stream and the
pruned tree trunks in the foreground are arranged in lines that point to the
vanishing point. The trees in the forest are planted in meticulous order,
more like trees planted by a compulsive gardener than a natural forest: four
trees are planted at equal intervals in the first row, twice that number of trees
at narrower intervals in the second row, and so on until the trees are swallowed
in darkness. The trees are planted like pins at the points where the warp and
weft lines intersect on the infinite grid. The forest is thus not just wild nature,
a world without reason, but reason that seeks to transcend itself, or at least to
touch the boundary. From this point of view, the painting is not purely
romantic but rather of the Renaissance, trying to overturn itself and become
romantic.
This point of reversal, the infinite sought by the gaze and to which thought
is drawn, is at the vanishing point, which is also the end point, death, and the
starting point, the spring, the source. Rational Renaissance thought deals
with both its ability and inability to represent and understand the world.
Freud, like Uccello in his time, does not conceal his belief in the power of
the human intellect to understand the world, the inner world in this case.
Psychoanalysis is a Copernican revolution. Like the discovery of the laws of
perspective, the psychoanalytic technique also creates a new point of view for
understanding the world. The Interpretation of Dreams begins with these words:
“In the following pages I shall demonstrate that there is a psychological
technique which makes it possible to interpret dreams, and that on the
application of this technique every dream will reveal itself as a psychological
structure, full of significance.” The new point of view makes the chaotic
dream, lacking form and meaning, into a rational structure. However, like
Uccello, who applies the laws of perspective in order to reveal its limits as
well, Freud repeatedly mentions the blind spot in his writings, the limits of
analytic understanding, and the description of the navel of the dream is just
one of a chain of images of darkness and blindness, of which perhaps the best
known is the comparison of female sexuality to a dark continent. In this image
the grid of perspective becomes the coordinates on a map, but the darkness of

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the jungles does not permit mapping. The dark continent is not only
obscure but also gigantic. The woman has monumental sexuality. The daring
investigator, like Uccello’s hunters, goes deep into the forests, perhaps on a
journey to discover the sources of the Nile, the great mystery that stimulated
the Western imagination, and, even earlier, that of the Greeks and Egyptians
(Schama 1996). Ancient myths identified the source of the Nile with the
source of the four rivers of the Garden of Eden, the spring in the heart of the
garden, a giant fountain of hot, brown water. The Nile has always been grasped
as a river of fertility, and when Freud compares female sexuality to the black
continent, he refers, in the archive of Western imagery, to the idea of the
origin as well, the place from which things flow; just as in the account of
the journey to discover the navel of the dream, he seeks the origin. The idea
of the origin is bound up with images of femininity: darkness, liquidity, lack
of rationality, getting lost and swallowed up – all of these also characterize
baroque space.
Perspective, as we have seen, proclaims the rationality of the world.
However, it also proclaims the rationality of the viewer, who understands the
world that he sees, but conditionally, because the viewer is only conditionally
rational – the condition being that the viewer must stand opposite the center
of the painting. Perspective places the viewer, defines his identity around a
point in space. Perspective, like psychoanalysis, marks the viewer as a place,
as a point in space.
We can demonstrate this by looking at another painting by Uccello: the
Equestrian Portrait of Sir John Hawkwood.
Uccello painted the pedestal small, viewed from below, and the horse and
its rider, which are higher, are painted from the side. Had Uccello been more
consistent, we would have to see the belly of the horse and the rider’s chin.
However, Uccello divided the painting in two, as it were, thus dividing the
viewer in two. If perspective can place the viewer, it can also displace him.
Thus the pedestal faces an “ordinary” viewer, standing on the floor and looking
upward, while the horse addresses a viewer who is about four or five meters
above the floor, approximately at the height of the horse’s withers. Uccello’s
paradoxical use of perspective, creating an inconsistent space, demonstrates
how the normal use of perspective normalizes not only the pictorial space but
also the viewer: you are normal when you grasp yourself as a place, as a point
in space.
Incidentally, this matter recurs repeatedly in Western culture. Descartes
does something similar when he makes the “thinking self” the focus, and from
there he has perspective on the world. “I see, therefore I am” as a place, as a
point of view; and Freud promises the reader, at the beginning of his book,
that he will bring him to a place from which the dream will be revealed, and,
in its wake, the psyche, as a rational structure. Afterwards Freud accompanies
the reader along the way and informs him of his location from time to time.
Following the first dream interpretation, Freud (1900) writes:

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When, after passing through a narrow defile, one suddenly reaches a

height beyond which the ways part and a rich prospect lies outspread
in different directions, it is well to stop for a moment and consider
whither one shall turn next. We are in somewhat the same position
after we have mastered this first interpretation of a dream. We find
ourselves standing in the light of a sudden discovery.

Freud has brought the reader to an open space, flooded with light, at a
crossroads, in the heart of a splendid landscape. Who would believe that this
Renaissance clarity, that this multi-directional openness of a crossroads in the
heart of a plane, would lead to a complicated tangle that blocks the way and
signals the endpoint of the journey? From here on we can only look through
the umbilical cord, a twisting baroque space that cannot be represented
or understood. The black hole swallows reason. Men are liable to lose their
heads there.
If we turn our gaze outward again, from the dark sea-floor up to the light,
we shall see the structure of the dream-wish growing up from the rot and
looming up like “a mushroom out of its mycelium.” The wish is a masculine
structure, white, formed, that grows out of the formless welter, and these
things were written by someone who knew something about symbolism.
I return once more to The Hunt in the Forest. The masculine, white and red
activity of the hunt, the huge erect tree trunks, create definite structures and
decisive lines in the surrounding space, whose outlines are rounded and whose
materials are softer: the foliage of the trees, the plot of grass, the pool. A world
of decisive forms is swallowed within a threatening (but also seductive), dark
world of amorphic shapes, which is liable to cause an even more extreme loss
of form. The space itself is monumental like the space of a Gothic cathedral,
whose branches are the vaults of the ceiling. In this monumental space mini-
ature figures are seen, small animals, dot-like flowers and leaves. The gaze
must focus, narrow, and then expand again to huge dimensions. The space
throbs between miniaturism and monumentalism, between static and flowing,
as if there were vacillations in the dimensions of things and the state of the
materials. The Hunt in the Forest is not only a painting of an event that takes
place in space; it is also a painting of space, which itself is an event. The space
becomes; it throbs. Form and formless mingle with one another.
In Freud’s description as well, the monumental panorama of the high road
becomes the miniature tunnel vision of the umbilical cord. The open space
becomes a closed, throbbing space. The rapid change in the scale of the images,
the infinite network, on one hand, and a tangle, an embryonic state, and a
mushroom, on the other, creates vacillation between the expansion and
contraction of space. Thus the psychic space shrinks to the dimensions of a
doll house and then it’s easy for us to imagine it as an inner space (as a concrete
space inside the body, inside the head), and at the same time as a gigantic,
exterior space. The space of the psyche, even in the most static structural

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imagery, is a throbbing space, in the process of becoming, not only a space

that contains events, but also a space that is itself an event.
In The Hunt in the Forest by Uccello there is, in my opinion, a stroke of
genius that begins with the Gothic architecture of the late Middle Ages, paves
it with the geometrical logic of the Renaissance, continues through the
ecstatic vision of the Baroque and the mingling of categories of the grotesque,
and finishes in the mystery of romanticism.
The reservoir of images on which Freud drew is not original. I have tried to
show in this article that Freud’s images have a long history. They are taken
from the reservoir of visual images of Western culture, from the archive which
is a considerable part of the personal and cultural visual unconscious. The
images themselves are not striking, rather the daring use that Freud made of
them, the unexpected connections and encounters of contrasting categories,
dissolving borders, mixing likes with unlikes to create a paradoxical,
grotesque, throbbing space, which is constantly becoming, while at the same
time it is a rational structure that can be known.

References
Bachelard, G. (1969) The Poetics of Space, Trans. M. Jolas, Boston: Beacon Press.
Bakhtin, M. (1965) Rabelais and his World, Trans. H. Iswolsky, Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1984.
Freud, S. (1900) The Interpretation of Dreams, S. E. vol. 5, London: Vintage, 2001.
—— (1923) The Ego and the Id, S. E. vol. 19, London: Vintage, 2001.
Pope-Hennessy, J. (1950) Paolo Uccello, London: Phaidon.
Schama, S. (1996) Landscape and Memory, London: Fontana.

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 Part II

PLAY, WAR AND SURVIVAL

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 4
SURVIVAL, MOTHERHOOD
AND PLAY

Introduction: Some observations on the exhibition

“There Are No Childish Games” at the Holocaust
Museum of Yad Vashem in Jerusalem

Emilia Perroni
The combination of the words “Play” and “Holocaust” seems at first very
difficult to swallow. These two words put together draw our resistance only if
we associate the concept of play to the concept of entertainment or to
something amusing. But if we see play as “spontaneous creativity, a bridge
between inner and outer reality, or as activity that enables the active control
of our anxieties,” as defined by Sigmund Freud ( 1907/1908) and Erik Erikson
(1963), the expression “play and Holocaust” should not draw offence.

Once I saw in my neighborhood an elderly man getting out of his car. He

approached me and asked me if everyone was obliged to display a parking
permit on this street. I answered him in the affirmative. “Even if he is a
survivor of the Holocaust?” And again I answered in the affirmative, though
this time with some sorrow. I didn’t feel at ease with my response. I felt guilty
for not finding something soothing to say to him, something that would give
him some recognition for what he went through, a token of recognition by
both institutions and individuals.
Each time we meet a survivor of the Holocaust or a “child survivor”
(a collective term given to survivors who were less than sixteen years old by
the end of the war), most of us feel the need to show more attention, to give
warmth and respect.
The attitude of the Israeli people toward survivors and child survivors has
changed since the establishment of the state of Israel. According to Miriam
Berger, the head psychologist of Amcha (the Israeli organization that deals
with survivors of the Holocaust, including those of the second and third
generation), the Israeli people, at the beginning of the state, were more
concerned with tasks of survival and were not prone to listen to the feelings of

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vulnerability and weakness of each individual. Also the survivors who were
still young during that period were in a hurry to move forward and to leave
behind their traumatic past. They immersed themselves in doing, and they
refrained from speaking about their feelings. However, the silence was
eventually broken with the Eichmann Trial, which was like the first crack of a
huge dam. Little by little countless stories and testimonies, films and television
programs, began to pour out. Exhibitions of paintings dealing with the
Holocaust were set up, and more and more books about the Holocaust were
published for both adults and children. The attention given to the victims of
the Holocaust grew deeper and deeper with the passing years and with the
consolidation of Israeli society.
Most of the psychiatric and psychoanalytic literature – which is very rich on
this topic – related to the mental condition of the survivors, and there was
very little relating to the topic of playing during the Holocaust. The literature
focused mainly on the shattering experiences of individuals and on the destruc-
tion of basic mental functions, on neediness, on deprivation, on traumas, and
on emotional withdrawal. The psychoanalysts Auerhahn and Laub (1987)
argued that the collapse of the supportive environment and the constant phys-
ical threats experienced by the survivors were the cause of their inability to
tell stories, to trust and to play. It turns out that this conclusion was only
partially correct.

In 1997, a year before Roberto Benigni’s film La vita è bella, at the initiative
of Yehudit Inbar, an exceptional exhibition was inaugurated in Jerusalem at
the Yad Vashem Museum of the Holocaust. It was an exhibition on children’s
games during the Holocaust, called “There Are No Childish Games.”
Although it was planned to be only temporary, it became permanent. It
represented a decisive turning point in the legitimization of the curative value
of play. The idea by that time was revolutionary, not only because in the
exhibition were displayed games and toys made by children in the ghettos and
in the extermination camps. It gave much more than that. It showed dolls
dressed in striped clothes (the fabric was the one used in the extermination
camps), teddy bears which were the comfort of many children during their
wanderings, playing cards that were painted while people were hiding in a
convent, and a game of Monopoly, in which the names of the streets were
those of the Theresienstadt Ghetto. All these objects showed how important
they must have been to the people who went through that period and they
also offered a new kind of picture about the life in the ghettos and in the
camps, about the need for psychic survival, and about the therapeutic and
restorative value of play. From these exhibits, the visitor could understand the
strength of the children who created them. Some of the games were solely
games of imagination. Nevertheless, they showed that play, even in an
extermination camp, must have been an act of heroism, an act for preserving
one’s life and an unquenched belief in a better world.

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The anxiety suffered by a Holocaust survivor can be seen in The Sandgame

(1996) by Uri Orlev, who spent his childhood in Warsaw:

When I was a child, we played a game called “How Many Children

Will You Have?” Usually it was played in a sandbox. One child took
a handful of sand, tossed it in the air, and flipped his hand over so that
the back of it faced up. As some of the falling sand settled there, he
announced: “So many children will you have!” He meant that you
would have as many children as there were grains of sand on the back
of his hand. Of course, this wasn’t realistic, because there was a very
large number of them there. But the game had just begun. The
sand thrower tossed the sand into the air again, flipped his hand
palm-side up, and called out as the sand fell: “This many will die in
the forest!”
He was referring to the grains that missed his hand and dropped to
the ground. That happened to most of them. A smaller number fell
into his opened palm. And so he kept tossing the remaining sand into
the air, catching it now on the back of his hand and now in his palm
while announcing:
“This many will be run over!”
“This many will die of the plague!”
“This many will be kidnapped by the Gypsies!”
“This many will drown!”
“This many will be electrocuted!”
“This many will fall off the roof!”
“This many will fall down the well!”
“This many will die in a fire!”
“This many will be killed by an earthquake!”
“This many will be poisoned!”
“This many will choke on their food!”
And so on.
When there were less then ten grains of sand left – some children
played up to twenty – they were counted. That was how many
children you could have. Naturally, the same number never came out
for you twice in a row, but this didn’t seem to matter.
I took my son to the sandbox in the playground and taught him
the game. And then I explained that it was like that with the
Germans. They kept throwing us into the air and great numbers of us
died, but, my brother and I landed safely each time.

In my opinion, what mainly characterizes play during the Holocaust is that its
“potential space” appeared to be frozen and threatened by possible exter-
mination. If we may allow ourselves the use of a modern term, we can define
the “potential space” as “digital”: either it is a precise representation of the

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external reality or it looks like a prolonged, compensatory, imaginative and

surrealistic construction. It cannot be something in between. An example is
shown in The Sandgame, mentioned above: “I invented a story for myself, in
which the war and the Holocaust weren’t really happening. It was just a dream
I was having. I was the son of the emperor of China and my father had given
the order to place my bed on a large stage and to put twenty wise Mandarins
around me . . . my father commanded them to put me to sleep and to make
me dream about the reality I was living, so that one day . . . I would know
how bad the wars were.”
I was fascinated to hear from the curator of the exhibition on play at the Yad
Vashem Museum about the kind of relationship that developed between the
survivors and their objects. She found out that even those who succeeded in
building a good life for themselves after the war was over retained a special
attachment to the objects that they had lent for a brief period to the museum.
She said that they often made calls from all over the world in order to find out
how their teddy bears or their dolls were doing. One survivor, over sixty years
old then, was asked to lend his teddy bear to the museum. He answered that
he had to ask his teddy bear if he was willing to be separated. This should not
be necessarily seen as an expression of pathology. This phenomenon is
representative of the relationship with a “survival object,” which is different
to the one with a “transitional object”: in the latter, a teddy bear, or a piece of
cloth, or some other object, is the child’s first possession and can represent
something of the mother, or a protective companion when the child is
alone. The transitional object eventually loses its importance when the child
grows older, and it is replaced by relationships with others and the cultural
life. The survival object, on the other hand, retains its essence even afterwards;
it does not undergo transformation. It remains for the owner a continuous
representation of both death and life.
The exhibition on play from the period of the Holocaust was not meant
to diminish the suffering of the survivors, but, among other things, it
made it possible for everybody to learn about their heroism from a new
perspective.
The following two essays relate to the crucial importance of the mother in
situations of cruelty and hardship caused by the war, and the survival function
of play.

References
Auerhahn, N. C. and Laub, D. (1987) “Play and Playfulness in Holocaust Survivors”,
Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 42:45–58.
Erikson, E. H. (1963) Childhood and Society, New York: Norton.
Freud, S. (1907/1908) “Creative Writers”, Standard Ed. IX. London: Hogarth Press.
Orlev, U. (1996) The Sandgame, trans. Hillen Halkin (1997), Western Galilee: The
Ghetto Fighters’ Publishing House.

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Playing in the shadow of the Holocaust: Memories

from a hiding place – A personal testimony1

Yael Rosner
I was born in 1939 in Warsaw, Poland. Three months after my birth the war
broke out. My mother hid me in a hiding place for more than two years, from
January 1941 to April 1943 – from the age of two to the age of four.
I remember my experiences as a very young child in the Warsaw Ghetto.
There were only the two of us left, mother and I, with no one else from the
family. My mother had eleven brothers and sisters and I also had a grandmother
from my father’s side and a grandfather from my mother’s side . . . no one
survived.
My mother decided, since we were the only two left, to hide me inside the
Ghetto. I do not know why and I often wonder what made her decide it, what
reason she had to hide me in the Ghetto. But apparently it turned out to be a
good idea. The fact is that today I am here to tell the story, contrary to many
other children who had not been hidden . . . and where are they now? So
apparently my mother was right indeed.
When I was two years old my mother hid me in the cellar of an old
abandoned house on the border of the Ghetto. One side of the house was
facing the Aryan part of town and the other one was facing the Ghetto. No
one lived there anymore. The cellar was not very large, only a room long in
shape. Just under the ceiling there was a small square window, through which
one could see the people’s feet walking on the sidewalk. There was no sunlight
in this room, more a sort of darkness, since the window was very small
and dirty, but during the day a little light filtered through the window,
illuminating mainly the upper part of the cellar.
Mother had been a teacher of first and second grade in elementary school
with a wonderful ability to communicate with small children. At that time
she belonged to a Polish-Jewish underground which was active in Warsaw in
those days. Her task was to get little Jewish children out of the Ghetto and
take them to the Aryan part of town. And what was to be done with them on
the Aryan side? At that point her task ended. There was always someone
waiting for them. All she had to do was to get the children out of the Ghetto.
And whenever I think about her task, I always recall the famous story of the
Pied Piper of Hamelin. Just as he had led the children out of town, so did she
manage to take the children out of the Ghetto, without them crying or yelling
along the way. They simply followed her, totally trusting her, even though
they had never met her before.
I stayed in that cellar for more than two years and mother was not there
with me all the time, because she had to go out and rescue those children. I
would be left all alone. She was extremely worried about this and she would
always see to it that I would have always something to do, something to be

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occupied with. She kept planning things for me for when she was away, since
usually she would come back to the cellar not after a few hours but after two
or three days. She used to say to me: “Oh my love, my sunshine, aren’t we
lucky!” And then she would tell me about Zakopane, a holiday resort in the
south of Poland, which the Poles are very proud of. Mother and her family
used to go there twice a year. She always told me how beautiful it was and how
the sun was shining there and everything was so wonderful. “See how lucky
we are,” she would say, “look, you are here just like in Zakopane.” And I, who
had never been to Zakopane, have gone through life thinking that it had to be
a wonderful place. When I visited Poland five years ago I finally saw Zakopane
and it really is a beautiful place. That was true indeed.
In that cellar there were two piles of logs propped up against two opposite
walls, forming a floor between them, which led to the small window under the
ceiling. Someone must have stocked firewood before the war. And mother
would say: “Look, there are mountains here just like in Zakopane and you can
climb the mountains, sit on the top and look what a sun you have!” And I
would look up at the window and what sun did I find? It was more like a small
dim light that hardly filtered through the dirty glass. But mother was talking
with so much joy, that I did not feel miserable, also because I had simply never
known anything else.
Mother said we were lucky and I thought that everything was really
splendid and wonderful. And she would say: “You know, you can sit on this
mountain until I’m back.” That is what she called that pile of wood. She
formed a sort of stairs with the logs so that I could easily climb on top of it.
She placed one log sideways and said: “Up to this point you may climb and go
close to the window, but only up to this board, so that no one will know that
there is a little girl in here.” I understood that no one must know that a girl
was hiding in that cellar and I never climbed beyond that board. She would
say: “But from here, from this lovely place of yours, you can look outside.
Look what you see there. What do you see?!” I would look out and see feet,
sometimes bare, sometimes wrapped in rags, sometimes small and sometimes
big. There were feet in high heels too and there were also small feet in big
shoes and occasionally feet in boots. Until this very day, when I look at people
who are new to me, the first thing I do is to look at their shoes. That is how I
spent many hours observing what kind of feet were passing by.
When mother came back to the cellar she always came as if there was a
celebration. First she would enter quietly and then “oops” and she was already
in. She would always bring something, always. She had a handkerchief in
which she put everything tied up in it. When she came, we sat down, and she
would untie her handkerchief, take out whatever she had put in it and show it
to me. And sometimes she would also take something out of her dress. She
used to bring all sorts of things. Once she brought some chestnuts that fell
from the trees during autumn and she told me: “Oh, we are going to do
something with these! We are going to make you dolls.” Dolls? I did not

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understand what dolls were, I had no idea that I needed dolls. But she also
brought some thin sticks, stuck one of them in one chestnut and the other
one in another chestnut and that made a head and a belly. Then she made
two feet and two arms and eventually she placed on a row several of these
chestnut people, maybe ten of them, and I was totally delighted. She said to
me: “When I am not here, you can talk to them, tell them stories. And if they
cry loudly – tell them: Oh my, crying in a loud voice is not allowed here.” And
I said: “Sure, sure, I understand.”
And indeed I played with those chestnut dolls and I looked at the feet
passing by and I tried to remember what kind of feet I saw, so that I could tell
it to mother when she was back.
In that cellar I had some neighbors, there were rats living there, but I did
not know that they were disgusting or that one should say “ugh!” and “yuk!”
and be scared of them. I was not scared of them; on the contrary, I was quite
delighted with them, for they were cute creatures indeed and they had those
round eyes and two teeth sticking in front of them, and they would sit and
look around. Some of them were small and some were big, sometimes there
were two big ones and a lot of little ones and I would count them, but,
whenever I wanted to go closer and play with them, they would run away. So
I couldn’t really play with them, but I could at least relate to them. Mother
taught me how to count, one, two, three . . . and I would count them, the
young ones and the grown-ups, how many little ones there were and how
many big ones, and all of a sudden one of them would disappear, so it was
minus one and in that way the time would pass.
Mother also taught me how to read and write. And she used to write all
sorts of things with a charcoal on the floor or on the upper pavement between
the two piles of wood, so that I could have things to read when she wasn’t
there. I would walk and bend down beside the letters, next to those written
words and in that way I would cross the whole room and read what was written
there. She used to write me lovely things, sometimes funny and very amusing.
All sorts of things; all of a sudden I would come across some sentences which
were written in rhymes and these were a source of a lot of joy. I had no idea
that a child could live differently, and I thought “This is how things are” and
I would only wait for her to come back.
My mother loved Poland very much and she was extremely attached to
Nature. She wanted me to know how the world outside looked like and she
used to tell me about it. She used to say that, out there, there were trees and
houses and streets and shops and she would draw everything on the floor and
she would tell me what it was like when they were in Zakopane. She would
say: “You know, there was a lake there and we used to sit next to it and throw
stones into the lake.” I could not imagine what it was really like, but I thought
it must be pretty. I could not figure out what was a lake, what stones were,
how did one throw them . . . there was quite a lot I did not understand. One
day mother brought some kind of big plate. Actually it was not a plate, it was

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more a sort of a tin bowl, rather big and wide. She filled it with water and said:
“I brought you a lake.” She also brought some small stones and said: “If you
sit here and throw the stones in the lake, you will see circles in the water” –
that occupied me for many, many hours. I felt really wonderful, I had
something to do.
I do not remember being frightened. When people asked me whether I was
afraid there all alone by myself in the cellar, I always answered: “No, I wasn’t
frightened” . . . until many years later, when I went to visit Poland five years
ago. When I came back to Jerusalem all the memories and feelings began to
pour on me and I started to shiver with fear. I would sit in my living room,
scared stiff, covered in cold sweat and crying without really knowing why. But
that is over now.
I remember that it was sometimes very cold in the cellar and that I was also
very hungry and that once I was gnawing at the wall. Mother laughed when
she saw the hole I made and she said: “Stop it, now use the other wall, otherwise
you will soon dig us a tunnel to the outside.” She never said: “Oh my poor
child, you have to eat a wall.” She never talked this way. She always had a
smile and a twinkle in her eye. And she always had a joke or something funny
and amusing to tell me so that she could make me laugh. Once I saw that the
rats were eating wood. I was very hungry and so I decided that, if that was
good for the rats, it might as well be good for me. So I took a log and gave a
bite, but I could not get my teeth out of it. And then I said: “Well, if that
doesn’t work, it is not worth it.”
I was not scared of the rats, but one day I saw a boy sitting on the pavement
with his back against my window. He had a huge belly and I thought to
myself: “What a fat boy he is,” and, soon afterwards, suddenly, oops . . . he fell
over and died. But I thought that he had merely fallen asleep. I thought:
“How lucky he must be, much luckier than I am, because I have to hide here
in Zakopane and instead he can sleep outside and he is not afraid that someone
will find him. He doesn’t have to hide; his mother allows him not to hide.
Instead I am here stuck in this Zakopane.” But after a few hours I saw a rat
crawling on him and starting to gnaw at his foot. And that frightened me a
lot. When mother came back, I told her that a boy had fallen asleep there on
the pavement and that a rat had been gnawing at his foot. And what if I fall
asleep? They can gnaw at my feet as well. But mother said: “No, no way, a rat
would never do such a thing to you, because I am going to give you a very
dangerous weapon against rats.” I waited attentively and then she brought a
stick and said: “This stick is called ‘club’. You sit with this stick when I am
not here and, if a rat comes near you, you just hit it with the stick.” I said fine,
but I was still afraid to fall asleep. I used to sit holding the stick till my head
would drop, but it did give me some feeling of safety.
When my son was three years old, or maybe less, he did not want to
close the door of the toilet, but would sit there with the door open. It was
not always appropriate, because sometimes there were guests in the house.

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So I tried to persuade him to close the door and the more I tried the more
stubborn he became, because he was afraid. And then I remembered the past.
I went to a hardware store, I bought a broomstick, I gave it to him and said:
“You know, this stick is called a club. When you are in the toilet and fear
comes to you, you hit it with the stick.” And he was quite pleased and to this
day we have a stick in our toilet.
One day mother brought a piece of cardboard, just a simple piece of
cardboard that had been torn off from some box. On that cardboard feet had
trodden; a car had run over it and perhaps also a wagon. There was mud on it,
probably left by someone who had wiped his shoes on it. It was smeared all
over. Mother also brought a wooden spoon and made a hole in it, then she
inserted a rope in the hole, showed it to me and said solemnly: “Come, my
sweet, come, now I will teach you how to embroider.” I had no idea what
embroidering meant; what was she going to show me? But I had the feeling
it had to be something wonderful, because she was so excited and she had
tears in her eyes. She said to me: “See, this is a needle” and she showed me
the spoon. She made some holes in the cardboard and said: “If you put the
needle into this hole and then take it out from the second hole and again put
it here and take it out of there – you will see what will come out.” She did not
teach me how to embroider the way I do today. But I was a three-year-old
child and what else could she teach me? I did what she had shown me to do
with all sorts of tangles and knots and I was happy, it fascinated me and
occasionally some sort of pattern came out . . . I mainly enjoyed the activity
itself and I have been embroidering ever since.
Sometimes when mother came back, she would take my hand between
her two hands and say: “Oh, my sweet little child, my sunshine, you do
have golden hands.” That is what she used to say to me. And I lived with
the feeling of being loved very dearly, of being capable of making pretty
things . . . How things can be beautiful and how mother loves me. But I was
also sad. I imagined that the Germans thought that I had a “bad look” and
that this was the reason I was not allowed to go out, because my mother had
fair hair and I didn’t, she had blue eyes and I didn’t. That’s why she can go in
and out of the Ghetto and no one will shoot at her or catch her – instead I am
not allowed to go out. I have to hide, because I have a “wrong look.” My hair
is brown and my eyes are green, not blue like mother. I knew that mother
thought that I was very pretty, but the Germans thought differently. And this
is the reason why I am not allowed to be on the street, but when I grow up and
become a mother, then my hair will be fair too, and my eyes will be blue, and
I will be able to go out on the street and in and out of the Ghetto and I will
also know where to get a potato and where to find a carrot. Mother always
brought something. She would open her handkerchief and there would come
out a potato and sometimes a cabbage or a carrot and occasionally a piece of
bread. And I thought: “How good it is to be a mother and how miserable it is
to be a child, because a child does not know where to get things. A child can

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be hungry and a child doesn’t know where to find food. A child can’t go out,
not even to a place where there is a carrot and take it for herself, but a mother
knows, a mother understands. My mother was also scared, that much
I gathered, but mother knew when she could be less scared. She knew when
she could go out and when she shouldn’t. She also used to say: “Now I will
stay, because now it is not a good time to go out.” And I thought: “How does
she know?” She knows because she is a mother, because she has blue eyes and
fair hair. She is a mother and that’s why she knows. But I am not a mother yet
and I am still little and I do not know many things. So I will wait patiently
until I’ll have blue eyes and fair hair and then all the problems will be solved.
Today I am a mother and I have a lot of problems, but I know of course that
not all the problems can be solved.
Mother was very eager to show me the world outside, to explain to me what
was happening out there, what was going on in the street. She would come in
and tell me: “Here, quickly, touch my hand”, and I would touch it and say:
“Cold.” Then she would answer: “That’s right, there’s wind outside”, and I did
not understand whether there was someone outside called wind or what
that thing was outside. So she would say: “Wind, you know what a wind is?
A wind is like this . . .” And she would blow on my hand. That is how
I understood what wind was. She used to draw everything for me with a
charcoal on the floor on that path between the two piles of wood. For example,
she would draw a tree without leaves and then she would bring some dry
leaves of all colors. And she would tell me: “Look at the leaves. When it is cold
outside the leaves turn into all sorts of beautiful colors. Some of them are red
and green and some of them are yellow and brown.” And she would place the
leaves on the painted tree and say: “Come my sunshine, let’s make some wind
for them” and both of us would bend and blow them away and all the leaves
would fly off from the drawing. Then she would tell me: “That’s the way it is
outside. When it is very cold and there is wind, all the leaves are falling. And
I will find them and collect them for you.” To this day I cannot go on a street
and see dry leaves without feeling something strong inside me. At home
I have a lot of small baskets full of leaves of all shapes and colors. And when
I go to a kibbutz, I come back with still more dry leaves and add another
basket, and another one.
At one time mother brought a tin box and told me: “My love, there are rusks
in this box. But we can’t eat them. We will keep them for a rainy day”
(“a black hour” in Polish). I did not understand what a black hour was. I
thought it was a kind of a very special hour. Nor did I know exactly what rusks
are, but I gathered they were a kind of food, as she told me not to eat them.
And she said: “I am placing this box on the other pile of wood, on the other
mountain.” And indeed she put it on the mountain that had no steps.
A few days passed and mother did not return. Once there was darkness
outside the window. Another day passed and another one and one more . . .
And I had already finished whatever food she had left me. I was so hungry that

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I simply did not know what to do. I kept thinking what I could put into my
mouth. By that time I already knew that there was no point in eating the
wood and then I remembered the box. I thought “surely now mother would
allow me to eat the food that was inside it – the food called rusks. Now it’s a
good time to open the box and eat whatever it is inside.” I had no idea what
rusks looked like. I tried to climb on the pile, but I was not very successful. I
fell down and some logs fell on me. I hurt myself, but the box fell down as
well. The tin box fell on the floor and the lid snapped open. I was very curious
to see how rusks look like. I looked and I was extremely surprised: out of the
box a lot of white worms came out. They were running away and I thought:
“O dear, all the rusks are running away from me!” I started to gather them
quickly and eat them. And my only worry was that they would run away.
Some of them got under the pile of wood and I gathered them and ate as many
as I could. I was very pleased. I must say that they were tasty and with a full
stomach I climbed on my pile, looked at the people’s feet through the window
and thought: “How splendid, sweet mother has left me such good and tasty
rusks. How lovely!” But when mother came back, the first thing she saw was
the empty tin box thrown on the floor. She said to me: “Oh, my love, my sun
[that is what she used to call me], have you eaten all the rusks?” I answered:
“Mother, I was very hungry.” And she said: “Yes, I understand, but you should
have left something. . .” I told her: “Mother, I did not eat all of them because
some rusks ran away.” And she said: “What? What do you mean by ran away?”
I answered: “Yes, some of them ran away and I did not manage to eat them.
Here, look, one is still running right here.” My mother was very sad, but said
nothing. And I asked her whether she was angry with me for eating too many
rusks. But she said to me: “No, my love, I am not angry. Were they tasty?”
And I answered: “Yes, they were very tasty.”
Mother wanted to make me laugh, she wanted me to be a happy child. For
one thing, when she was about to leave, it was clear that it was very hard for
her to go and leave me all alone and perhaps that is why she always used to
ask: “Do you agree that I can go out? I must rescue children. There are these
two children on a certain street and, if I don’t go and pick them up, they will
be killed. They do not stand a chance. Do you agree that I should go?” And I
would cry: “Yes, all right, I agree, I agree that you should go . . .” And she
would say to me: “Oh, my love, if you must cry, then cry quietly, do not cry
with a loud voice, because if you cry loudly they will immediately know there
is a girl in here.” And I would say: “All right, I will cry quietly . . .” And
mother would go away with a heavy heart.
Today, as an adult, I understand why she wanted so badly to make me
laugh. She thought it was terrible that she had to leave me all alone, but
she could not act differently and maybe she wanted to make it up to me, but
the main thing was that she herself loved to laugh. She wanted in spite of
everything that I would not be a sad child. She wanted me to be entertained
in some way or another. She used to tell me the following: “If we go to this

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and that village, then we will see girls dressed like this and like that.” And she
would draw on the floor for me some girl dressed in a striped skirt or another
girl from another village wearing a different kind of dress. In Krakow people
wear this, and in Lodz they are dressed in a different way. And she would cut
those paper figures for me and leave me paper clothes and say: “Dress them.”
And I would dress them and tell myself this one is from this region and that
one is from that region. And the first time I saw people really dressed like that
was when I visited Poland five years ago. It was amazing to see the old people
of Zakopane dressed in their folklore costumes, with colorful embroidered
trousers – so beautiful! It was like going back in time and meeting my mother.
Mother used to sing to me some songs and, in order to amuse me, she
would sing the songs in a sort of a country dialect. The words came out
very funny, because the accent was a bit faulty, but I thought it was hilarious.
I would laugh and she would say: “Do not laugh loudly my love; quietly,
laugh quietly.” And I would try to laugh quietly. I did not feel very upset,
I understood that no one should know there was a girl in here.
Mother used to sing to me and we also used to sing together. She would tell
me: “Come, now we are at the village dance and we are dancing.” And she
would take me by the hand and the two of us would dance. Or she would dance
all sorts of dances for me and I would look and repeat what she was doing and
we would both laugh a lot and hug each other and jump up and down. There
was dancing and jumping and laughing and it was really nice. I would wait for
mother and, when she came, I knew a celebration was on the way. I knew that
we would sing and laugh and that mother would tell me what she had seen
outside. One day mother told me: “Do you know what I saw? I saw a thread
hanging on a tree.” She brought a piece of thread and said: “Look, I found this
on the tree, you can embroider with this thread, it has a nice color.”
Sometimes she told me there was this thing called Opera. It is a kind of
game, a play where people don’t talk, but say everything in singing. And she
would fold her arms in a funny way around her belly and sing in a dramatic
voice: “Oh, my little Miss, perhaps Miss would like to have a potato?” And I
would laugh and say: “Yes!” But she would say: “You cannot say yes just like
that, because now we are in an Opera. You have to sing it.” And then I too
would fold my arms around my belly the way she did and sing: “Yes . . . yes
. . .” and she would hug me tightly and say: “You are my sunshine!”
One day she brought me the head of a doll. A head of a doll made of papier
mâché, just the head. The neck was empty, and you could even see that there
was a newspaper there and I said: “What has happened to this doll? She does
not have a body and what has become of her hands and feet?” Then she said:
“Wait, soon she will have everything, she will have e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g. Just let
me find some pieces of cloth and I will fix it.” And indeed, after a few days, she
came with this blue cloth with orange and white flowers printed on it and said:
“Now I will fix it.” And she made a dress for her and tied it tightly around her
neck, a sort of a dress with two hands and it was a puppet, with a papier mâché

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head and painted hair. But I said: “Well, but where are the legs?” So she said:
“What, legs? You cannot see them, she has a long dress.” And I did not mind
that I couldn’t see them, I understood they were hidden. When I grew up, I
read The Little Prince and I thought that he wanted to have a sheep drawn for
him inside a box, but actually no one could see his sheep. I do not know
whether my mother knew The Little Prince, but she did the very same thing.
When mother left she would always promise me that she would come back:
“Whatever happens, even though it will be dark outside the window once and
again and one more time, I will always come back; remember, I will always
come back to you.” She gave me so much confidence that I was totally sure and
convinced she would come back. When I grew up, I thought more than once
how she could tell me over and over again that she would come back, when
actually she never knew if she would. Sometimes I say that if at this moment
the door would open and she would walk in, I should not be at all surprised,
because I have known all along that she would come back. But then, for the
first time, mother didn’t come back for several days and then I heard somebody
clumsily fumbling with the door. I knew it was not my mother. Somebody
kept fumbling with the door until it was open. Then I saw a man coming in.
This man was actually a boy of seventeen years old, but I did not know that.
For me he was a grown-up. He came in, walked down the stairs and started to
call my name in a soft voice. This really frightened me and I thought “How
does he know my name?” But apparently he did and I hid behind the pile of
wood and would not come out. He kept calling and I wouldn’t answer. Then
he got tired and went out. I was really very tense and upset, because I was
scared of him. I must have moved carelessly and something fell on the floor.
There was a rustle and he came back in and saw me there, standing in the
middle of the room. He said to me: “What are you doing? I am risking my life
here in order to rescue you and take you out of here and you are hiding? Come
with me right away, I have to get you out of here.” And I said: “I am not going
with ‘Sir’ (In Polish one doesn’t say ‘you,’ but ‘Sir’ and ‘Madam’), I am not
going because I am waiting for mother.” So he said: “Oh, stop it, stop messing
about, get in here quickly, I have a sack here.” He opened his sack and told
me: “Get in here.” And I answered: “Why should I? I am waiting for mother.”
Then he said: “Your mother is not coming.” I told him that my mother always
comes back. So he tried to force me into it, but without much success. I just
didn’t want to get into the sack. Then he tried in a good way, begging. He
tried to lift me, but to no avail. Until finally he said: “Look, your mother was
hurt, she was shot and she won’t be able to come. But she is alive and I will
take you to her. Your mother is waiting, she is waiting for you, so come
quickly, get into the sack and I’ll take you to your mother.” That convinced
me and I got into the sack. A piece of plywood was sewn at the opening of the
sack, and he said to me: “Look here, on top of this plywood I’ll put some coal,
so if someone in the street will stop me and ask me what’s inside the sack, I’ll
open it and they will see the coal, but you won’t be seen, because you’ll be

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underneath it.” I said “Fine”. It made sense and I even liked the idea. Then
he said: “But you have to sit in the sack just like the coal. Do you know how
the coal sits? How does the coal behave?” I said “Sure, it draws!” He asked
“What do you mean?” He didn’t know that we used to draw with coal, so he
said “What do you mean draw? Coal doesn’t speak, it doesn’t shout, it just lies
there. Do you understand? It just lies there.” Then I said: “Does it lie like
this?” And he said: “That’s right. It doesn’t scream, or cry, it doesn’t get
hungry and it doesn’t need anything. It simply lies there.” I said fine, I had
already got it and I curled up in the sack under the plywood. He took me on
his back and started to walk. He walked and walked for several hours, for a
very long time. Suddenly I remembered that my doll, Zuzia, (that’s the name
I gave her), had been left behind in the cellar. But coal doesn’t yell or cry.
Nevertheless, he never said that coal couldn’t knock on his back. So I knocked
on his back. And of course he didn’t feel it, or maybe he did feel it but didn’t
want to react. I knocked harder, and he – nothing. Then I had no choice and
I started to scream: “Sir! Sir!” He got terribly frightened as I was yelling on
the top of my voice. He went to some dark corner, opened the sack and said to
me: “Are you out of your mind!? Why are you screaming? What is wrong
with you? Do you need to pee? Go ahead!” I said: “No, no, Zuzia was left in
the cellar.” So he said: “Zuzia? Who is Zuzia?” I said: “She is my daughter, my
child, my doll. She’s been left in the cellar and we must go back and get her.”
Then he said: “Oh, really, do you think that I will return along this whole
dangerous route to get some doll? Sit in the sack and say nothing!” I said:
“What?!” I jumped out of the sack throwing the plywood and scattering the
coal all over the floor. I put my hands on my hips and said: “What kind of
person is Sir?! How can Sir think that a mother would leave her child in the
cellar forever?! A mother can’t do such a thing! I am going to get my daughter!”
And I started to walk. Of course he caught me immediately. To start with,
I couldn’t walk too well, because in the cellar I had not enough space to walk.
At the age of four I stumbled on every few steps and mother used to say to me:
“You must learn how to walk my love. Walk to the window and back several
times a day.” So the boy caught me, lifted me up and said gently and quietly:
“You’re right, you are totally right. A mother can’t leave her child for good in
the cellar. So let’s go back and get her, that Zuzia of yours.” Whenever I tell
this story, people ask me: “And you believed he would go back in order to get
your doll? He could have just told you that he was going back and then never
do it.” But I could not imagine even the possibility of being lied to, as no one
had ever deceived me before, and I believed him. He did go all this awful
horrible very dangerous way back to the Ghetto. He entered the Ghetto and
we got Zuzia and today she is on display in the New Holocaust Museum at
Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.
After many hours of walking, the boy went up some stairs. I heard a door
opened and my mother’s voice: “Oh, how long did it take you? I already didn’t
know what to think.” The boy opened the sack and I ran toward my mother.

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Her arm was bandaged together with her shoulder and there was a strong smell
of medicine. Mother hugged me and asked him: “What happened, were you
caught?” The boy told her what had happened and that he just had to go back
and get the doll. Then mother cried: “Oh, you went all the way back? You did
it because you yourself are not so far from childhood. You shouldn’t have done
that, it was too dangerous!” And I said: “No! He had to go back, because a
mother can’t leave her child forever, because a mother always comes back.”
To this day I am amazed how in that impossible situation mother encouraged
me to play. She brought things and materials to keep me busy and she tried in
every way to arouse my imagination and creativity. She made me dance and
laugh and in that way she kept me sane and probably herself too. I don’t know,
maybe I am like her. Maybe there is something in me that was also in her. She
loved to play. There are people who still do it even after they are not young
anymore. Anyway, I have to admit that I have kept playing ever since.
I embroider, paint, sing, take pictures, go for walks and even, as I cook and
clean the house, I feel that I am playing. This gives me pleasure and keeps me
in a good, even optimistic mood. I know that at least some of it has been
passed also to my children.

And what happened to my mother?

Mother brought me to Israel, but died two weeks after we arrived. I was ten
years old. She was already very ill. They took us off the ship, my mother was
lying on a stretcher, and then they took us to her sister who was living in
Jerusalem since 1930. Her sister was a dentist.
When we were on the ship my mother had hung a piece of cardboard around
my neck and under my dress, on which it was written: “Dr Anna Zimmerman,
dentist, 1 Melissanda St. Jerusalem, Tel. 2851.” And she said to me: “Memorize
this by heart, my love. If I die on the way and if this cardboard is lost, you
must find your aunt. Your aunt is a nice person and she will love you very
much.” I memorized the name, the address and the telephone number.
When we arrived at her home and I saw my aunt, I felt immediately that
she was not like my mother at all. She didn’t have that smile in her eyes, nor
any twinkle or a joke. She was simply a dentist. Her clinic was in her apartment
and there were always people with toothache, who were sitting there. I looked
horrified at the instruments my aunt kept in a white cupboard in her clinic. I
used to think: “Oh dear, if I do something wrong or naughty, she will take
some pliers out of that cupboard and probably extract one of my teeth.” I was
definitely scared. She frightened me and I wasn’t able to love her.
The day we arrived at her apartment in Jerusalem, I saw in her kitchen an
oil stove for the first time in my life; an oil stove with two knobs, and a small
door. I found it extremely attractive. I immediately tried to open the little
door and turn the knobs. When my aunt saw what I was doing, she said:
“Dear me, what are you doing?! You are spoiling the stove. We don’t have
another one. You are not to spoil nor are you to touch the stove! That’s it!”

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I was really terrified. My mother had never spoken to me like that. So

I could not love my aunt, although she was indeed a very nice lady, decent and
honest . . . but she was a dentist.
My aunt used to go every Tuesday to the big market in Jerusalem, “Mahane
Yehuda,” where she would buy a carp. This fish would swim in a tin full of
water from Tuesday till Friday. It would swim and swim and I would bend on
my knees on the floor, leaning with my chin on the edge of the tin, watching
the fish and giving it some breadcrumbs. It made me happy to see how the fish
used to eat. I would get friendly with the fish and tell him all sorts of things
and he would become my friend. But at noon on Friday my aunt would come
and grab the fish under its gills, get her dentist’s hammer and “bang,” hit it
on the head. I was speechless and horrified: “How can she kill my friend?!”
And then on top of it all she wanted to teach me is how to make gefilte fish
(a famous Jewish dish for Sabbath and holidays) and she would say to me:
“Come here, come here; you know, when I was your age, I had a lot of little
brothers and sisters. Our mother was so busy and I used to make gefilte fish
for Sabbath for the whole family. So come, I must teach you. After your mother
is gone, who will teach you how to make gefilte fish?”
I would stand terrified and watch how she scraped all the scales off my
friend with a knife, and then cut him in slices, and grind him. Oh my, what is
she doing? I was shocked to the depths of my soul. And that was not the end
of it, for in the evening of Friday nights, her son would come with his wife and
kid and they would all sit at the table and eat my friend, inserting their fork
in him without much ado and eating him. I would sit quietly, but my stomach
would turn upside down.
My aunt used to say: “Why don’t you eat? What a spoiled girl you are. Why
don’t you eat such a good and fresh fish?! In Poland you had nothing to eat!
What a spoiled girl you are . . . your mother spoiled you too much.”
Before my mother died, it hurt me deeply that, in spite of her weakness, she
wanted so badly to tell to people and relatives, who came to visit us, what had
happened during the war, how it really was. Even though she was on her death
bed or when she was laying down on the ship and could hardly speak – yet she
sat up and wanted to tell our story to the others. But the others wouldn’t
listen to her, it was also too difficult for them; they all said to her: “Hush,
hush, you mustn’t get tired, don’t exert yourself.” And although they all
meant well, I felt she wanted to share our experience very much, but no one
would listen. And, for many years, I didn’t speak about it, but since now
I have started to talk, I feel that I have to tell all that she wanted to say.
Just before she died, mother called me to her side. I sat next to her and she
took my hand. But suddenly she turned her head away, she had difficulty in
breathing and soon after she passed away. I think I realized she was dead, but
I sat frozen and I did not want to move. I did not want this contact to come
to an end. Then a young woman came in to see what was going on. She was
my aunt’s assistant in her clinic. She saw mother lying with her eyes and

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mouth open and holding my hand. She thought it was horrible that a dead
person should hold a child’s hand, so she grabbed my hand and pulled me
away. And I thought it was horrible what she did, because I wanted my mother
to hold my hand like she always did and never ever leave me, ever! But she
didn’t understand it and she kept pulling me away. I said to her: “No, no, let
me stay like this.” Then she said: “But your mother is dead!” And I cried “Not
true! No, she isn’t dead!” And I began to act wildly. Then my aunt entered
and yelled: “Quiet! Quiet!” But I didn’t want to be quiet and I acted even
wilder. There was a round table there and I ran around it and threw everything
on the floor, all the chairs, a fruit plate and a glass of water and I screamed and
screamed. My aunt was very miserable and was shouting a lot. They tried to
grab me, but they didn’t succeed. I didn’t let anybody come near me and then
my uncle came. He was her second husband, whom she married a few months
before. On his arm was tattooed a number, but I had no idea what it meant,
that is because I myself was never in a concentration camp. I thought he had
written it himself. Finally he managed to grab me and he held me tightly. I
tried to free myself but I couldn’t. He was holding me from behind my back
and I didn’t know what to do. So I sunk my teeth into his arm, right close to
the tattooed number. A lot of blood spilled out, but he didn’t release me, he
didn’t push me away, he just stroked my head and wept bitterly . . . he was
sobbing. My aunt and the young woman were shocked at the scene and they
immediately wanted to apply some iodine or something on the wound. But he
refused and he did not let me go, he merely wept and told me in Polish: “I
know exactly how you feel. I too would like to bite the whole world, because
I had a wife and three sons whom I loved dearly. And today I have no one.”
At that moment I felt very close to him, because he said that he had a wife
and children whom he loved so much and now he had no one, and I too felt
that I had had a mother and now I had no one.

Note
1. This testimony was presented by the author herself in May, 2000 at the Van Leer
Institute, Jerusalem, during the related series on “Play: Psychoanalysis and Other
Disciplines.” The video of this testimony is shown in the Holocaust Museum
mentioned in the present introduction.

Creativity and play in the shadow of war: A discussion

of The Notebook by Agota Kristof

Doreet Hopp (translated by Mark Joseph)

Anonymous in the intensity of war, the mother decides to take her twins
out of the bombed and starving city and save them by leaving them with
her grandmother in the country. As they are being left in their grandmother’s
care, the unambiguous legacy of the mother rings in their ears: “I just

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want my children to survive this war” (Kristof 1997: 4; emphasis added).

On the same occasion the grandmother adds her part to the family tradition:
“I’ll teach you what life is about!” (ibid.: 5; emphasis added). The father’s
words, spoken before the war, must be added to the album of family
commandments: “Yes, everything will sort itself out if we separate them.
Every individual must have his own life” (ibid.: 23; emphasis added).
The three commandments constituting the family tradition are concerned
with different aspects of life: life itself (“survive”), meaning (“what life is
about”) and identity (“Every individual . . . his own life”). And indeed we can
see in the course of the twins’ lives the step-by-step realization of the testament:
from survival of their “twinly” existence, to a “twinly” life of meaning and
value, and finally separate lives. The twins’ developmental process happens
during the height of a terrifying war that throws into doubt the human race’s
continuing existence, and the possible survival of the species from a moral
perspective as well: the possibility of individuals upholding the human moral
image; that is to say, taking part in humanity.
I will deal with the twins’ developmental process, which takes its origin and
force from the parental contribution, against the background of a reality that
is hostile to every attempt to give meaning and significance to life. The focus
on human development as it connects to the environment, as with questions of
the meaning and sense of life, will make use of some basic assumptions in the
psychoanalytic theory of Donald W. Winnicott that touch on these subjects.
In the first part of the essay I will briefly show the relevant psychoanalytic
views; in the second part I will discuss the twins’ struggle with the reality they
live in, and especially the suffering that characterizes it; and in the final part I
will interpret the twins vis-à-vis the meaning of life in the human image.
In his article “From Dependence toward Independence in the Development
of the Individual,” Winnicott (1965: 83–92) sketches the developmental ten-
dency of the individual. In Winnicott’s opinion we can describe development
as a journey from dependence toward independence; a journey where two
factors work together, the individual and his environment. Winnicott’s devel-
opmental scheme has three stages: absolute dependence, relative dependence
and toward independence (ibid.: 84). In the first stage the baby is totally
dependent on his or her mother and the mother’s first commitment at this
stage is to fulfill the baby’s needs (Jacobs 1995: 38); in the second stage the
baby begins to notice the mother’s difference from her or him, to acknowledge
external reality and gradually adapt to it; in the third stage the child is found
“on the road to independence,” recognizing the separate existence of reality,
knowing that she has to adapt to the reality she is part of, and distinguishing
between inner and outer reality. These powers of discernment get better in
the course of one’s life but are never completed or perfected: “Independence
is never absolute. The healthy individual does not become isolated, but
becomes related to the environment in such a way that the individual and the
environment can be said to be interdependent” (Winnicott 1965).

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It remains to add to this schematic description of the developmental process

Winnicott’s assumption about the nature and qualities of the interaction
between the individual and his environment in the course of a lifetime. The
first stage, the stage of complete dependence, is critical in making the
connection between the baby and the world pupated in his mother. For the
individual’s life to be a full life, one of value and meaning, the baby has to
experience the world as if it was his very own creation and the mother must
allow the illusion that the world is happy about its creation by the baby. The
good enough mother makes the illusion possible for her baby by the fit of
her actions toward him, and this gives him a sense of omnipotence, of ruling
the world, created by him over and over again. The illusion belongs neither to
the baby’s inner world nor to outer reality. It is located in an intermediate
domain of experience, in “potential space”: an imaginary domain between the
baby and his mother, whose existence depends on the mother’s readiness to
allow the baby the experience of creation (Winnicott 1971: 11–13).
The interaction between the baby and the world (I create – I am happy to
be created by you) is found at the root of a productive life of value. This stance
toward the creating self and the created world gives meaning not only to the
first stage of human life, where illusion must be set up almost without
disappointment. It is the basic stance toward the self and the world, one that
we move away from and return to in an unending process of illusion and
disillusion throughout life (Kulka 1998). Transitional phenomena, play,
cooperative play and cultural experiences happen in the intermediate domain
of experience (in potential space). These transitional phenomena are different
expressions of a developmental sequence indicating a creative stance toward
the world, which gives an experience of authenticity to the self and reality to
existence (Winnicott 1971: 38–52).
As stated above, the normal development and health of the baby, and later
the child, the adolescent and the adult is always made reciprocally with the
environment (mother, father, family, friends and society): an environment
that on one hand facilitates a creative space and on the other demands of
the individual that he adapt to it. It is a mothering environment, enabling life
rather than mere survival. In other words, the continuing environment, in the
role of the good enough mother, enables individuals who are part of that
environment to live lives of meaning and value: “The potential space between
baby and mother, between child and the family, between individual and
society or the world depends on experience which leads to trust. It can be
looked upon as sacred to the individual in that it is here that the individual
experiences creative living” (ibid.: 103).
What happens when the environment stops helping the individual have a
meaningful existence? In the essay so far I have been able to assume that in
conditions that don’t sustain life in the full sense of aliveness, the space for
creative living shrinks to disappearance, human action turns to survival, the
true self’s freedom of action is voided and the “compliant false self” takes its

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place (ibid.: 102). The compliant false self is characterized by reactive behavior:
it works in relation to external reality and interrupts creative action on the
world from inside. Nevertheless, we can say that to the extent that in the first
developmental stages the individual experiences life as a creator, making
worlds, there will be a struggle to preserve potential space, necessary for a truly
independent, steadfast and ongoing existence. A playful–creative connection to
reality, acquired in early childhood, doesn’t cease to exist and is likely to move
the true self to defy determination by outside forces in maintaining its freedom.

“To live”: Day-to-day coping with suffering

In the first part of this essay I claimed that we can see the twins’ development
in the novel as a realization of the family tradition, transmitted as the three
commandments: to “survive,” to know “what life is about,” and “every
individual must have his own life.” The novel offers the reader the story of the
childhood and adolescence of boy twins, from when they arrive at their
grandmother’s house in the country up to their separation (each to a different
country) at the end of the novel. From this perspective the novel belongs to
the genre of the Bildungsroman, focusing on the personal development of the
central characters (in this case the twins) in their growth from childhood to
adulthood. The focus on these years requires taking on the question of the new
adults’ identity, which requires, among other things, a separate life for
everyone. Development comes about through diverse experiences that confront
the character with basic questions of human existence.
The novel is written in the form of sixty-two essays and compositions in
the first person plural in the framework of “composition lessons,” making up
part of the syllabus that the twins plan and make happen every day. Every
composition/chapter describes an actual event in their lives, defined and pre-
cise, in a maximum of two pages, and within two measured hours of writing.
After two hours each twin must give his brother the composition for approval
and editing. If the composition is “good” it is copied into the big notebook,
and if the composition is “not good,” it is thrown in the fire, and in the next
lesson rewritten from scratch. What is a “good” composition? “To decide
whether it is ‘good’ or ‘not good’, we have a very simple rule: the composition
must be true. We must describe what is, what we see, what we hear, what we
do” (Kristof 1997: 29). The writing process therefore happens in potential
space, a domain with tight boundaries that the twins force on themselves.
Fixing the boundaries and full obedience to inner necessity give expression to
an inner world, contained by the grammar of the laws of its existence.
The sixty-two composition exercises seem to be concerned with a description
of the outside world, revealed by the senses (“what we see,” “what we hear”),
and with describing what the twins do (“what we do”), but in fact they bridge
the external world with the internal one, safeguarding the intermediate space
of experience. Writing practice itself is testimony to the twins’ desire to

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preserve for themselves a creative space, a domain where everything will be

according to rules they have established, where the inner world is hidden from
and made known to themselves.
The twins’ developmental process occurs against a background of non-
stop war: as soon as one occupying army is defeated, the place is occupied by
another army, inflicting heights of violence and terror no less than the first.
The world described in the novel is one of continual suffering: death, hunger,
humiliation, lack of shelter and refuge, poverty, distressing handicap, moral
ugliness, cruelty, occupation, depravity and panic. This hostile environment
stands in opposition to developmental purposes: depriving individuals not
only of potential space, where the true self finds expression and where the
individual draws meaning and value, but also of existence itself.
Following the developmental theme in the novel brings the reader to the
twins’ implied decision to uphold the family tradition and give it their
meaning: they “decide” to survive; they “decide” to give their lives meaning
by restrained control of suffering in this life, so as to allow themselves a
measure of inner freedom; they apply the principle of freedom, not only to
themselves but to those who can’t or don’t dare function as they do (for
example, they help “Harelip’s” mother to die when she consciously chooses
death, and they help their grandmother to die in accord with her request); and
at the end of the novel they “decide” to separate. The twins’ attempt to escape
from a life of submission to reality and of being determined by it (heteronomy)
to a life of controlling reality is a heroic attempt to protect the true self and
give their lives meaning and value, precisely when circumstances conspire to
negate every possible meaning.
On what principles do the twins operate so as to cope with an external
reality that threatens to annihilate them? From the beginning the twins’
attempts at survival were seen as a means and not an end. Survival was indeed
a necessary condition for a life of meaning (“to survive” in order to know
“what life is about”), but the struggle to survive draws its strength from one’s
freedom and one’s responsibility to confer value on his life. In other words,
succeeding in the struggle to survive depends on the setting of a worthwhile
goal. Two complementary steps constitute the whole process: one focuses on
the reduction of the subjugating forces of reality, and its principle is freedom
from determination by suffering; and the second is directed to enhancing
potential space, and its principle is freedom to protect the true self.
Although the twins’ attempts to reduce the influence of suffering in their
lives are stressed in the first part of the book in particular, (six chapters are
dedicated to it), the “toughening” exercises are mentioned almost at the end.
The twins don’t withdraw from reality, characterized by ongoing suffering, in
denial. Knowing that it is not in their power to relieve the suffering, they
keep their eyes on it: they learn it, break it down into its causes (suffering
caused by curses and insults; suffering caused by hearing good words that
nobody says anymore; suffering caused by hunger, by weakness, by pain), and

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they immunize themselves against it by taking a stronger dose. Every

encounter the twins have with suffering brings a new exercise in its wake that
they incorporate into their fixed daily routine to gain control over its sources.
The twins control conditions, they are the ones to choose suffering and they
are the ones who act to reduce or cancel its debilitating influence. The twins’
conscious actions testify to their recognition of the enslaving power of reality,
and to their wish to flee from blind obedience to it, to protect the dwindling
space of the true self. In their view only daily practice can dull the deadly
impact of suffering on the true self. So they work actively to enable their
autonomous inner world to go on existing, not to be controlled by suffering,
but to act on the world in a way that expresses their true selves: “The blows
hurt and make us cry. Falls, scratches, cuts, work, cold and heat can cause pain
as well” (Kristof 1997: 16).
“We decide to toughen our bodies so we can bear the pain without
crying . . . After a while we don’t feel anything anymore. It’s someone
else who gets hurt, someone else who gets burnt, who gets cut, who feels
pain . . . We don’t cry anymore.” (ibid.); “We don’t want to blush or tremble
anymore, we want to get used to abuse, to hurtful words . . . we go on like this
until the words no longer reach our brains, no longer reach even our ears”
(ibid.: 20); “By force of repetition of them [‘old’ words full of feeling] these
words gradually lose their meaning and the pain that they carry in them is
assuaged” (ibid.: 21); “The officer asks why you do all that? ‘To get used to
pain.’ He asks ‘You have pleasure in pain?’ ‘No. We only want to overcome pain,
heat, cold, hunger, whatever causes pain’” (ibid.: 88; emphasis added).
The tacit position of the implied author vis-à-vis suffering opposes the
Christian perception that gives suffering value and meaning as in Jesus’ modus
vivendi, where he stands as the supreme example of a human life. Jesus’ suffer-
ing, exemplified in the crucifixion, constitutes a model for the Christian: it
paves the way for love and godly benevolence. The author also disagrees with
the existentialist thought of Viktor Frankl, inasmuch as for Frankl, existing
means suffering; living means finding a solution to suffering, and the respon-
sibility falls on human beings to find suffering’s purpose, and to see that it is
the purpose of life (Frankl 1963). Interpreting the implied text (beyond the
visible and the heard and at the foundation of the actions described) brings
the reader to the conclusion that the implied author (the one who “guides” the
twins’ writing) negates moral claims made for suffering, claims that give it
meaning and value, and maintains a decisive stance that it is the individual’s
prerogative to act so as to lessen the abject influence of suffering on his life: the
road chosen by the twins is action intended to diminish the part played by
suffering on the choices and behavior of the individual. We can say that the
sufferer chooses according to a principle of avoiding pain: he focuses on the
pain and on ways of avoiding it and he is driven by a reactive strategy of avoid-
ance and not by willful action. So suffering contracts the inner space of person-
hood, and the space of possibility associated with it: the space of a life. As far

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as the author is concerned suffering is suffering is suffering: suffering doesn’t

have any potential for meaning or value and certainly isn’t the royal road to
love. Choosing submission to suffering, even if there is a religious justification
for it, is an invitation for the compliant false self to appear because it opens the
way for external forces to invade the true self, colonize and destroy it.
The fact of our existence in a world permeated by suffering isn’t negotiable,
but the choice to give in to it or restrain the power of its influence is a decision
within human power. To suffer injustice means to make a free choice to negate
freedom, feeling and thought. The choice of action whose source is inside,
activity and not passivity, is an expression of human freedom, of eluding
determination by external causes and moving toward relative freedom. And
even though there is no avoiding suffering, a fact prominent in wartime, the
actions of the twins are centered on establishing situations in the future where
their control of the sources of suffering will give them more freedom of action
(for example extended fasting, exercises in blindness, exercises in cruelty).
And what happens when a man lives his life devoid of freedom, meaning and
value? In these cases the choice of death remains, the bodily expression of a situ-
ation felt as the complete lack of value. The choice of death and the choice of
life are the safeguarded right of free people, conscious of their freedom. The
principle of free choice explains the twins’ willingness to help Harelip’s
mother to die (Kristof 1997: 155), and their willingness to help their father
cross the border, endangering his life (ibid.: 183). Only when they make sure
that Harelip’s mother doesn’t want to live – “If you want to do something for
me, set fire to the house” (ibid.: 155) – do they help her to die. And only when
they are convinced that their father knows all the risks entailed in crossing the
border and is willing to risk death to win the freedom he has been deprived of
are they prepared to take a central part in seeing his wish through, which
finally brings about his death.
The father’s death when he is crossing the border to “another” country is the
moment the twins choose to fulfill his legacy, which is that each of us must
have his own life. The scene of double separation (from the father and from
the twin) happens at the end of the novel: “Yes, there is a way of crossing the
frontier: it’s to get someone else to go first. Picking up the linen sack . . . then,
over his [the father’s] inert body, one of us goes into the other country. The one
who is left goes back to Grandmother’s house” (ibid.: 183). The twins, whose
mother’s legacy urges them to survive at all costs, even use the father’s death
(and this, as was said above, after making sure that it was his conscious choice),
to implement the last step of their development: separate lives. (It is interesting
in this connection to distinguish the mother’s legacy, to survive, standing for
the dimension of being, and the father’s legacy, to separate, that stands for the
dimension of doing.) The last step in the developmental process becomes
possible only after the conditions for final separation have matured.
The prolonging of reciprocal, total dependence (the twins are never apart)
is a consequence of the absence of the mother figure in the awful reality into

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which they are thrown. In the absence of the option of a mothering environ-
ment the twins lengthen their mutual dependence in using each other as a
sustaining and supportive environment. The permanent and complementary
presence of each of the twins (for example the daily composition exercises)
enables them to create (in the first person plural) a shared potential space
between them without which a meaningful life isn’t possible. The last devel-
opmental stage is only possible with the full maturity of the twins, after the
deaths of the mother and the grandmother, and symbolically over the dead
body of the father.
The daily exercise aimed at reducing the paralyzing force of suffering and
widening the scope of free choice represents, as stated above, one step in the
process of development, where the second step is to give meaning and value to
life (“what life is about”). Freedom from determination by suffering is
enhanced by the meaning that the individual can give to his life.
In the last part of the essay I will discuss the meanings that the twins choose
to give their lives, and I will talk about the final stage of their development,
separation.

“What life is about”: The struggle for the human image as

an expression of a creative life
In the first part of the essay I dealt with the conditions enabling the individual
to see his life as bearing meaning and value. According to Winnicott (1971),
an individual’s approach to his life is based on the paradox: I create and recreate
the world that was already there before me. As stated above, a creative attitude
to the world gives the self an experience of reality, authenticity and value. In
the circumstances of war in which the twins are placed, the feeling of inner
freedom, grounded on a creative view of the world and the self, is likely to
disappear and as a result of this the space for creative living is liable to shrink
toward disappearance.
In the second part of the essay I asserted that the twins’ decision to keep the
mother’s commandment and to stay alive gets its force when the twins see it
as a necessary condition, albeit an insufficient one. Survival is possible if and
only if life has a meaning that they themselves give it. As far as they are
concerned the highest value is in a meaningful life that the individual “creates”
for himself: a life in the human moral image according to the twins’ code. As
stated above, two steps complete the developmental process: the creation of a
dimension of freedom by means of the exercises that are meant to diminish the
paralyzing force of suffering, and the restructuring of potential space where
life is meaningful.
In this final part of the essay I will focus on the twins’ struggle to endow
their life with meaning by means of autonomous creation of moral standards
according to which they direct their actions, and on the hidden dangers in
their method. And indeed the main ingredient of the art of living in the

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human image, according to the twins’ method, is self-legislation (auto-

nomos), the expression of the individual’s freedom to fix for himself the rules
of his conduct in the world. In the chaotic wartime reality into which the
twins are thrown, they decide to be the creator–producers of the human
moral image, directed by internal laws. They don’t see themselves as “Poor
lambs . . . lost . . . in an abominable world,” as “victims” of their times who
“know not what they do,” in the words of the priest (Kristof 1997: 138), but
as sovereign lawmakers in a world devoid of authority. The priest’s view of Man as
a victim of circumstances (the environment and the historical moment) is
completely contrary to the twins’ world view. It isn’t that “we are victims”
unless we choose to be victims and give up on making our lives meaningful.
What are the basic rules of the world the twins created in the moral chaos they
lived in? In the rest of the essay I will suggest two main rules: a strict watch
over the world of feeling, hidden from view; and respect for the other as the
sole authority in a life of its own.
The decision to remain alive in the circumstances of a cruel ongoing war,
enforced loneliness with the mother’s departure, and being left with the
grandmother (whom people call a “witch”) is liable to dictate emotional death
as a defense, until rage has subsided. But from near the beginning of
their time in the village they clearly formulate the strategy of keeping the
strictest guard on the world of feelings. Among other basic writing rules for
“composition” they list: “We would write: ‘we eat a lot of walnuts,’ and not ‘we
love walnuts’ [not write but still feel], because the word ‘love’ is not a definite
word . . . words that define feelings are very vague, it is better to avoid using
them” (ibid.: 29; emphasis added). In their view, the prohibition is applied
only to outwardly expressed feelings, and the reason for this prohibition has
to do with a weakness of language in describing the inner, sensitive world.
More than this, we can say that the will to preserve the potency and the
lucidity of one’s feelings entails an inward underground, thus maintaining the
true self, authenticity, feeling, living. Textual interpretation needs to go
beyond the documented, feelingless and non-judgmental language chosen by
the twins, to the emotional and moral meanings hidden in the description of
reality “as it is.” Beyond the special language that the twins have created,
beyond the simplicity of the language of the text, the reader can discern the
existence of a vibrant and feeling soul as it goes on thriving in secret.
With the twins’ decision to protect the world of feelings by hiding it, how
can the reader know of its existence? The twins say that instead of talking
about their feelings they will be satisfied with “the description of objects,
human beings and oneself; that is to say, to the faithful description of facts”
(Kristof 1997). From this point of view, the reader can infer that the twins’
feelings have been safely placed in an inner underground camouflaged by cruel
descriptions and the seeming absence of feeling in the events of the twins’
lives. In this spirit we can interpret, for example, the “Postman” chapter
where the twins find out that the letters received by their grandmother in the

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post were from their mother, and they confiscate the last letter for themselves.
“Next day . . . we go off to town . . . we take turns to carry her letter under our
shirts” (Kristof 1997: 61). And precisely because there isn’t one word to
describe feelings, there’s a need to hold the letter “under our shirts,” close to
the heart, with emotional intensity, that gains strength from the lack of words.
And in this spirit we can interpret the chapter called “The Charnel-House”
where the twins’ walk to the refugee camp, at the end of the war, is described.
A wind comes up carrying an “unbearable” stench from the camp: “The black
piles we saw from above consist of burnt bodies . . . We vomit” (ibid.: 142).
Here as well the contraction of response to the act of vomiting sharpens the
existing nausea brought on by the horror of what human beings do. The twins’
ascetic utterance exposes the nakedness of language face to face with what is
absent there.
Safeguarding the world of feelings is also necessary for the existence of a
moral world in the human image. The emptying out of feeling doesn’t allow
an empathic relation to the other, the object of moral behavior. In the novel
under discussion the twins build their relationship to the other (especially the
weak and needy other) on the basis of a deeply empathic approach: the same
strictness that they show toward the grammar of the inner world of feeling is
shown in their attitude to what happens on their path. Instead of judging the
other for his deeds and failures, they take it on themselves to actually experi-
ence his or her conditions of life and avoid all judgment of behavior that it
would seem appropriate to criticize. The choice to identify with the other by
“getting under his skin” guides their behavior from the novel’s beginning to
its end: when the twins minutely observe their grandmother’s way of life, they
decide to do hard labor, like her; their meeting with their neighbor, the beg-
garly Harelip and with her “blind and deaf” mother leads them to experiences
of begging and the exercises in blindness and deafness; their encounter with
the deserting and famished officer, who bursts into tears when he sees that
they are willing to risk themselves in bringing him food and clothing, causes
them to take on extended exercises in fasting (also so as to become inured to
the weakness that the officer shows in crying). The twins’ method of empathy
toward the needy other expresses the emotional infrastructure that is the basis
of their morality. It remains to add a philosophical discussion of sovereignty
to the emotional, morally directed aspect of the twins’ behavior.
In the second part of the essay I asserted that the twins’ conscious and
consistent choice to avoid suffering has to do with their wanting to empower
themselves to broaden the domain of freedom in a world that negates freedom
of action. This principle also applies to their perception of the other. The
other is apprehended as sovereign as well, therefore his or her freedom to act
according to his or her own lights has to be respected, without judging its
substance, on condition that he or she doesn’t harm the freedom or dignity of
others. In cases where the other can’t act as sovereign in her life, the twins take
it on themselves to help her realize the hidden potential for freedom of action.

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This moral principle, together with an empathic relationship with the other,
is a basis for the reciprocal connections they make with the men and women
who happen on their path. When the twins encounter Harelip’s helplessness
in the face of the local youths’ abuses of her, they delay somewhat to enable her
to defend herself. Once they are convinced that she can’t defend herself they
act mercilessly and with force to eliminate the local youths’ terror. In answer
to Harelip’s question as to why they didn’t come to her defense right away,
they tell her “We wanted to see how you defended yourself,” and to her second
question, “and what would I have been able to do against three big lads?”
their striking answer presents a wide range of possible choices: “Throw your
bucket at their heads, scratch their faces, kick them in the balls, shout and
yell, or run off and come back later” (ibid.: 55). The principle of the individual’s
sovereignty over his or her life is frequently expressed in the novel; for example:
in the developing friendship between the twins and the foreign officer who
lives at their grandmother’s, especially in relation to the sadomasochistic
aspects of his behavior (ibid.: 88–89); in the “games” scene between the
foreign officer and his friend (ibid.: 92–95); in the developing relationship
with the priest; and as I have already indicated, in the twins’ decision to help
Harelip’s mother to die.
During the novel the twins learn not only to protect the world of their
feelings, which founds their moral behavior, but also to influence others to
change their relationship to the world and to themselves. Their effect on the
immediate environment, and from there in progressively widening circles on
the villagers, is seen in the following characters with whom they are in touch:
the grandmother, whose being had shrunk to bare survival, and who endangers
herself and gives part of her apple to the “human herd” passing in front of her;
the priest who wouldn’t acknowledge his obligation to Harelip and her
mother, who assumes full responsibility; the foreign officer who leaves off the
pursuit of his depraved impulses and behaves compassionately and responsibly
toward the twins; and in a wider circle, the tormented villagers who become
a consciously aware community, responding to the theater of morality the
twins perform for them.
Beyond the discussion of the human moral image, which makes freedom a
necessary condition of human development from bare survival to a life of
meaning, a consideration of its far-reaching implications should be added. As
was said, human freedom to enact laws and to act on one’s moral code is
restricted only by the rights of others to live in the human image. But who
decides when to revoke a human’s sovereignty over his or her life? When is it
allowed to “cancel” human freedom? Who is authorized to do this? In the
novel the twins take on themselves not only legislative authority but also the
executive function for the laws they impose on reality. In the chapters
concerned with the priest’s housekeeper (ibid.: 81–84) it is difficult for the
reader to agree with the practical consequences of the twins’ moral principle.
In these chapters the twins describe the contemptible behavior of the

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housekeeper faced with the death parade of the “human herd” passing before
them. The housekeeper who has thoroughly chewed the piece of bread makes
as if she is going to give it to the famished marchers, and then with a gust of
laughter takes it in her mouth and goes on chewing. Her heartless behavior,
focused as it is on her pleasure (sex, food), and her total imperviousness toward
the other’s suffering, leads the twins to decide on summary and wild justice;
her face is marred by a grenade they plant for her. The reader identifies with
the (evident) disgust felt by the twins at the housekeeper’s behavior but finds
it hard to go along with how they express their moral revulsion in using a
grenade. Although the world set out in the novel is without law or judge,
although the continuing distress is liable to diminish the emotional range of
those suffering, and although the twins’ moral stance in the novel generally
wins the reader’s solidarity, there is no way to justify the action they take
against the housekeeper.
The establishment of a moral image is the twins’ creative response to a
world where the potential space for human action shrinks and disappears. And
doubts about the implications of their moral stance notwithstanding, one has
to emphasize that the substance of their attempt to engage with the world by
taking a stance, drawing as it does on inner resources, and the application
of the principle of a human being’s sovereignty over his or her life, expresses a
meaningful achievement for the individual. And particularly against a
background of the nullification of a world of human significance, Winnicott’s
assertion of a life of meaning becomes sharper and clearer; it is a life of meaning
to be acquired through acting on the world in freedom.

Note
This testimony of Yael Rosner was presented by the author herself in May
2000 at the Van Leer Institute, Jerusalem, during the related series on “Play:
Psychoanalysis and Other Disciplines.” The video of this testimony is shown
in the Holocaust Museum mentioned in the introduction to this chapter.

References
Frankl, V. E. (1963) (I. Lasch, Trans.) Man’s Search for Meaning: An Introduction to
Logotherapy, New York: Washington Square Press.
Jacobs, M. (1995) D. W. Winnicott, London: Sage.
Kristof, A. (1986) The Notebook, Paris: Editions du Seuil (1988); English translation
by Alan Sheridan (1997), New York: Atlantic Monthly Press.
Kulka, R. (1998), Introduction to the Hebrew Version of Playing and Reality (1971)
by D. W. Winnicott, Tel Aviv: ’Am ’Oved.
Winnicott, D. W. (1965) The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment:
Studies in the Theory of Emotional Development, Madison, CT: International Universities
Press.
—— (1971) Playing and Reality, London: Tavistock.

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 5
WAR AND PLAY

Introduction: The concept of enemy

Emilia Perroni
If you ask two children, after they have had a fight, what happened, each will
point a finger at the other and say, “He started it!” Very rarely will anyone –
children, adults, or countries at war – say, “I started it.” In fact, using the
phrase “He started it,” is a central way of defining the “enemy.” The enemy is
experienced as something beyond ourselves, which is out to do us harm, and
against which we must defend ourselves.
The feeling that there is an enemy is universal, but each of us experiences
it differently. A multitude of enemies or a total lack of them characterizes
various personality types. Some people call everyone their friend, without
distinction, and with others an enemy can easily become a friend and
vice versa.
“The enemy” is a subject treated often in the Bible, and the Jews have had
to address it throughout their history. It is part of the Jewish experience in
general. In Israeli society, certainly, it is omnipresent. For years a fierce battle
has been waged between clashing versions of who “started” the Arab–Israeli
conflict, and the issue remains current.
In an article called “On Discourse with an Enemy” (1997), the Israeli
psychoanalyst Shmuel Erlich, former head of the Sigmund Freud Center at the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem, writes that a difficulty in dealing with the
concept of the “enemy” is that it involves a combination of internal and
interpersonal experience. Usually enemies are found in the surrounding
society. Erlich believes that if a person manages to see the enemy as part of
himself, but located outside of oneself, he will cope with him better.
On the basis of the distinction made by the Palestinian leaders between an
enemy to whom one speaks and an enemy to whom one does not speak, Erlich
writes about two different categories of enemy, each with a different emotional
makeup and different defense mechanisms: the pre-Oedipal enemy and the
Oedipal enemy.

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The pre-Oedipal enemy is primitive, concrete. He arouses cannibalistic

rage in us, and we do not want to speak to him. The Oedipal enemy, on the
other hand, arouses negative feelings mingled with positive emotions such as
appreciation, identification, and even love. Under certain conditions we are
willing to talk to him. Sometimes the enemy can be a tool for self-definition:
it can happen that a person only realizes what his position is in the midst of a
furious debate.
The opponent in a game is an adversary of a more moderate kind. For the
duration of the game, he is against us, but before or after it, he can be our
friend. Attacks on one another are regulated by the rules of the games. It can
also happen that enmity breaks through the boundaries of the game and
becomes violence, a phenomenon we witness fairly often on football fields.
The psychoanalyst Melanie Klein (1882–1960), who contributed greatly to
the understanding of the human psyche, defined two positions in development:
the schizoid–paranoid position and the depressive position. Both are extremely
relevant to a discussion of the enemy. According to Klein (1946), in the
schizoid–paranoid position, during the first months of its life, a baby feels
attacked by the world, because evil is perceived as both internal and external.
For example, when the mother and the baby “hit” the floor or a chair after the
baby has hurt himself, they are personifying and punishing the source of evil.
It calms the baby, and possibly the mother as well. In the depressive position,
the baby’s ego is stronger. He is able to keep its good and bad feelings inside,
including guilt, without projecting them outward. The term, “depressive”
expresses the difficulty of feeling guilt, ambivalence, and fear of loss. However,
despite the negative connotations of the name, it represents a significant and
positive step in the child’s development.
In her article “A New Look at the Theory of Melanie Klein” (1990), Ruth
Stein develops Klein’s idea that we swing between these two states throughout
our lives. These are not linear and successive stages of development, she says,
but emotional states.
The source of the paranoid position is fear of annihilation. By projecting his
evil on others, a person hopes to rid himself of it. Other characteristics of this
state are rigidity and unwillingness to understand, because understanding
may lead to concessions. When we feel confident, on the other hand, we are
able to take responsibility, feel guilt, discuss matters, be understanding, and
make concessions from a more mature perspective.
Countries undergo a similar process. A country that feels threatened by its
minorities, for instance, will see them as undesirable elements and try to cast
them out, like an individual who flings away what threatens or frightens him.
A democratic country, endowed with self-confidence, has room for different
groups, for more voices, for the ambivalence of the depressive position.
One can find the transition from schizoid–paranoid to the depressive
position in S. Y. Agnon’s story, “From Foe to Friend” (“Mioyev Leohev”).
The two protagonists are a man and the wind, and the story is about the battle

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between them. The narrator decides to strike roots in the Jerusalem

neighborhood of Talpiot (which is situated south-east of Jerusalem and is
usually quite windy), and the wind tries to prevent that.
At first the narrator’s attraction for Talpiot is by chance, not conscious:
“I happened to be walking there,” he says, and the wind strikes his body. The
wind is personified and grasped as an all-powerful enemy. “I realized I could
not deal with somebody stronger than myself, and I left.” In the next stage,
the attraction to the place is not coincidental: “consciously or not consciously.”
The narrator equips himself with cloth and tent pegs and erects a tent. The
wind is no longer perceived as omnipotent and fearsome, but as a phenomenon
with which one can struggle and win, though not immediately.
Later the struggle against the wind is explained and planned: “I made a shed,
I was sure I had found rest for myself, but the wind was of another opinion.”
Now the wind destroys the shed, but it does not harm the narrator physically.
Then the narrator builds a small house, without offering an external explanation
such as “fine air,” but because of a conscious, inner motive: “My heart, oh my
heart, drew me.” The wind, still a satanic enemy, knocks down the house.
Toward the end of the story, only after “I made the foundations deeper,”
does the wind become a neighbor. After the final struggle between the wind
and the trees that the narrator planted around his house, “the stature of the
wind grew shorter, and it came politely . . . We are good neighbors now, and
I love it with pure love.”
One can interpret this story as an expression of processes within the soul: the
struggle with an enemy is usually an inner struggle, and a person must decide
what place he will give to the enemy: a place of monstrous omnipotence or a
place of cooperation. It appears that in Agnon’s story, the transition from a
position where the enemy is regarded as destructive to one in which he is
regarded as a neighbor is made possible by the inner strengthening of the
narrator. The tent, the shed, the small house, and the house with foundations
surrounded by trees symbolize steps in self-construction, each time to a higher
level of awareness. This growth is achieved through the principle of opposites
(the whole story is built on oppositions) and by listening to the inner voice of
faith: “My heart told me a thousand times a thousand that it is possible,
possible.” This development does more than reduce the power of enmity. As the
narrator grows, not only does the wind’s hostility subside (“The wind no longer
rose up against” him) and change in form; it gives way to the beginnings of love.
However, the last sentence of the story, “. . . and maybe it loves me, too,”
unlike the optimistic title, “From Foe to Friend,” shows that this is not
necessarily a “happy ending,” but rather a difficult process full of doubt.

References
Agnon, S. (1966) “From Foe to Friend”, Mosaic, trans. by the Institute for the
Translation of Hebrew Literature (1996), Cambridge, MA.

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Erlich, S. (1997) “On Discourse with an Enemy”, in Edward R. Shapiro (ed.), The
Inner World in the Outer World: Psychoanalytic Perspectives. New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press.
Klein, M. (1946) “Notes on Some Schizoid Mechanisms”, International Journal of
Psychoanalysis, 27:99–110.
Stein, R. (1990) “A New Look at the Theory of Melanie Klein”, International Journal
of Psychoanalysis, 71:501–511.

Why war? Between transformational and terminal links

in the field of therapeutic play and beyond

Gabriela Mann
The subject of aggression and war is probably one of the most intensively
studied subjects in psychoanalytical thinking. Different outlooks on aggression
have been cause for division and strife ever since the inception of the
psychoanalytic movement. These issues represent a most serious cause for
polarity, between those who view aggression as an instinct and those who see
it as a reaction to failures of the environment. Despite its complexity, it is
impossible to cease discussing the phenomenon, because it constantly recurs
in our everyday reality.
We may have thought that the world had learned and assimilated a lesson
from the Holocaust, but recently we have witnessed further rounds of atrocities
and genocides: in South America, Kosovo, Rwanda, Darfur; and of course we
are subject to interminable waves of war and violence in our own region in the
Middle East. Moreover, horrendous acts of violence have become a daily
occurrence in our lives: parents who forget their babies in cars, a father who
burns his family to death, a baby thrown out of a window by his mother,
serial rapists, and more. As if that were not enough, we therapists frequently
witness our patients’ desperate battles against their internal or external
objects, including ourselves.
Wars take place in three arenas at the same time: in the social arena (between
and within nations); in the interpersonal arena (groups, families); and in the
intra-psychic arena, that is to say, within the human psyche (Puget 1995). An
important question arises regarding these arenas: is it possible to find common
elements in these situations, certain understandings, which, even if they do
not do justice to everything that can be said on the subject, perhaps will
provide some insight into this highly charged topic?

Freud: Aggression as a failure of sublimation

The question of “why war?” was raised by Albert Einstein in 1932, when he
invited Freud to correspond with him and to respond to the subject. He
presented two fundamental questions: Is there any way of delivering mankind
from the menace of war? Is it possible to control man’s mental evolution so as

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to make him proof against the psychoses of hate and destructiveness? Freud
answered most unequivocally: “It is a general principle that conflicts of
interest between men are settled by the use of violence. This is true of the
whole animal kingdom, from which men have no business to exclude
themselves.” He went on to say:

To begin with, in a small human horde, it was the superior muscular

strength which decided who should own things or who should
prevail. Muscular strength was soon supplemented and replaced by
the use of tools: the winner was the one who had the better weapons
or who knew how to use them more skillfully. From the moment
weapons were introduced, intellectual superiority already began to
replace brute muscular strength; but the final purpose of the fight
remained the same – one side or the other had to be forced to abandon
its claim or its objection by the damage inflicted upon it. That goal
was mostly achieved if the opponent was permanently eliminated by
violence – that is to say, he was killed.
(Freud 1933: 204)

This basic situation of “might makes right,” according to Freud, existed until
the first social transformation took place, in which a group of weak individuals
joined together against the mastery of the strong one. This rebellion of the
sons against the father led to the creation of law and order. The new community
that arose had to invest enormous means in preserving unity and stability, a
not at all easy task. In reality, not all the members of the community are equal.
Every community contains men and women, parents and children, winners
and losers. Thus it happens that the strong people tend to improve conditions
for themselves and the subordinates try to regain some control by violence.
War breaks out when the ruling stratum ignores the needs of the weak and
fails to institute change.
On contemplating mankind’s long history of conflicts, Freud was brought
to formulate, in 1915, his theory of instincts. This theory holds that psychic
life is based on the coexistence of the “death instinct” (Thanatos) and the
“sexual instinct” (Eros). These two instincts have a common biological origin;
they operate simultaneously, although not necessarily in equal force and equal
dominance in every living moment. The relative intensity of each increases at
certain times; thus it sometimes happens that the balance may be maintained,
but there are also times when one of the two instincts erupts and takes control.
Neither instinct is considered good or bad; their essence lies in their polarity.
The “vicissitudes of the instincts,” as coined by Freud, are hard to trace,
because they coexist in a combined manner from the very beginning of life.
For instance, the first erotic goal known to us is the incorporation of the
object, which is characterized by cannibalistic desires (the infant bites and
sucks on the mother’s breast). The next erotic goal is the anal–sadistic control

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over the object (the infant soils the mother), and at the following stage, the
Oedipal stage, the longing for one parent arouses murderous fantasies about
the other parent. The important thing is that from the beginning of
development, love seems to be very closely related to hate, and hate seems to
be very closely related to love. In fact, only with the formation of the genital
stage do the two urges become clear opposites of one another. Biologically, the
aggressive instinct is the original and more ancient one of the two, as it is this
instinct the one that allows the baby to survive and enables his yearning for
love to be expressed.
The development of the individual human being is very similar in nature to
the development of human civilization (Freud 1915). In both cases, processes
of socialization make use of both the instincts, so that one instinct may convert
the other. A person who was at first aggressive often undergoes refinement or
some sort of sublimation and in so doing adjusts to society. Therefore, Freud
writes: “Those who as children have been the most pronounced egoists may
become the most helpful and self sacrificing members of the community;
friends of humanity and protectors of animals have been evolved from little
sadists and animal tormentors” (ibid.: 282). This process, which Freud refers to
as “civilization,” may take place due to the influence of the erotic instinct on
the death instinct. The erotic instinct strives for integrative action, for linking,
and therefore it promotes learning. In this sense, it operates as an inner, intra-
psychic agent leading to social tendencies. Alongside and parallel to it, there is
the external factor, which is the pressure of the environment, the cultural
demands, which Freud calls “susceptibility to culture.” In this process, civiliza-
tion works constantly to convert egoistic tendencies to altruistic inclinations.
These external pressures lead to transformations that are internalized and even-
tually become part of the ego and finally an innate tendency.
However, the problem is that these external pressures are often induced
through methods of reward and punishment. It is therefore possible for the
individual to act in accordance with the dictates of civilization, while, in fact,
the intensity of the Thanatos has not truly changed at all. This is why those
who have gone through profound modification may look exactly like those
who have not gone through any real change. Society will have been deceived
by an optimistic view that is no more than an illusion.
In developmental processes, the primary structures are engulfed within the
later ones. Thus, when a village becomes a town, when a child becomes an
adult, both village and child are absorbed respectively and they manifest
themselves in a town or in an adult. However, in psychic development –
unlike other developmental processes – every ancient stage remains engraved
and existent alongside the next stages. So, even if the initial stage has never
been revealed, it may at certain times become a form of expression, perhaps
even the only form of expression.
Thus, at times of sensory or psychic excitation, the instincts may once
again manifest themselves in their primordial and uncivilized version. The

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sublimation of aggression is nullified, and something of the capacity to think

breaks down and is disrupted. In such circumstances, one suddenly sees the
flaring up of narcissistic pleasures that may result from the potential power
and omnipotence. Of this Freud says: “Our intellect can function reliably only
when it is removed from influences of strong emotional impulses: otherwise it
behaves merely as an instrument of the will and it delivers the inference which
the will requires . . . the shrewdest people will all of a sudden behave without
insight, like imbeciles” (Freud 1915: 28).

Winnicott: Aggression as a response to environmental failure

D. W. Winnicott developed Freud’s ideas in different directions: on one hand
he endorsed Freud’s idea regarding innate aggression; on the other hand, he
argued that we need to reject the concept of the “death instinct” as an energy
that strives to pull back life to its original innate state (1968). In “The Roots
of Aggression” (1964a, 1964b), Winnicott argues that aggression is one trait
of humankind that can be found in all infants, children, adults, regardless of
sex, race, skin color, and social standing. What distinguishes human beings in
this respect is not the existence or absence of aggression, but the way they
manifest it. Aggression exists before birth and can be seen in the fetus’ motility
inside the womb. Later it becomes the means by which the child explores
space and discovers reality. Aggression, at the start, has positive connotations
of potential vitality and creativity. Winnicott writes: “A baby kicks in the
womb; it cannot be assumed that he is trying to kick his way out. A baby of a
few weeks thrashes away with his arms; it cannot be assumed that he means to
hit. A baby chews the nipple with his gums; it cannot be assumed that he is
meaning to destroy or to hurt” (Winnicott 1950: 204). He goes on to say:
“aggression is part of the primitive expression of love” (ibid.: 205).
These functions of activity and motility do not take place in a vacuum, but
rather within a given environment, the reaction of which will become a
decisive influence on the future evolution of aggression. Returning to the
analogy of the fetus’ pre-natal life, every time it moves, the fetus may feel
the womb’s walls and its boundaries, so that it may quickly become aware
of the restraining and constricting elements in its environment. This fetus
therefore finds itself, possibly prematurely, in an environment which from the
start constantly forces it to consider “reality” (the sides of the womb) and to
“hide” or restrict its real tendency to move. This, according to Winnicott, is
the infrastructure for the later formation of the “false self” (1950). This baby
will develop a shell, a “secondary skin” (Bick 1968), while the true part of the
self will remain hidden, concealed, unfound. Alternatively, the fetus that
develops in a womb that provides space will meet the contours only gradually,
in a manner appropriate to its development. The baby whose mother leads
him delicately and sensitively to encounters with the reality that is out of his
control will develop an ability to express aggression, to kick, to shout, but not

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to destroy the world totally. According to Winnicott, if time is allowed for

maturational processes, then the infant becomes capable of being destructive
and he is able to hate, to kick, to shout instead of destroying the world
magically. In this sense, actual aggression appears to be an accomplishment,
and hostile and aggressive behavior takes on a positive value. Hatred becomes
a sign of civilization (Winnicott 1964b).
Winnicott (1947) speaks in favor of hate, if it is possible to be aware of it.
He finally formulates his view in his last papers (1968, 1969): the attack on
the subjective object and the survival of the object leads to an objective
conception of reality. The baby comes into the world with a single instinct –
“destruction” or “love-conflict.” The fate of this instinct depends on the
encounter with the environment (1950). If the object-environment retains its
qualities, survives and does not retaliate, it allows destructiveness to shift to
the realm of fantasy of destruction. Here the confrontation with the non-
revenging surviving external reality brings about awareness to the external
world and to the infant’s possibility to use it through creative integration of
aggression. In this case, a healthy destructiveness is produced. The wish to
destroy is channeled to fantasy, and in the external reality there is no inclination
to dominate the object, but an acceptance of its separateness.
On the other hand, the child who encounters a reactive and vengeful
“object-environment,” will find that reality preserves his instinct within it,
and he will not be able to own the roots of his own aggression. In these cases,
no development toward integration may take place. Instead, pathological
destructiveness will develop, the essence of which is the desire to subdue the
object, to alter it, to tame it so it becomes different, to destroy the other’s
freedom. Such aggressiveness lacks concern and is not transformable. Hence,
when aggression bursts out, it has disastrous consequences (Winnicott 1969).

Bion: Aggression as an attack on linking

Wilfred Bion’s writings, in the years of the aftermath of the Second World
War, also relate to the reciprocal interaction of the subject and the environment.
In this sense, Bion does indeed pursue Winnicott’s ideas, but from a different
theoretical angle: instead of focusing on a good enough environment and the
mother–infant relationship, he focuses on the “container–contained” link,
reverie, and alpha function.
Bion’s thinking on these concepts was influenced by Klein’s notion of
projective identification (1946). Bion developed this concept and stressed
that such unconscious transference of emotions may serve the subject as com-
munication, or may become a means of evacuating intolerable elements so as
to store them in the object. The basic paradigm for such a condition may be
found in the mother–infant relationship, when the mother holds for her baby
those elements that he cannot hold by himself. The same sort of linkage may
be found in therapeutic relations, between patient and therapist.

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Bion (1963) refers to this linkage in terms of “container–contained.” The

container is the object that holds some contents for the subject, whereas
the contained is the subject’s projected content. There is a link between the
container and the contained (Bion 1962), which has emotional qualities. Bion
lists three different types of possible emotional links, according to the quality
of the emotional bond that is formed by means of them: L, H and K standing
for love, hate and knowledge, respectively.
The emotional quality of the links is more important than the objects
connected through them (Bianchedi 1997). Most interesting is the K link,
placed at the same level as L and H. Locating K in such a position indicates
that the author sees knowledge – in the sense of learning from experience – as
a form of thinking, just like connecting and containing. K exists in its own
right and is based on healthy curiosity, the creation of symbols, and the
capacity for verbal thinking. Alternatively, there can be another situation,
where the dominance of negative emotions is produced; K would be
transformed into –K. Bion calls such a situation “Attacks on Linking” (Bion
1959). In this situation, the development of the “container–contained” link is
prevented. Aggression, dread, and pain are of higher intensity than the link
can contain. Therefore, the link is emptied of its meaning and leads to
disintegration. Again, it is important to emphasize that it is not the objects
that are under attack, but rather the links between them. Integrative thinking
once again becomes based on undigested elements, lack of knowledge, lying,
and distortion of reality.

Current thinking
In recent years theoretical considerations on the matter of aggression and vio-
lence support the idea that one should no longer speak of aggression as solely
an intra-psychic affair. Puget (1995) defined three spaces in which violence
occurs: the trans-subjective space, which exists between people and nations;
the inter-subjective space of groups and families, and the intra-subjective
space of the inner world of the individual. The aggressive act may take place
in each of these spaces and may also occur in several spaces simultaneously.
Shengold (1989, 1999) argues explicitly that, in keeping with Freud’s view
that people have innate aggressive instincts like other animals, the level of
aggression is also directly influenced by the environment. This refers to
frustration and distress that are found in the traumatic atmosphere of war and
catastrophe. Their internalization is liable to create, as he puts it, a situation
of “soul-murder” – an intentional effort to erase the distinct psychic identity
of another person.
Gampel (1996, 1999) defines an environment in which the external reality’s
violent qualities penetrate the individual’s realm of experience, leaving the
subject helpless and defenseless against them. The individual unconsciously
internalizes these toxic elements of reality and later he acts them out, even if

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their qualities are totally foreign to him. These identifications are “radioactive”
and exist in a “background of the uncanny” (as opposed to a background
of safety). Eigen (1999) uses very similar concepts when he describes how
the individual, in order to obtain emotional nourishment, has to absorb
emotional toxins.
Bollas (1999), too, points at the environment’s violent intrusion into the
self’s realm, although he uses different terms. Bollas submits that “death-
work,” unlike “dream work,” is a violent invasion of the one who projects into
the recipient of the self. The recipient self is forced to accept, to hold and to
identify with that which is projected due to the object’s inability to bear it.
Bollas defines such interactions as the work of oppression of the other which
is deposited in the self with no elaborative potential in the self.
Scalmati (1999), too, in her work on the victims of torture, speaks of the
intrusiveness of the environment, the effect of violence on the psyche, and
the formation of split areas within the self that are fixated to trauma. The
traumatic events alter the course of memory and thinking and cast their
shadow on events that occurred before the trauma. She emphasizes that this
fixation is the result not of intra-psychic conflicts, but of the psyche’s inability
to perform integration, linking, and transformation of the events that
penetrated it.
We see that these contributors are not focused only on the projectors of
aggression, but on the recipients of the projection. We speak of the violent
interruption of the recipient’s self experience and the violent infiltration
within it of the traits the projector cannot retain. In other words: at certain
moments, a person is liable to become – like clay in the artisan’s hands – the
owner of those traits that were projected onto him against his will. In these
situations, the room for self experience is narrowed and frozen due to prolonged
exposure to aggression.

Transformational and terminal links

On the basis of these considerations, I wish to define two types of link that
could exist in every one of the three spaces that I have mentioned. One is a
“transformative link” and the other is a “terminal link.” These definitions
are informed by the various object uses described by Bollas: the use of the
transformative object (Bollas 1987) and the use of the terminal object (Bollas
1995). In a “transformational link,” the transformation of aggression can take
place. In contrast, in a “terminal link,” the transformation of aggression
within the link cannot occur. In the latter, aggression remains in a deadlock
and cannot evolve into a growing experience. This applies to the inter-
subjective and the intra-subjective spaces that exist in the therapeutic
encounter. However, these concepts may also be related to a larger context,
namely, the trans-subjective space.

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The transformational link

The transformational link takes place between subject and subject, container
and contained, maintaining a coexistence that leads to a new emotional
experience in the space between them. Each side succeeds – even when facing
hostility – in learning something about the other side and about itself from
the mutual experience. By means of mutual and unconscious associative
processes, each party makes use of the subjectivity of the other, and therefore
one speaks of a subject vis-à-vis another subject. Each side takes in something
from the other, processes it internally on his own, and returns the materials in
a modified fashion. This taking in is “containing,” whereas inner processing is
the “transformation.” Every party is permitted and free to hurl projections and
counter-projections, whose meaning is not understood in the beginning but
becomes clearer in time, through their echoing within the inter-subjective
sphere. These reciprocal projections are mutually transformed by both sides
and create new common meanings.
One may take Winnicott’s example of the Berlin Wall (1969) to demonstrate
the existence of a transformative link within a space of trans-subjective
belonging. The Berlin Wall divided two hostile sides, which were unable to
maintain a dialogue, and yet succeeded in creating an agreed-upon symbol for
their reconciliation with its potential for war. Thus, the wall became a symbol
of recognition of existing animosity, along with an agreed-upon desire to defer
confrontation. This dividing line ultimately permitted each side to think, to
develop, to devote itself to creative life, and ultimately also to forgo the barrier
and move on to a fruitful dialogue. The important thing that I want to
emphasize is that, despite the existence of an overwhelming aggression
between the parties, a way was found to halt it, contain it and finally change
the situation. The acceptance of separateness, almost in concrete form, opened
up the possibility for peace and unity years later.

Clinical example of a transformational link

A was an unmarried man in his forties when he began therapy. He introduced
himself as the son of Holocaust survivors and complained about the lack of
connection with women, about failure to advance in his work, and his feeling
of detachment from the world. Approximately one month after the beginning
of therapy, he presented the following dream: “I was homeless in New York
along with someone else. The other person dragged me into a basement full of
dead people. We lay down on beds and we pretended we were dead. Then
somebody came, like a policeman, to check whether we were alive or dead. He
tried to make me laugh, put his face very close to mine, and I couldn’t breathe,
because I didn’t want him to notice that I was alive.”
From his associations it turned out that A experienced the therapist as a
policeman trying to scrutinize him from a close angle, while he felt that he

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had to hide the fact that he was alive, since otherwise he would lose the only
place he could live in, which was the basement. I understood that it was
forbidden for him to disclose the secret of his vitality, but I recognized it and
held it for him.
A came for his sessions regularly, twice a week, but he frequently spoke
about how nothing had changed. Moreover, most of the time he could not
remember what it was that he talked about in our previous session and
described his experience in terms of a curtain of dust that veiled his ability to
see. He said about himself that he was living mechanically, that he did not feel
or think very much and that he tried not to move so as not to be disappointed.
In fact, for a long time, I could not identify any change either, besides the
feeling that a bond had formed between us, which I experienced as good and
warm. At the same time, I often felt his deep despair catching up with me and
paralyzing me. It seemed that he was nipping in the bud any feeling of
progress in our work. I sometimes felt anger at him for stealing my vitality
and for rendering me essentially as helpless as he was.
During the first summer, about seven months after we started to work,
I went on vacation. When I returned, A reported, as could have been expected,
that nothing new or significant had happened. All that happened was minor,
meaningless events. However, truly “by chance,” he had started to play
volleyball on the beach. And again he attacked: “What’s the meaning of all
these conversations? Nothing ever comes out of them, but dust. It leaves me
just where I am, maybe even more and more hurt and depressed. I feel I could
need air, a heart transplant. But . . . ‘talks?’ I do not want to think.” I realized
that A was living in reality the life of the dead and only in his dream did he
live the life of the living. He was holding onto death, which was represented
by his parents’ fate, while they, at least ostensibly, continued to live.
At a certain stage, perhaps in despair and a feeling that only a very clear
statement could change something, I said to him: “Your sadness nourishes you
more than anything else. You live for it, and you aren’t willing to have anyone
take it away from you, as if it were your mother. Letting it go would be
unbearable because you would be left without nothing.” I told him how his
parents had tried to erase their factual history, but not their psychic realities,
the mood of despair and sadness that accompanied their lives. He was clinging
to this mood because he had nothing else and also in order not to feel the
unbearable pain he would have felt without it. I offered myself as some-
one who could see the despair that deadened him time and again, and as
someone who was there for him.
Following this interaction, a surprising change occurred in A. Although he
was still incapable of establishing long-term relationships, the volleyball
game led him to try roller-blades, and then he went on mountain hikes and
took diving lessons. A’s potential space of experience widened considerably. It
was at that stage that he decided to reveal to me the most significant secret of
his life: the fact that he had touched his younger sister as well as other little

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girls in the neighborhood. A reported the facts with horrible anxiety and
unbearable pain. I found myself surprised for feeling neither annoyed nor
revolted. What I did feel was deep sadness due to the inner understanding
that his story reflected the desperate act of a child who grew up in a deadening
environment and was reconstructing a dead touch. This act of touching,
aggressive and forbidden, had turned into a core of deadened sexuality that
was devoid of transformation.
A did not want to linger on the elaboration of his memory. I understood
that he had deposited his own private Holocaust in my hands, just as his
parents had deposited their Holocaust in his hands, and I agreed to accept it.
But there was something different in the quality of containing this time. At
this point, his life began to take on more color: friendships, a romantic bond
with a woman. In time, our work came to include moments of true shared
pleasure, in view of his new experiences in nature, alongside long periods of
emptiness and hopelessness. Contrary to what I could have expected, change
came from the sphere of psycho-soma, not by symbolization. I understood it
as a spontaneous gesture of an adult man, who started to play in his
environment. Play had led to a capacity to think, share and transform the
most difficult memories.

The terminal link

The “terminal link” is a link between object and object, container and
contained, which blocks any conscious or unconscious movement towards the
generation of new meanings. In such a link, elements cannot enjoy expansion
and fertilization. Instead, reciprocal projections are returned with no modifi-
cation. Psychic blindness prevents the expansion of meanings. We witness the
increasing blurring of boundaries between inner and outer worlds, and a
reinforcement of catastrophic anxiety. With no elaboration or learning from
experience, any state of Self remains sterile.
A current example of the terminal link and deadlock can be found in the
relation of Israelis and Arabs to the issue of the Law of Return, which leads to
the radicalization of relations and rejection of various chances for reaching a
peace agreement. The Law of Return speaks of the rights of Jews, wherever
they are, to “return” and live in the Land of Israel, whether or not they were
born there. The law was passed with the establishment of the State of Israel,
as one of its basic laws, and in fact it preserves the Jewish character of the state
regardless of the proportion of Jewish and non-Jewish citizens. One of the
consequences of this law is the refusal to grant the right of return to non-
Jewish people who were born in the country or to the relatives of non-Jewish
citizens of the state, who now live in other countries, even if they were forced
to leave because of the war.
A “terminal link” and a deadlock exist here in the positions of the two
nations, in the sense that both sides feel that they cannot give up their position

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or modify it: the Israeli Jews regard the law as an expression of the fact that
Israel is a shelter for the Jewish people and that there is a legitimate interest
in preserving its existence. In contrast, the Palestinians and the Arabs regard
this law as unjust in the sense that this land should belong to whoever was
born here, lived here, or whose family lived here, and they feel that they are
being denied this right. Each side clings to its position and feels a catastrophic
anxiety and a threat to its existence, which prevent thought, learning, and the
possibility of changing the situation. One can see how this rigid preservation
of positions has led to a decline in our region, and to an increase of destructive
hostilities.
The essence of such terminal links is more understandable if we relate to the
description of Bollas (1992) of the fascist state of mind. The core element
of such a mental state is the inability to tolerate interpersonal differences,
and the maintaining of one’s exclusivity and uniqueness by systematically
eliminating the uniqueness of the other. A person in a fascist state of mind
empties the other of his identity until the other becomes like a sterilized
body, dehumanized and meaningless. Witnessing this crossover from sanity to
insanity, the other often remains stunned, paralyzed, overwhelmed and
deadened by this annihilating attitude. Should the other try to recover from
this trauma by reminding himself of the problematic qualities of the projector,
it will only lead to the eruption of further aggression.
In the therapeutic encounter, these projections receive particular power
because of their tendency to freeze and to block any possible elaboration
of meaning. This is because the projector (the patient) can, momentarily,
evoke in the recipient (the therapist) tendencies that are similar to his own
state of mind. The projector and the receiver, the receiver and the projector –
their identities are blurred for moments. The therapist may experience
such moments as momentary madness and may be incapable of creating
transformative understanding, proper space for renewed play.

Clinical example of a terminal link

B came for therapy and stood out from the beginning because of his exemplary
courtesy. At the end of every session he would thank me for it, without any
relation to the specific event within it. B always arrived exactly on time and
never changed his day.
B defined the first part of the therapy, after about a year and a half, as a good
period between us. However, in the continuation of our work, he began to
come with detailed notes about our previous session and insisted on our
analyzing the account during the session. In time, he would sometimes bring
more than one version of the previous session, and thus the sessions, as
I experienced them, became a forced discussion, obsessive in character. Each
analysis became a discussion about the previous one, on what had been
said and on what had not been said, what was correct and what was not correct.

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B’s feeling at that stage was that I was wrong in most of my interventions,
that I wasn’t saying the right things, and that he was resolved to prove his
rightness every time anew. Both of us felt how the experience of failure was
growing stronger: his anger increased, and, in parallel, my helplessness and
discomfort grew.
B was a Holocaust survivor who did not remember many details of his life
from the period of the Holocaust, besides certain moments of dread, which
he described in great detail. In this context he reported a recurrent dream. In
the dream appeared the housekeeper, a woman who worked for the family in
Europe (and who in reality was a deaf-mute), and B’s father. His father cut off
the children’s legs, and the housekeeper sewed a handle onto each of the
amputated children, making them a sort of briefcase. One child cried and was
particularly miserable.
In elaborating this dream, B presented various associations relating to dread
of the various rumors about the acts of the Germans at that time. I interpreted
it that he was the child who had undergone a long series of different traumatic
amputations and, among other things, that he had been deprived of the ability
to “walk,” “to stand on his own two feet.” Perhaps I was the housekeeper who
was supposed to create a new capacity to bear himself for him. However, he
stated that younger Israelis like me, those who had not been “there,” attributed
too much importance to the burden of the Holocaust. He argued that the
sorrow that sometimes showed on my darkened face reflected a mistaken and
exaggerated response. My interpretation and that of others like me was what
gave the events such heavy significance, not the events themselves.
The possibility that I would be able to raise and bear him, or whether I was
a deaf-mute and useless, became the main axis of the therapeutic work. B was
determined to show me, beyond all doubt, that I was indeed a deaf-mute, and
did so in each of our sessions. I understood his attacks as a way for him to
liberate himself from his unbearable pain, which grew stronger in the course
of the therapeutic dialogue, and as a means to communicate to me, at least to
some extent, the experiences that were forced on him. He told me his story
again and again in different forms and variants, like a theme and variations in
music. Sometimes he was the tyrant and I was attacked, and sometimes I was
the tyrant and he was attacked. In this terminal game I often received the role
of the tormenting, brutal soldier, and he felt as though he was being executed.
At that time I felt how my anxiety about each session with him was growing,
and my capacity to think was diminishing. In my contact with B, I found
myself paralyzing and paralyzed in turns; I felt threatened more and more by
our sessions, void of new thoughts and failing to find a creative way out of the
unbearable trap in which I was caught. When I tried to offer interpretations
that were connected with the experiences that B was trying to arouse within
me, he felt that I was refusing responsibility. When I tried to assume responsi-
bility and suggest that perhaps I had spoken insultingly, that I had trampled
or humiliated him, or perhaps that I was mistaken in my understanding,

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B would come back with the feeling of, “Fine, so how does that help me?” I
felt how B was dominating me and denying me the capacity to preserve and
maintain my private thoughts.
At a certain stage, I realized that my interventions were useless for B and
only intensified the anxiety within the session. The space became increasingly
laden and poisoned, and the healing part by me was gradually being
extinguished in a cloud of helplessness. I believed that the only remaining
way to rehabilitate the space between us was for me to speak very little, to
remain in a position of observation and listening, so as not to continue to feed
the bonfire between us. I thought that my becoming quieter would work
toward restoring each of our subjectivities, and especially my own to myself.
It could lead to a healing of the regression and the madness in which we were
trapped. I waited until words would be a useful instrument again.
B experienced this quietness on my part as a crushing attack on him and
couldn’t bear it. He decided to terminate the analysis and we set a date.
A number of months after the separation he wrote a surprising letter to me in
which he emphasized again his astonishment about the “bad” period between
us, but he also pointed out his respect and nostalgia for the first “good” period.
In this letter he mentioned the promise I gave him to be there for him if he
ever would find himself in distress or in trouble. I answered with a short letter
that my promise remained in force.
This example illustrates how aggression, the unbearable distress of the
patient, his oppressive work, is projected onto the therapist by force, almost
coercively. The therapist felt B’s concealed sadism when he refused to permit
her not to be with him in this obsessive war. At such times the patient deprived
the therapist of all satisfaction, joy, or capacity to dream of the common link
between them. The therapist sometimes felt a challenge to her professional
self-image, doubt of her ability, anguish, self-hatred, and isolation, almost
madness, when she felt unable to set proper boundaries for the connection or
for the outbursts of accumulated hostility. We assume that this connection
embodies the story of B’s past experiences, and perhaps his desperate war of
survival with the exterminating environment in which he lived. Despite these
understandings, the dominant feeling of the experience of merciless attack,
which destroys creative thought, remained. The interaction described here is
characterized by particularly dominating and destructive emotions. In these
senses, it is an example of a terminal link.

Conclusion
I wish to suggest that the fate of the link in therapy – whether it becomes a
transformative link or one of deadlock and terminality – is not always in the
hands of the containing therapist alone, but is determined in the mutual space
between “container and contained,” between the therapist and the patient.
We try to help our patients in each and every stage of the therapeutic endeavor,

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when they are locked in terminal links, to transform the terminal link into a
transformational one, so as not to be in constant war with themselves and with
others. However, we know that this capacity is not always at our disposal,
although most reports in our literature relate to moments of positive
transformation. It seems to me that terminal situations might perhaps be
too hard to describe, though we must not neglect their meaning. They are no
less important.
In A’s case, the first dream he brought was the trigger that activated the
therapist’s intuitive work and made it possible to identify his hidden vitality.
Later, the patient’s choice of nature as grounds for mutual experience –
apparently a result of unconscious identification with the therapist’s
appreciation of nature – was another opening for mutual playing. The use of
nature enabled the therapist to truly take part in the patient’s experiences and
be with him in a kind of shared game of thinking and imagination, in which
they both explored new enjoyable spaces. This transformation worked toward
thawing the paralysis, softening the internalized aggression, creating a new
realm of experience. From this new and mutual realm, and from this fertile
environment, the disclosure of the secret became possible, as well as the
changes that followed it.
The case of B illustrates a situation in which the therapist and the patient
are trapped in an impossible link of deadlock and terminality. The patient
batters the therapist over and over again, expressing despair and dissatisfaction,
and the therapist becomes less and less free in the scope of her interventions.
She struggles to maintain her empathic stance towards the patient, yet feels
more and more that she is unable to give what the patient needs. The therapist
is aware of her oscillating countertransference feelings; they change from rage
to the feeling of lack of control over the situation and the anxiety in that
regard. For the time being, they – patient and therapist – are locked together
in the same space of despair. Here the therapeutic process becomes a game in
which all moves are predetermined, and all are leading back to the first move.
The challenge for the therapist is to transcend such deadlock and terminal
links, so as not to get sucked into such terminal games. Sometimes, the very
recognition of the process as a terminal link and proper mindfulness of such a
situation can alter the situation. However, we need to consider that terminal
situations are at times so fixated that it may be necessary to accept inability to
make other use of the therapeutic interaction. Perhaps for certain patients the
therapeutic dialogue is truly too painful and its cessation preserves their
fragile sanity? We may strive to accept the fact that some turbulent moments
will always recur, again and again, each time we face another emotional storm.
We are faced with a complicated and intricate task of navigating between
our faith in the transformative qualities of therapy, the hope to create a
potential space for playing, and the realization that this is not always possible.
In such circumstances courage is required to recognize our own limitations
and to accept them.

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References
Bianchedi, E. T. (1997) “From Objects to Links: Discovering Relatedness”, Journal of
Melanie Klein and Object Relations, 15(2):227–233.
Bick, E. (1968) “The Experience of the Skin in Early Object Relations”, International
Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 49:484–486.
Bion, W. (1959/1984) “Attacks on Linking”, in Second Thoughts, New York: Jason
Aronson.
—— (1962/1984) Learning from Experience, London: Karnac.
—— (1963/1984) Elements of Psycho-Analysis, London: Karnac.
Bollas, C. (1987) The Shadow of the Object: Psychoanalysis of the Unthought Known, New
York: Columbia University Press.
—— (1992) Being a Character, London: Routledge.
—— (1995) Cracking Up: The Work of Unconscious Experience, New York: Hill and
Wang.
—— (1999) “The Return of the Oppressed” (unpublished paper).
Eigen, M. (1999) Toxic Nourishment, London: Karnac.
Freud, S. (1915) “Thoughts for the Times on War and Death”, Standard Ed. XIV.
—— (1933) “Why War?”, Standard Ed. XXII, London: Hogarth Press.
Gampel, Y. (1996) “The Interminable Uncanniness”, in L. Rangell and R. Moses-
Horshovski (eds.), Psychoanalysis at the Political Border, Essays in Honor of Rafael
Moses, Madison, CT: International Universities Press.
—— (1999) “Violence and Torture upon Children in Contemporary Societies”, Paper
given at EFPP Conference in Rome.
Klein, M. (1946) “Notes on some Schizoid Mechanisms”, International Journal of
Psycho-Analysis, 27:99–110.
Mitchel, S. A. (1993) “Aggression and the Endangered Self”, Psychoanalytic Quarterly,
LXII: 351–382.
Puget, J. (1995) “Psychic Reality of Various Realities”, International Journal of Psycho-
Analysis, 76:29–34.
Scalmati, A. S. (1999) “Frozen Memories, Eluded Memories: Notes on the Therapeutic
Relationship”, Paper given at EFPP Conference in Rome.
Shengold, L. (1989) Soul Murder: The Effects of Childhood Abuse and Deprivation, New
Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
—— (1999) “Foreword”, in R. J. Perelberg (ed.), Psychoanalytic Understanding of
Violence and Suicide, London: Routledge, pp. xi–xviii.
Winnicott, D. W. (1947/1992) “Hate in the Countertransference”, in Through
Paediatrics to Psychoanalysis, London: Karnac, pp. 194–203.
—— (1950/1992) “Aggression in Relation to Emotional Development”, in Through
Paediatrics to Psychoanalysis, London: Karnac, pp. 204–218.
—— (1964a) “Roots of Aggression”, in The Child, the Family, and the Outside World,
London: Penguin, pp. 232–239.
—— (1964b/1989) “Roots of Aggression”, in Psychoanalytic Explorations, London:
Karnac, pp. 458–461.
_____ (1968/1971) “The Use of an Object and Relating through Identifications”, in
Playing and Reality, London: Tavistock, pp. 86–94.
_____ (1969/1986) “Berlin Walls”, in Home is Where We Start from, London: Penguin,
pp. 221–227.

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Images of war and images of peace in sand-play therapy

Rina Porat and Bert Meltzer

Wars and political violence are worldwide human problems encompassing
experiences of threat, existential danger, wounding and loss of life, causing
suffering to each individual involved, as well as to the collective.
The State of Israel was established after the Second World War with the
hope of giving the Jewish people a protected home in the “Promised Land.”
Since then, for more than sixty years, Israel has been surrounded by declared
enemies, either at war or being threatened by the prospect of another war.
Even when it was not in actual war, terrorist attacks inside the country have
been a source of grief, mourning and anxiety. The pervasive atmosphere of
stress associated with the chronic war events affects each individual and the
entire community. At the same time peace continues to be a personal and
collective dream and hope.
War and peace are, by definition, polar opposites. They are opposing,
contradictory states that reflect realities of violence versus security, anxiety
versus tranquility, destruction versus wholeness, death versus life.
As external life realities, states of war and violence are always destructive
and negative, while peace is positive and harmonious. However, paradoxically,
in intra-psychic reality, images and metaphors of war and peace can have
multiple symbolical meanings and they can serve many diverse functions in
psychic life and in human development. According to C. G. Jung (1946),
psychic energy stems from the tension created between psychic opposites.
As psychic images, states of war and peace represent polarities that coexist
and function as parts of the dynamic dimension of the human psyche.
Psychologically speaking, images of war and conflict can, for example, reflect
and play a central role in the process of dynamic change, and be a stimulant to
development and transformation, while images of protracted or sustained
states of peace could also be associated with stagnation, fixation, psychic
inertia, arrested development and fear of change.
Thus, while we cannot emphasize enough how horrible the reality of war is,
the conception presented in this essay is that, on a psychic level, war and peace
are part of bivalent, two-way (i.e. reciprocal) interactions between an individual
and the external world. Within the intra-psychic world, war and peace are
regarded as an inherent part of the human psyche – playing a vital role in the
process of growth and healing.
This perspective will be elaborated throughout the paper in the course
of presenting variations of war and peace images created by patients (children,
adolescents and adults) as part of their personal sand-play therapy pro-
cesses. The sand-play images, presented in pictures, are symbolic and like
any other psychic expression they carry multiple personal and collective
implications.

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“Sand-play therapy” was developed by the Swiss Jungian Dora Kalff, who
adapted Margaret Lowenfeld’s “world technique” to Jungian theory. It is a
non-verbal (pre-verbal) expressive therapeutic technique which reaches into
the unconscious depths of the psyche for the purpose of healing, growth and
personality development.
The roots of sand-play are in the symbolic play of childhood. It is an activity
in which a shallow tray of sand (dry or wet) and a collection of miniature
figures are used by patients (of all ages) to play out inner images of wounds,
traumas, or fantasies – in the sand. It is a natural addition to Jung’s various
techniques of active imagination, which permits a person to develop themes
in the sand “by giving free rein to his fantasy” (Jung 1946: 202).
This therapeutic approach is based on some central Jungian premises.

1. The human psyche is a self-regulating system striving for wholeness,

integration and individuation.
2. Psychic energy stems from the tension created between psychic opposites.
The tension between opposites, especially between the conscious and the
unconscious systems, is the precondition for psychological growth. These
major dynamic factors are interconnected in a compensatory relationship,
and participate in the development of human consciousness and in the
entire individuation process (Jung 1946).
3. In the unconscious there is an autonomous tendency, given the right
conditions, for the psyche to heal itself.

According to Kalff, the right conditions for the healing process start with
creating “a free and protected space,” where there is full freedom for “active
imagination” and creativity to be active (Kalff 1980: 32). The aim in sand-
play therapy is to provide a temenos or psychological womb in which “the
healing of the inner wounds can occur” (Weinrib 1983: 28). This holding
container is an essential part of therapy. In this state, the therapist is aligned
with the unconscious forces within both the therapist and the patient.
Winnicott (1971) called this field the “transitional play space” and the “area
of illusion.” He writes: “It exists as a resting place for . . . keeping inner and
outer reality separate, yet interrelated” (p. 11).
This third area, this area of illusion, or area of experience, is exactly the
place where the sand-play process occurs. It is the place where inner and outer
realities come together.
The sand-play process proceeds with minimal intervention by the therapist
and especially without interpretations. The sand-play therapist accompanies
the patients in their inner journey while they can follow their own psyche
without the therapist’s orientation getting in their way. The process is allowed
to unfold and the patient’s psyche is the guide. Thus, sand-play is based on the
self-healing of the patient. Given a wound, a free and protected place and
empathic witness, a self-healing process can be initiated.

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What happens in the sand-tray may be an expression of distress and

pathology, but, more importantly, it also reflects how the patient is coping
with these problems. Each scene may be seen as part of a series of successive
attempts to cope with past and current wounds or a step in the ongoing
journey towards individuation, or both.
Granted that the foremost task of the sand-play therapists is to provide
freedom, protection and empathy for the patients, their second task is to
understand the images, the symbolic language; to “read” each scene and to
understand the series of images as a whole. This is necessary to articulate when
reviewing the process with the patient after it is completed.
Jung viewed play as a vast source of symbolic resources. He connected it to
fantasy and imagination, which he perceived as the “mother of all possibilities”
(Jung 1962: 52). Jung emphasized the importance of the role of symbols in the
healing process. He said that the development of the individual can be brought
about only by means of symbols. The sand-play activity gives concrete visual
shape to the images and thereby activates healing energies. The sand-play
language, like a dream language, is a message of the unconscious enabling the
therapist to tune in or track the process. There is a continuum in sand-play
language from the universal, or archetypal, by way of the cultural, to the personal.
Sand-play therapy is about both the developmental processes and the
psychic products (the images). The constellation of an image is a result of the
spontaneous activity of the unconscious, on one hand, and of the momentary
conscious situation on the other. Psychological life emphasizes the need for a
subjective reaction to imagery, thus establishing a relationship and a dialogue,
in which both person and image are affected.
According to Jung (1976), apparent opposites are bridged through
symbolic imagery. Samuels (1993) suggests that “imagery can be understood
as . . . bridging the gap between the apparently individual, private . . . and
the apparently collective, social, political. There is a constant relationship
and articulation between the personal/subjective and the public/political
dimensions of life” (pp. 62–63).
Thus, in accordance with these perspectives, the individual psychic images
can be considered both as reflections of the inner world and as representations
of collective, external reality.
Having lived in Israel and worked as therapists for almost 35 years, we have
found sand-play therapy to be an extremely useful therapeutic tool especially
with patients who suffer from various symptoms and psychological wounds
related to stressful and traumatic life events. In these psychological states,
verbal communication is often poor or absent and non-verbal, non-threatening
communication becomes a preferable channel to the unconscious, which stores
both painful wounds and new possibilities for healing and development.
The aim of this essay is to examine the impact of external, socio-political
events on the human psyche and its images. Through these images, we will
present what we consider a comprehensive conceptual model for understanding

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the sources of psychic images. The model portrays the complex interplay
between the different personal and collective, conscious and unconscious
layers of the human psyche. We hope that the deepening of our understanding
of psychological processes and psychic images will contribute to the
understanding of collective processes and war-like life events in Israel and in
the world in general.

Conceptual model: The comprehensive context of images of the psyche

Jung (1976: par. 797) defines the psyche as the “totality of all psychic processes,
conscious as well as unconscious.” In addition to the linking of conscious and
unconscious processes, he includes within the psyche the overlap and tension
between the personal and the collective elements in man.
Images are products of the psyche and are indispensable sources of
information and guidance. The image is what presents itself to consciousness
directly; we become aware of our experience through an encounter with an
image of it. According to Jung, an image can be viewed “as the expression of
an involuntary, unconscious psychic process beyond the control of the
conscious mind . . . it shows the inner truth and reality of the individual as it
really is” (1933: 6) The images “speak” in the archaic language of the objective
psyche. However, they express, in symbolic terms, the unknown side of the
life situation as it is apprehended and mirrored by the unconscious.

Strata of the psyche

Our model presents a comprehensive perspective for understanding the origins
of images. This model offers to consider the complex interplay between
conscious and unconscious aspects, personal and collective factors, and the
experience of internal and external realities, all of which originate from
different, but interconnected, layers of the psyche. According to Jung (1962),
each individual exists between the collective consciousness and the collective
unconscious. The more a person becomes himself (or herself), i.e. the more he
submits to individuation, the more distinctly he will vary from collective norms,
standards, precepts, mores or values. Although he partakes of the collective as
a member of society and a particular culture, he represents a unique combination
of the potentials inherent in the collective as a whole. Such development and
differentiation Jung saw as instinctive and essential. He said: “Life is the story
of the self-realization of the unconscious. Everything in the unconscious seeks
outward manifestation, and the personality too desires to evolve out of its
unconscious conditions to experience itself as a whole” (1962: 3). Hence, the
collective strata, starting from the collective unconscious stratum (the basis of
the human psyche) can be perceived as the larger vessel that contains all the
other (conscious and personal) strata. Images are, therefore, “condensed
expressions of the psychic situation as a whole” (Jung 1976: par. 745).

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Conscious aspects

A. Ego consciousness
1. Includes consciousness of the external reality: the ego’s awareness,
perceptions, attitudes/feelings about current events, situations, and
problems.
2. Includes consciousness of the inner world: the ego’s awareness of one’s
thoughts, feelings, yearnings, longings, needs and desires.

B. Collective consciousness
1. Includes cultural consciousness: which refers to the awareness of the
history and myths of one’s culture, community group and affiliations,
along with their contemporary values, belief systems, expectations
concerning modes of adaptation, norms of behavior, roles, life scripts, etc.
2. Includes political consciousness: which refers to consciousness of current
and historical national and international life events, along with the
policies, perspectives, attitudes, or prejudices stimulated by them.

Unconscious aspects
Freud and Jung used the term “unconscious” both to describe mental contents
that are inaccessible to the ego and to delimit a place in the psyche with its
own character, laws and functions. Freud (1959) regarded the unconscious as
a repository of repressed, infantile, personal historical experience. Jung (1969)
added a perspective related to the phylogenetic, instinctual or “archetypal”
bases of the human race.
Our comprehensive model attempts to differentiate between the various
unconscious origins of psychic images, as follows.

The “objective” intrapsychic stratum

The term “objective psyche” refers to and enlarges on Jung’s earlier concept of
the collective unconscious. It was used by Jung to denote a dimension of the
unconscious psyche that is of an a priori, general human character. This first
layer, the “objective psyche,” refers to the innate human core from which
culture, the collective consciousness as well as the conscious ego and the
personal psyche originate. Thus, images stemming from the objective intra-
psychic stratum express archetypal factors or issues that operate and are active
in the course of development and in the individuation process. The images
that originate from this stratum are often very powerful (“numinous”) and
have a very peculiar, non-rational and illogical (or rather pre-logical) form.
These images often correspond to mythological themes. The objective psyche

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is envisioned as a prerequisite to all personal contents and the vessel that

contains these contents.

The “subjective” personal stratum

This stratum, based on the Freudian perception of the unconscious, includes
a repository of repressed, unlived, rejected and introjected contents and
experiences of the individual. In the course of life, certain material becomes
inaccessible to the ego (as the center of consciousness) and makes up the
contents of the personal unconscious. The “subjective” personal level of the
unconscious puts a special emphasis on early relationships. The early inter-
nalizations (especially of the parents) become the unconscious basis for the
formation of the individual’s object-relations, complexes, self-identity, self-
image, the development of masculinity/femininity, etc.
This unconscious psychic layer is contained by, and is subordinate to, the
“objective” archetypal psyche.

The unconscious of the collective

Each individual, living in a certain society in a certain time, is influenced by
the “collective.” As mentioned above, collective consciousness includes the
norms, role expectations, social values, manners, socio-political attitudes and
the “real-life” events of the community. However, the collective also has
disowned and denied attitudes and feelings, unlived modes of operation or
experiencing, as well as certain prejudices and realities that have been repressed
and rejected on a collective level. All this makes up “the unconscious of the
collective.”
The traditional analytical explanation of negative attitudes and activities
(for example, war) in the social and collective realm is understood as stem-
ming from the shadow problem. Here lie the roots of social, racial and national
bias and discrimination. Every minority and every dissenting group carries
the shadow projection of the majority, be it Negro, white, Gentile, Jew,
Italian, Irish, Chinese or French. Moreover, since the shadow is the archetype
of the enemy, its projection is likely to involve us in the bloodiest of wars
precisely in times of the greatest complacency about peace and our own right-
eousness. The enemy and the conflict with the enemy are archetypal factors,
projections of our inner split, and cannot be isolated or wished away. They can
be dealt with – if at all – only in terms of shadow confrontation and in the
healing of our individual split. The most dangerous times, both collectively
and individually, are those in which we assume that we have eliminated it
(Whitmont 1969: 168)
An alternative perspective to collective issues is found in the concept of a
“political psyche” (Samuels 1993). Samuels says: “Even the Unconscious itself
may be understood as having some origins outside the individual person, not

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only of an archaic, phylogenetic kind, but also resulting from the internalization
of social institutions and political processes . . . The individual develops on
the terrain of social and political relations and hence there is a political level
of the unconscious” (p. 53). This kind of formulation gives some autonomy to
the “unconscious of the collective” as more than a projection of the personal
and other than the objective psyche. Furthermore, this stratum refers to the
impact of the unconscious of the wider collective on one’s personal images.
All the psychic strata are interdependent, interactive and can be envisioned
as vessels connected by a vertical axis passing through their center, starting
from the deepest (the archetypal) layer of the unconscious up to the conscious-
ness, where the images are manifested.

Examples of war and peace images in sand-play therapy

As stated above, each picture, scene or symbolic image is a product of multi-
faceted interactions between the various layers of the psyche. Furthermore,
during the sand-play process, the dialogue that occurs between the person and
the image generates development and change in both of them. According to
Jung (1966: 232), “when the conscious mind participates actively and
experiences each stage of the process . . . then the next image always starts off
on a higher level.”
In this paper we do not present a complete sand-play process of a single
patient to illustrate his personal psychological journey. The pictures described
here focus on the themes of war and peace, and were chosen from different
therapeutic processes (of patients of different ages), as examples of images that
seem to emphasize either archetypal factors, personal conflicts, or external and
collective life events.

Archetypal origins of images of war and peace

War and peace are states of mind and symbolic images that are archetypally
rooted in the human psyche. Human life starts from an undifferentiated,
archaic unity. A state of participation mystique exists between the infant and
the cosmos (represented by the archetypal and personal parents). This state
can be seen as the ultimate symbol of peace: opposites coexist without
differentiation, without distinction, and without separation. This is a state
without tension. Neumann (1954) calls it the “uroboric stage”, and Michael
Fordham (1969) calls it the “primary self.” Every step towards consciousness
involves the emerging ego separating from the Self, and hence establishing
“the Self–ego axis” (Neumann 1954).
Thus, the evolution and development of consciousness (ego development)
requires and creates the first human war between the emerging ego and the
embracing, but devouring, unconscious. Neumann (1954) describes this war
as “the separation of the World Parents.” Fordham (1969) describes this in

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terms of cycles of integration (state of oneness) through de-integration

(separating from this “self” state, for further change and development) – and
then, reintegration. The development of the ego through increasing separation
and differentiation is the product of this first human war.

Example 1
The following scenes were created by E, a seven-year-old boy with severe
learning disabilities related to organic damage at birth. He was hyperactive,
restless, and had many fears and adjustment problems. He was the elder of
two sons, and the parents, especially the mother, were very anxious and often
helpless in dealing with E’s multiple problems. Neumann’s developmental
theories emphasize the importance of undisturbed primal relationship that is
characterized by the tensionless paradise-situation of the original unity
between mother and child. He says: “Just as the general development of the
child’s body depends on nourishment by the mother, so the development of its
psyche, of its ego–Self relationship depends on the psychic nourishment given
by the mother figure” (1973: 26). In this state, the mother simultaneously
regulates and compensates for unpleasant experiences that cause the child
physical or emotional discomfort and disturbance.
E began by creating images of the “bad witch” against the entire world. The
witch fought against each object (chosen indiscriminately by E) while singing
her provocative song “nobody can defeat me.”
At the end of that session, the battlefield turned into a huge pile that E
described as “the graveyard.” At the end of each fight there was chaos, nobody
survived except for the almighty witch that killed and destroyed “the whole
world,” said E.
These war scenes were repeated for two months without apparent changes:
the witch always won her battles and destroyed everything she touched. The
only change was on the emotional level. E gradually started to express
ambivalent feelings toward the witch. At first it seemed as if E was passively
yielding to the witch. There was no doubt about her invincibility, and it
almost seemed as if he was fascinated by her strength and magical powers.
Then E seemed more troubled, anxious and helpless, wondering if and when
the witch would be defeated. This shift in his feelings towards the witch was
important. Being afraid of the witch created an opportunity for a change.
Once the attraction and fascination disappears, the need to separate (through
fight or flight) from this negative feminine power grows.
A later scene illustrates a new organization of E’s ego energies in confronting
the black witch. The black witch is in the center, surrounded by monkeys
(from the left, going in a counter-clockwise direction), army soldiers and
super-power warriors. The witch does not fight each of them separately, as
before; the forces are united and ready to attack the witch. Psychologically
speaking, the image marks a significant change: E’s masculine ego powers are

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both more differentiated and more united, and it seems that for the first time
they become a real opponent that can face the witch and perhaps even defeat
her. In this scene there was no war, but a kind of mute, non-verbal confrontation/
negotiation between two forces – the devouring unconscious and the growing
masculine ego. E said that if the witch attacked they would fight her, and he
believed that they would win.
In a still later scene the witch was put behind a fence (on the upper left
corner). She is guarded by a large group of soldiers, super-power warriors,
and a huge snake. While the witch is “imprisoned” and guarded, life and
development can proceed and the child archetype can be manifested.
Thus, some of E’s energies are dedicated to guard the witch, and the rest are
directed towards life that is vital, free, protected and happy.
E built an organized zoo, where the animals are sorted according to their
species (lions, monkeys, cows, etc.). Each species has its own territory. In the
zoo there is also a “magical” playground with cartoons and fairy tale heroes.
“It’s like being in Disneyland,” said E. In this scene the witch is guarded and
the children, being also accompanied by parental figures, can feel free and
protected. This last picture reflects a new state of peace, based on united forces
(both physical and psychological) that make it possible to create a safe world
with new and freed ego energies for development. In the early stages of life,
this kind of massive war is typical and then in later stages of life, it repeats
itself on a smaller scale with less intensity.
In early and middle childhood, war scenes correspond to the stages of ego
development that Erich Neumann (1973) calls “magic warlike” and “solar
warlike” and that Dora Kalff (1980) calls the “stage of fighting.” Neumann
stresses that in later phases of development, anxiety and the need to fight arise
at any point of transition from one archetypal phase to another: “Just as the
whole archetypal world appears to the ego primarily as the Great Mother, so
each phase to be surpassed becomes the dragon of threatening regression,
which must be defeated by the hero-ego of progress . . . there is a fundamental
conflict between the development of ego-consciousness and the ‘inertia’ or
‘gravitation’ of the psyche, its tendency to adhere to a position once attained
and developed” (1973: 168).

Example 2
Archetypal wars can express a developmental necessity not only of the evolv-
ing ego (as the center of consciousness) that fights against the devouring
unconscious, but also of inner psychic factors (mainly from the Self) that fight
external socializing pressures. Through the medium of the parental education
a substantial part of the cultural, collective consciousness is passed on to the
child. Adaptation of the individual to social rules, norms or codes of behavior
serves to establish order and “peace” between members of the society. In addi-
tion, the organization of life inside the social–cultural framework defines

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reality and “precludes – in the normal person – any dangerous invasions from
the unconscious and guarantees him a relatively high degree of inner security”
(Neumann, 1954: 375).
However, while adaptation and conformity will be established for the gains
of order and security, the individual risks his true self by adopting a “false
one” (Winnicott 1971), or through identification with his “persona”. Jung
(1964) elaborates this idea: “The smaller the personality, the dimmer and
more unconscious it becomes, until finally it merges indistinguishably with
the surrounding society, thus surrendering its own wholeness and dissolving
into the wholeness of the group. In the place of the inner voice there is the
voice of the group with its conventions, and vocation is replaced by collective
necessities” (CW 17, par. 302) If, on the other hand, a person is true to herself/
himself and to his or her individuality, the conflicts will be with the external
world. Neumann (1954) spoke about the Great Individual, the creative one,
the hero, whose “orientation comes from the ‘inner voice”, from the unique,
inner utterance of the self” (p. 375). He continued: “The true hero is one who
brings the new and shatters the fabric of old values, namely the father-dragon
which, backed by the whole weight of tradition and the power of the collec-
tive, ever strives to obstruct the birth of the new” (ibid.: 377) But this hero
often becomes alienated from the normal human situation and from the col-
lective. His heroism entails conflicts, fights, alongside personal suffering and
loneliness.
The following example presents pictures created by A, a twelve-year-old
who was referred to therapy because of his lack of interest in school work, and
the teacher’s complaints about acting-out behaviors. He was often punished in
school and by his angry and disappointed parents, who were firmly committed
to conforming to the society’s norms. In the course of the therapy, the parents
gradually understood that their son was distressed and depressed.
In one sand-world A created an urban scene, which, when compared to his
earlier sand creations, conveyed a growing sense of order, peace and integration.
In this city there is a strong presence of masculine elements of law and order
(in the fences, traffic lights, street signs, and a policeman). What is lacking in
this city is Eros. There is a lack of interaction and relatedness among the
human figures, who are absorbed in their activities. A identified with the
boy, near the lower part of the swing, who was playing soccer by himself.
Although at first impression, this scene could be seen as expressing A’s
growing adaptation to the collective, his identifying with the boy points at an
adaptation with loneliness and alienation.
After three more sand-worlds, A created a city, which, while remarkably
similar to the previous one, is chaotic. A said: “Monsters from outer spaces are
attacking a city. A policeman, a few soldiers, and also Batman, Superman and
the commander of the Special Force Unit have been sent to defend the city.
In the end, the monsters are expelled from the city and they return to their
own planet.”

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This invasion could be understood as regression. Yet it seems that the same
destructive, “negative” forces that are coming from the deeper and archetypal
layers of the unconscious might serve a higher cause: to destroy A’s inner
image of adaptation, i.e., the city that lacks Eros and relatedness, in order to
push forward a more individuated development, which will enable A’s true
and creative Self to be manifested and expressed.
In this context, adaptation to the “peaceful” collective, but impersonal city,
may be part of the development of a “false self.” This may be one of those
instances in which war and destruction are necessary for the emergence of a
true individuation process.
The motif of archetypal powers appears also in war scenes where the heroes
fight monsters, witches or dragons in order to reach “the treasure.” The
treasure, as a symbolic image, often represents the soul, the self, the anima, or
some hidden parts of the potential development that the ego has to fight in
order to reach and obtain the desired goal (“The Treasure”).

The personal unconscious origins of war and peace images

The “subjective” personal unconscious stratum includes suppressed wishes,
introjections, and repressed traumatic events, especially those from inter-
actions with the parents during early childhood. Images at this stratum may
express conflicts between the parents, their personalities, their relationship, as
well as the relationship between the child and each of his parents. Often the
child has to struggle in order to find his or her place on the continua on which
his parents are polarized.
The closer the images are to the consciousness and to the life of the
individual, the more “realistic” (less imaginary or archetypal) the objects
presented in the sand-tray become and they seem to reflect actual conflicts in
the person’s life. Such war scenes can express:

(a) inner conflicts between opposite parts of the personality (between good
and bad forces, between weak and aggressive aspects, between infantile
and more mature tendencies, etc.)
(b) conflicts with external powers (parents, authoritative figures, opponents,
etc.).

Example 3
L was a boy eleven years old, suffering from social and behavioral problems
when he came to therapy. These problems seemed to be the consequence of
severe and prolonged conflicts between his critical and domineering mother
and his distant and overly intellectualizing father. Though his affect was
generally depressed, he engaged the sand-play enthusiastically. In his initial
sand creation, there is a boy captured in a wire prison, surrounded by reptile

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and monster-like creatures. The boy, who might represent L’s ego, is imprisoned
and surrounded by the devouring aspects of the Negative Great Mother. He is
attacked by these unconscious, matriarchal forces from all over; from the land,
sea, and sky (by spiders, bats, witches, monsters and other animals).
This scene emphasizes psychological imprisonment (developmental
paralysis) accompanied by strong feelings of fear and being in danger. But
signs of possible change are present. Some masculine, external patriarchal
forces (army tanks) are approaching from the edge of the sandbox and are aided
by some inner unconscious elements (represented by a warship and divers).
They seem to intend to fight the dark forces of the devouring Great Mother
and rescue the boy. No change or growth can take place without this war.
The next scene presents a reversal state; the psychological “tides have
turned.” Here the witches are imprisoned and the devil of death (another
manifestation of the terrible Great Mother), is surrounded by well-armed
military forces. The powerful masculine energies of the military are succeeding
in containing and capturing the fearful, previously threatening feminine.
This picture represents intrapsychically a transition from the dominance of
the matriarchate to the beginning of the patriarchate. On the interpersonal
level, this image suggests a change in the relationship between the boy and
his parents. The enactment in the sandbox is about having more masculine
strength that enables him to better contain the influence of the mother on
him. The enhancement of his strength is also about getting closer to his father
and to masculinity.
In the subsequent sand creation, L dealt with the separation of two antagonistic
army forces, hence bringing peace. He created a middle, neutral zone and put up
a protective barrier for each side. The armies were secure behind their barriers
while still able to see each other’s movements. The advantage of being able to
separate opposing forces is obvious on the intra-psychic level. But this image
might highlight L’s efforts to deal with his parents’ wars: by “seeing them as
separate,” he can transform these destructive interactive patterns – with each
other, between him and them, and especially, within himself. In this scene there
was a transformation from the dominance of one side over the other leading to a
ceasefire and also to recognition of the separateness of the two sides. This image
of separating the forces, each having its own definite space and both related,
marks a possible transition from war to peace. Moreover, in his image, L’s efforts
to separate and respect his parents’ differences can significantly contribute to
their being able to do the same in the external world.

War and peace images related to external life events

Example 4
This example is one in which the individual as a member of the collective is
impacted by a social–political event. The sand-play creator consciously

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identifies with the collective event (although he was not directly involved in
the battlefield). Thus, the collective event is the stimuli or explicit content of
the image. In this instance, the psychic image contains both its collective and
personal aspects. Working through the collective image affects both the
personal and collective psyche.
F, a twelve-year-old boy, created this realistic scene in which terrorists
attack a bus station at a central junction at the entrance to the city where he
lived. In a suicidal act, two Palestinian terrorists put a bomb in a bus station.
They were killed together with seven Israelis. Many more were wounded. F’s
sand-world presented this junction. The traffic was halted and the cars were
stuck. However, there was an active first aid operation with many rescue cars
including ambulances, police forces, and the fire brigade. Casualties are being
evacuated and rushed to the hospital.
In a very emotional tone, F said: “All this big, messy tragedy, because of two
crazy terrorists.” His response could represent a typical Israeli attitude,
accompanied by grief, mourning and anger. Psychologically speaking, this
realistic scene presented two main dangers. First, the war is not “out there” in
the front and between armies, but very close to home, close to one’s center,
creating a strong feeling of insecurity. Second, there is a threat and danger to
the normal flow and mobility of the ego energies, which impairs the natural
growth and developmental processes for the individual and the collective. In
order to go on with life and to continue to develop, healing is needed. Healing
was realized both by the sand-play enactment of the tragic event and by the
presence of rescue teams. The rescue activities implied that psychological
healing was taking place within the individual and within the collective.
F was not a direct victim of terrorism. Nevertheless, his image and many
other images created by patients reflect the strong impact of every life event
of war and violence on the psyche. Everyone is affected. Every psyche is injured
and traumatized.

Example 5
We now describe and discuss two pictures created by a man who was directly
involved in a terrorist attack.
E was six years old when terrorists killed his mother and brothers before his
eyes. Miraculously he survived, being hidden under the bed. His father was
not at home at the time, and collapsed when he found out; from then on he
ceased to function as a father. E then spent most of his life in various
institutions, mainly in psychiatric hospitals. For over fifty years he went out
occasionally but returned after increasingly brief periods, finding the “outside”
too anxiety-producing. The psychiatric institution became his home, his
parental container. He agreed to come for two sand-play sessions, as a
participant in our research project, while insisting that he did not want
therapy because, at this stage of his life, he did not want to be cured. For him

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being healthy meant leaving the safe existence in the psychiatric hospital and
being, once more, homeless and alone in this threatening world.
In his first sand creation, E searched for several long minutes before he
picked up a white angel. He continued to hold this white, child-like angel in
his hand, while scanning the shelves. He could not find whatever he was
looking for. He returned the angel to its shelf. He sat down on a chair, seeming
helpless and hopeless, and said, “There is nothing here.” He was offered some
help, and eventually he got up, continued to search and took a small house,
which he located on the top of a small hill that he created. Then he searched
again and said that he “can’t find the right, suitable human figures that could
represent parents.” Some figures were too large, some too small; he complained
that most were too defined, and that he was looking for figures “without
faces.” Eventually, he chose a miniature of two little male and female figures
and placed it next to the house. He added another miniature of two black
witch-like figures and put it behind the house. He said “that’s it . . . this is
death.” Later, when asked about the white angel, he said “his time has not
come yet.” Then he briefly told his “life story” and when he finished he picked
up the white angel again and added it to the scene.
E was a victim of war. He had spent most of his life in institutions. This
sand-world presents the core of his tragedy. His parental container (the house
with the parents) was taken by the angels of death. The scene he created
reflected the dominance of death in his life. Physically he grew up, but
psychologically and emotionally his life was arrested from the time he had lost
his parents, being only six years old. However, the scene ended with an
element of healing. By placing the white angel, he could balance the heavy
impact of the black “angels of death” in his life. He said: “The white angel
takes care of the soul, purifies and frees it from anger and hatred.” For the first
time in his life, E could liberate his soul, which had been imprisoned since his
early childhood, and attain some healing, peace, and comfort.

Example 6
The following is another example of a victim of war.
After the first Scud missiles launched from Iraq landed within urban areas
of Israel, the government opened shelters for families whose homes had been
damaged and for others who were unable to function and stay in their homes
due to overwhelming anxiety caused by the attacks. The shelters provided for
the physical needs of the people who arrived there and also for the emotional
difficulties of both the adults and children.
The four pictures we now describe were the work of a woman that came to
one of these shelters.
W came to consult in a highly anxious and depressed state. Initially, she
came for help about her younger son. She had lost her older son, who had been
a soldier in the war in Lebanon eight years previously, and she reported feeling

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frantic and almost paralyzed when the first Scud attacks began. She was so
anxious about the threat to her younger son’s life that she wanted help for
herself. She felt so overwhelmed that she could not talk. She agreed to do
sand-play and created four scenes in four successive days.
In the first scene, W immersed herself in working with the sand. In a long,
slow, deeply meditative rhythm, with intermittent waves of sighs, and inter-
vals of crying, she silently sculpted two faces in the sand. She later described
the face on the right, characterized by deep empty eyes and open mouth, as a
self-portrait. The face on the left, which was less articulated, was the “fading
memory of my dead son.” The hair of both figures was created from stones:
blue stones crowned the figure on the right; pale, white and gray stones
covered the head of the figure on the left. She said: “These two figures are
attached. It expresses my feeling that my dead son is with me, like a shadow,
wherever I go.”
Working with the sand brought W back to her open wound and expressed
feelings of pain, terror, and mourning. Her existence was a living death – alive
outside, and dead inside. She cried while she was building, but when she
finished she reported feeling great relief. Her wound can never be fully healed,
but through the “uncovering” of the wound she moved toward “recovery” –
not better suppression of the trauma, but holistic transformation.
In the second scene, a soldier stands in the center surrounded by five stones.
“This soldier is alone, exposed and without protection . . . Only he can help
himself.” She talked about loneliness, vulnerability, and helplessness. She said
that the soldier could be herself, her younger son, or her dead soldier son.
However, these feelings could also express a collective atmosphere in Israel,
especially during times of severe stress, of being isolated and exposed to threats
and dangers, and of having an attitude that “only we can help ourselves.”
The third scene explicitly combined personal feelings and collective psycho-
political aspects. Out of old newspapers, W created a collage of Ariel Sharon’s
face and name (he was the Minister of Defense at the time of the Lebanon war)
and she added the word “fire” in Hebrew. This collage was the focus of her
sand-play scene. On the right she built a bunker out of sand, which looks like
a skull that is reminiscent of the face she created in the first scene. The bunker-
skull conveyed a strong paradox of a womb as a protective container for the
soldiers that could also become their tomb.
In fact, on the left, there is a grave in which two figures lie. Outside the
fence, a male and a female figure are watching. She said: “Wherever you look,
there is just death, danger, helplessness, and the writing on the wall saying
fire.” In this scene, W added anger and blame to the previously expressed
feelings of vulnerability, helplessness, terror, death and mourning. On the
personal level, this powerful scene seemed to combine W’s loss in the past
(the death of her son in the Lebanon war), her fears in the present of losing
another child, and her despair about the future. On the social–political level,
this scene could reflect an underlying depressive trend among the collective in

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Israel. The expression of pain, fear, anger and despair conveys the futility of
war. There is no sign of a better future. W’s fourth and last sand-world
expressed a transformation of her energies, both in the actual creation of the
scene and in its meanings and implications. By pouring strong colors of red
and yellow, light and dark blue, W created a volcanic mountain surrounded
by water. In contrast to her arrival at the shelter in a state of paralysis and the
desperate, static quality of the first two images, this one was highly dynamic
and vivid.
Two figures that had appeared previously by the grave are standing at the
peak of the volcano with a die showing the number 2. A figure stands at the
foot of the mountain and another, a yellow clown, is elevated at the upper left
corner. W said: “The water does not let the volcano burn everything. The
dice is about fate, and there is something about fate that I cannot argue or
cope with.”
Three important issues are expressed in this scene: the power of nature, the
power of fate, and the emergence of a hope, healing and renewal through
the archetype of the trickster, represented in this scene by the yellow clown.
In the Jungian approach, a combination of typical trickster motifs can be
found in the alchemical figure of Mercurius with his fondness for sly jokes, his
malicious pranks, his powers as a shape-shifter, his dual nature, and his
approximation to the figure of a savior. Jung wrote: “If, at the end of the
trickster myth, the savior is hinted at, this comforting premonition or hope
means that some calamity or other has happened and been consciously
understood” (1968: 271).
W’s sand-worlds started from a personal wound related to the collective
depression and despair, and they culminated in a connection to the deepest
layers of the human psyche – the collective unconscious, with its dual nature
which included the destructive powers of the volcanic fire bursting out from
the depth of earth and the containing, protecting, life-giving water.
The number 2, which is repeated in this sand creation (the die, the human
figures, the dual nature of the trickster figure, etc.), emphasized the recognition
of the dual nature of the human psyche and the need to prevent the explosive
energies from becoming uncontrolled destructive forces. The hope for
all humanity in such states of violence and wars is symbolically offered by
the archetype of the trickster that represents the shadowy destructive aspects
in the human psyche, as well as the seeds of healing and light. Jung wrote:
“Only out of disaster can the longing for the savior arise . . . only in such a
narrowing situation nobody but a savior can undo the tangled web of fate”
(1968: 271)

Example 7
The last example focuses on the impact of the “unconscious of the collective”
on personal images that seem to pick up attitudinal and emotional

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undercurrents currently denied by the collective, specifically the effect of the

approaching Gulf War on the psyches of four different Jewish boys. These
sand works were created by boys between the ages of eight and eleven, during
the six-month period in which the Persian Gulf crisis began (August 2, 1990)
and as it was moving toward its climax (January 15, 1991). During this period
in Israel there was a general denial of danger, even though there was concern
and some defensive measures were taken. The buildup toward confrontation
was external. Although Iraq was threatening to attack Israel, there was
generally a disbelief and an absence of fear and anxiety.
Sensitive and vulnerable individuals often can read the unconscious state of
other individuals and of the collective in general. The boys’ sand pictures may
therefore reflect the collective unconscious climate of the time. These four
sensitive boys expressed intense feelings of fear and anxiety in scenes that were
unusual and did not seem related to their personal processes.
A was an eleven-year-old boy who lived in a rural village in the Jerusalem
corridor (an area, narrow in width, next to Jerusalem on the western side of
the city). His sand picture of the 24th of October depicted a large military
force moving from right to the left, facing an invisible and unknown enemy.
There was an inherent tension and anxiety connected to this scene, in which
the creator arranged a large protecting force, while the size, scope and nature
of the enemy remained unknown. In addition to the preparing military force,
there was a big field hospital, suggesting the anticipation of injuries as well as
the need for help and healing. The sand-play creator enlisted all the power he
could, but was left in a state of tension and uncertainty.
Y, an eight-year-old boy, lived near Jerusalem and created his sand work on
the 28th of November. In this scene, two large warrior figures, with a camera
and a lock behind them, were looking down at two small unarmed figures in
the middle of the tray. Lower down, there were three small wooden soldiers
and a caveman figure. In the lower left corner there was a small island with
two giraffes and two chicks. The camera may suggest a state of being in the
eyes of the world, an objective perspective of the evil these two figures
represent, or perhaps some impersonal and outside vantage point of the
opponents. The lock and the key might suggest that these huge evil forces
hold the key to some unknown door and that something unspecified will be
unlocked. The two small figures, both unarmed, naked and pink, might imply
a state of innocence, helplessness and smallness, facing this threatening force.
The three small wooden soldiers and the caveman with a spear, “have come to
defend the world against these evil people,” said Y. Then he chose not to carry
out the action but foretold that “all will be destroyed by these evil people,
with the exception of a small corner [in the lower left], where the two giraffes
and the two chicks will survive.” His story, in the spirit of a new apocalypse,
concluded with the surviving animals, much like in Noah’s ark, in which
there is the potential future after the destruction of the world. Here only
animals survive, not one human being.

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L, an eight-year-old, created his sand work on the 28th of December, 1990.

Two forces opposed each other. One, on the right side, consisted of monsters,
both reptiles and dinosaurs, many with open mouths and protruding teeth.
The second force on the left consisted of a mixture of Indians, modern soldiers,
Roman and English guards, three frogs, and some contemporary military
vehicles. The second force was identified as “the humans” who have gathered
together “to stand against the monsters, trying to save the human race.” The
forces confronted each other, but no resolution was offered. L completed the
creation of this scene in the spirit of uncertainty about the outcome and with
a feeling of anxiety for the fate of the “humans.”
R, an eleven-year-old boy from Jerusalem, created the following sand work
on January 2, 1991. In the lower right corner, several houses were overturned
and cars and trucks were crushed. In front of them a large muscular giant was
standing and holding a “dead soldier whom he was eating.” The giant was
surrounded by fallen soldiers whom R identified as having been killed by this
creature “who came from another planet, looking for food . . . and his food is
people.” From the middle to the lower left there was a collection of figures,
including figures in “gas masks,” a knight, a tank and soldiers. One of them
was holding “a loudspeaker, trying to talk to the giant-creature.” Like the
other three boys, R chose to leave the situation in a state of uncertainty and
anxiety with an unknown outcome.
All these four sand works depicted the mustering of forces to defend
the “humans” and the “planet” from some invading unknown, inhuman,
monstrous force. The forces gathered to protect and to defend the world
were physically smaller and more vulnerable than the force they were oppos-
ing. Unlike typical war scenes of boys in this stage of development, we
don’t see ordinary conflict between “good” and “bad,” but rather a sense
of Evil personified that aims for total destruction and annihilation of
the world.
Undoubtedly, the threat of an attack on Israel by Saddam Hussein with his
secret weapons (he threatened to use chemical and biological weapons
delivered by long-range missiles – “Scuds”) had a tremendous effect on these
young boys’ psyches. The state of uncertainty and deep anxiety was felt in all
the four scenes. On a personal level, the scenes could present weakened ego
capacities, threatened and in danger of being totally consumed and devoured
by an enormous evil aspect of the unconscious. However, these boys, who had
each been in therapy for some time, were psychologically at a stage in which
their ego had accomplished a higher degree of strength to confront their
personal problems and conflicts. The deep regression implied in their sand
creations did not appear to be reflecting their psychological or developmental
stage. Rather, it seemed to be expressing some extra-personal reality. Neumann
wrote: “the reality by which the individual is possessed is not derived simply
from his personal reality; at the same time, it is also the individual expression
of a collective situation” (1969: 29). Seen in this perspective, we should look

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into the external reality and especially into the current social–political life
events in order to understand their impact on the human psyche.

Before the Gulf war, there was a collective denial about the impending danger
to Israel. While certain precautions were taken, it was a state of “business as
usual” in which everybody seemed rather calm. People preferred to believe
that Saddam Hussein was merely posturing and that there was no real danger
of war with the United States, and therefore little real danger to Israel.
Rational evaluations were confident that he would back down from the
programmed confrontation. The greater the denial, the deeper the unconscious
anxiety became constellated in the collective psyche. These four boys,
representing the innocent minds and most sensitive parts of the collective
consciousness, probably picked up, unconsciously, the danger, the fears of
invasion, and the threat of annihilation.
Although these four sand-worlds were created by four different boys, we
can also look at them as so-called “big dreams,” in Jungian terms, expressing,
reflecting and referring to the “extra-personal,” collective level of analysis.
Analyzing the four scenes in chronological sequence (from the earliest date up
to the 15th of January), some observations and inferences are possible.
First, in regard to the shape and nature of the image of the “enemy,” it
developed from some absent, vague, unseen and unknown enemy to something
with a concrete and more familiar shape (the two large and fierce warriors).
Later, the enemy takes on a more primitive and archaic form (monsters,
dinosaur), and in the last scene, we meet something totally alien (the giant
creature from another planet, who eats humans). Thus, the growing anxiety,
as the time became increasingly close to the confrontation on January 15th,
was reflected in the transforming images of the enemy.
Second, the temporal distance from “the ultimatum day” (January 15th)
was reflected in spatial terms in the sand-play images (i.e. the relative
proximity or distance from engagement with the enemy). In the first scene the
enemy is “out” of the sand-tray. In the next scene, the enemy is seen, but is
located at a considerable distance from the potential victims, and still further
from the defending soldiers. In the third scene the opposing forces are facing
each other, but not yet engaging in a fight. In the last scene, the enemy is in
the process of devouring the defending soldiers. From scene to scene the
danger came closer and closer, and evil became bigger and more monstrous.
This suggests that spatial relationships in the individual sand-trays conveyed
in turn the psychological immediacy of fear and threat within the unconscious
of the collective.

Summary and conclusions

Images in sand-play therapy are created, projected and transformed. As a projec-
tive technique, the image in the sand reflects where the individual is in terms of

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his development, wounds, feelings and attitudes. It can also be an expression of

distress and pathology, which otherwise would remain living in the underworld.
As a creative activity, building scenes in the sand is a “living experience”
(Bradway and McCoard, 1997: 37). Creating the image is a dynamic interaction
between the psyche, the sensory-motor system, and the image that is formed. As
such, it can be understood to be, in itself, an attempt to resolve a problem sym-
bolically, as well as a medium for generating new modes of coping. As a thera-
peutic approach, sand-play therapy creates, above all, a transforming temenos,
where the individual processes his inner healing and personal growth.
The archetypal polarity of war and peace is multifaceted and multi-
valent. As external life events, war is a negative and destructive state, whereas
peace is positive and harmonious. As psychological metaphors: war might
be necessary for individual growth, change, and transformation through
differentiation and deintegration; while prolonged peace can be synonymous
with stagnation and arrested personal development. Ontogeny and phylogeny
are parallel and synchronistic processes. Every collective event impacts on the
individual psyche and vice versa. Individual growth and change impact on the
collective. Therefore, war and peace are personal as well as collective events.
Within the context of Israel, a country in a chronic state of war, external
events create feelings of tension and fear. Everyone is affected, if not directly
wounded. Creating scenes of war and of peace in the sand might help to
develop new coping patterns with reality events (Porat and Meltzer, 1998).
Creating these images can be a reflection of the feelings and attitudes one is
dealing with, struggling with, and assimilating. It can also be an attempt of
the individual psyche to resolve the collective problem that the external war
imposes. There is a reciprocal relationship between personal and collective
wounding and healing. Neumann wrote:

The reality of evil by which the individual is possessed is not derived

simply from his personal reality; it is also, at the same time, the
individual expression of a collective situation. Similarly, the creative
energies of his unconscious, with their hints at new possibilities,
are not simply his own energies but also the individual form taken by
the creative side of the collective . . . Both the problem and the level
at which the solution emerges are manifested in the individual; both,
however, have their roots in the collective. It is precisely this that
makes the experience of the individual so significant. What happens
in him is typical of the total situation, and the creative stirrings
which enable him to find his own solutions and salvation are the
initial stages of future values and symbols for the collective.
(Neumann 1969: 29–30)

For each of the authors of the present essay, the creative activity of exploring
and writing about the theme of war and peace images has been a growth

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experience, and, in itself, a healing process. It is our hope and prayer that our
process, along with the images created by Jewish sand-players (some of which
were presented here), will help to bring change to the character of the collective
pain in Israel. And, from our thesis of the reciprocal relationship between the
intra-psychic and collective levels, this process will contribute in a small way
to the healing of the collective in the Middle East.

References
Bradway, K. and McCoard, B. (1997) Sandplay: Silent Workshop of the Psyche, London:
Routledge.
Fordham, M. (1969) Children as Individuals, London: Hodder and Stoughton.
Freud, S. (1959) Collected Papers, Vols 1–5, New York: Basic Books.
Jung, C. G. (1933) Modern Man in Search of a Soul, New York: Harcourt, Brace.
Jung, C. G. (1946) On the Nature of the Psyche, Collected Works, Vol. 8, Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press.
Jung, C. G. (1962) Memories, Dreams, Reflections, New York: Pantheon.
Jung, C. G. (1964) The Development of Personality, Collected Works, Vol. 17, London:
Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Jung, C. G. (1966) Two Essays on Analytical Psychology, Collected Works, Vol. 7.
London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Jung, C. G. (1968) The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, Collected Works, Vol.
9i, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Jung, C. G. (1969) The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, Collected Works, Vol. 8.
London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Jung, C. G. (1976) Psychological Types, Collected Works, Vol. 6. London: Routledge
and Kegan Paul.
Kalff, D. M. (1980) Sandplay: A Psychotherapeutic Approach to the Psyche, Boston: Sigo
Press.
Neumann, E. (1954) The Origins and History of Consciousness, London: Routledge and
Kegan Paul.
Neumann, E. (1969 [1990]) Depth Psychology and a New Ethic, Boston: Sambhala.
Neumann, E. (1973) The Child, London: Hodder and Stoughton.
Porat, R. and Meltzer, B. (1998) ”Images of War and Images of Peace”, Journal of
Sandplay Therapy, 7: 25–73.
Samuels, A. (1993) The Political Psyche, London and New York: Routledge.
Weinrib, E. L. (1983) Images of the Self, The Sandplay Therapy Process, Boston: Sigo
Press.
Whitmont, E. C. (1969) The Symbolic Quest: Basic Concepts of Analytical Psychology,
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Winnicott, D. W. (1971) Playing and Reality, London: Tavistock.

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 Part III

PLAY AND FATHERHOOD

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 6
FATHERS AND SONS

Introduction: Fatherhood or motherhood?

Emilia Perroni
We are all familiar with family life and with tensions that sometimes may
arise between father and mother regarding the children’s education. One
typical argument may be brought when one parent is in favor of the use of soft
words or coddling, while the other advocates more control, the need to attain
independence, or the use of persistence. A similar conflict occurs in the
psychoanalytic realm.
In early psychoanalysis, therapy was carried out by male therapists. They
usually had a sort of authoritarian approach with their female patients. Both
Freud and Jung began their psychoanalytic careers by treating women. The
classical male trinity as defined by Gornick (1986) – intellect, interpretation,
and penetration – was seen as characteristic of the “paternal” therapists, and it
still is.
Later, when women joined the psychoanalytic movement, both as theore-
ticians and as therapists, their presence along with their softening of the
classical authoritarian approach created a type of therapists that can be called
“maternal oriented therapists.” This division did not necessarily overlap with
the gender of the therapist, but it related to his or her type of approach. There
are still nowadays women who use the “paternal” approach, and, conversely,
men whose approach is the “maternal” therapy kind. Of course this should not
be considered a clear-cut division. We must take account of the countless
varieties and combinations of possibilities.
The paternal therapists believe that “working” with the elements of aggres-
sion, autonomy, and struggle makes people progress, whereas the maternal
therapists believe that gentleness, kindness, acceptance, and containment are
the principal elements that permit development.
As in many families, the repetitive pattern in the “psychoanalytic family” is
that therapists with the “father-type” approach claim that those with the
“mother-type” approach will spoil their patients and weaken them. They

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argue that the patients of mother-type therapists don’t work hard enough on
their aggression, and therefore they are being pushed toward regression,
while the mother-type therapists claim that the other group leaves insufficient
space for love, that they unnecessarily restrict their patients’ freedom, and that
the massive concern with aggression neglects the development of the soul.
Christopher Bollas, in writing about the Oedipal nature of psychoanalysis
(1996), argued that psychoanalysis must acknowledge to an equal degree the
paternal and the maternal order, and that neither can exist without the other.
Paternal therapists clearly use elements of maternal therapy and vice versa.
An interesting example of this combination is to be found in Freud’s
treatment of “Little Hans” (1908/1909). Interestingly, about a year later, Jung
wrote an article about the importance of the father in human fate (1909/1971).
Hans was a five-year-old boy who suffered from a phobia about horses.
During the whole treatment, Freud saw the child only once, and the treatment
took place through the meetings with Hans’ father, a well-known musicologist
and Viennese author, who also took part in the meetings of the Vienna
Psychoanalytic Society and was a great admirer of Freud.
The treatment was carried out on three levels: first, the level of the
relationship between father and son, that is to say, the stories that Hans told
his father, and the father’s interpretations to his son; second, the father’s
dialogue with Freud; and third, Freud’s interpretations of Hans’ words, as
reported to him by his father. Little Hans was eventually cured. He subse-
quently became a successful choreographer and the artistic director of the
Metropolitan Opera in New York. Indeed, in Freud’s approach, the trinity of
intellect, interpretation, and penetration, mentioned above, is prominent. At
the same time, it is impossible to claim that his approach is without motherly
elements.
At the end of the treatment, Hans’ father asked Freud whether his paternal
honor had been diminished by the fact that he had to personally speak to his
son about all sort of subjects in this world (it is important to underline that
this therapy took place in the Vienna of the early twentieth century). Freud
replied that perhaps his paternal pride had somewhat declined, but in its place
he had gained his son’s trust.
Are we sure that what helped Little Hans was only the interpretation given
by Freud to his father on his son’s unconscious, or can we assume that perhaps
the simple use of a kind of “maternal” attention by the father and the reciprocal
acceptance of each other by father and son gave rise to an improvement of
Hans’ condition?

In the context of stories about fathers, I would like to tell you one that is very
dear to me. It’s about two fathers and their sons. It’s a true story and it took
place not far from Jerusalem and during the first Intifada.
One day a young man from Sicily decided to convert to Judaism. Not only
did he convert and become a religious Jew, he even became an ultra-orthodox

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one; and not only an ultra-orthodox Jew, he also decided to live in a Jewish
settlement surrounded by angry Arabs – one of those settlements that we hear
about now and then in the news.
His father, who by that time was living in Sicily, used to follow the news
about the area where his son was living on television or through newspapers
and, of course, he was concerned. He began to think that once again his
son must have found a “good” place to get into trouble. He didn’t understand
entirely the causes of the conflict in the region, but he understood very well
that his son was in danger. He wasn’t particularly bothered by his son’s strange
way of dressing or his odd dietary restrictions, but his safety and security
worried him a great deal. Hence, on one of his visits to his son’s place, he
decided to turn to the leader of a neighboring Arab village and ask him to
protect his son. He equipped himself with a picture of his son and an
interpreter. On the way to the village, which was one of the most hostile
in the area in respect to the settlement where his son was staying, all sorts
of thoughts raced in the father’s mind. He asked himself what could be the
most important thing to a person – and he came to the conclusion that it
had to be “honor.” When he reached the Arab village, he asked for the person
most honored there and then he went to meet him. The two men looked
rather similar: both wore caps and faded suits, both spoke slowly, and
from time to time they both indulged in a sip of black coffee and a cheap
cigarette.
The man from Sicily began with a long list of troubles that his son had
caused him, while the other one nodded sympathetically. The Arab then told
the Sicilian about one of his sons, and why he couldn’t manage to sleep at
night because of him. He reported that it all began with his son’s “good
intention” – to throw grenades against the settlers. Unfortunately his son had
to spoil things. It turned out that the son didn’t know how to throw grenades
very well, and that he eventually threw one near himself and ended up
wounded, was captured and put into prison. The Sicilian understood the
Arab’s anguish, and they both sighed.
After a long silence, the father from Sicily asked the village leader to protect
his son from harm. The Arab asked for a picture of his son, and after he saw it
he said that they all looked the same. But the Sicilian said that the color of his
son’s eyes was like the color of olives in the autumn, and that his son had a
special sparkle in his eyes. The Arab answered that he would do his best to
defend the Sicilian’s son.
After the two men conversed a bit longer about the cultivation of olive trees
in Sicily and in the territories occupied by Israel, they parted peacefully: the
Arab was pleased that he had been greatly honored, and the Sicilian was
consoled, because his son would no longer be in danger. Neither of them said
goodbye, but they had each gained honor and trust.
The following two essays deal with play and the relationship between
fathers and sons.

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References
Bollas, C. (1996) “Figures and their Functions: On the Oedipal Structure of a
Psychoanalysis”, Psychoanalytical Quarterly, LXV: 1–20.
Freud, S. (1908/1909) “Analysis of a Phobia in a Five-Year-Old Boy”, Standard Ed.
Vol. X. London: Hogarth Press.
Gornick, L. K. (1986) “Developing a New Narrative: The Woman Therapist and the
Male Patient”, Psychoanalytical Psychology, 3: 299–325.
Jung, C. G. (1909/1971) ‘L’importanza del padre nel destino dell’individuo (‘Die
Bedutung des Vaters für das Schicksal des Einzelnen’ (1927) in Europäische Revue),
Jung: La Psicoanalisi e Freud, Rome: Newton Compton Editori.

Dedalus and Icarus: Thoughts on relations between

fathers and adolescent sons

Shmuel Bernstein
Play as a framework of great significance in determining father–son relations
has not received enough attention in professional literature: first, play in
the sense of shared fun which expresses love and physical intimacy, but also
play as a challenge, expressing aggression and even hostility; and further, play
in the sense of games, with clear parameters and rules, integrating the
“horrible” and the “benign” Father. That is to say, play moderates the dangers
of a too distant and threatening yet longed-for father, or, at the other extreme,
the father who is too close for comfort, who embarrasses the child and arouses
opposition or passivity with his maternal softness. A playful relationship
permits the working out and moderation of different components of the
Oedipal complex.
Ross (1986), one of the few psychoanalysts who have attempted to deal with
the father function, cites Yogman and Brazelton, showing that fathers are
often involved in intrusive, mostly physical interactions with sons. Such inter-
actions stimulate infants and develop a “basis for play,” according to these
researchers. Samuels (1985, 1993), an analyst of the Jungian school, empha-
sizes the positive value of aggression in the development of father–son rela-
tions. Samuels explicitly defines father–son relations without regard to
biological gender; that is, paternal aspects may be exhibited by mothers, and
daughters may exhibit characteristics of sons. He describes different styles of
aggression, physical and verbal, in fathers and sons at play; he also shows the
great extent to which paternal “holding” strengthens and supports a son’s
efforts to shift from one form of aggression to another (as opposed to changing
to a more socially acceptable form of aggression). That is, such play supports
action rather than sublimation. In this way, Samuels adds, father and son
experiment along a broad spectrum of aggression, including the most destruc-
tive forms, those that exhibit complete disregard for others and are the ones
that are least liable to be transformed. If one examines aggression within the

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framework of “holding” in the father–son constellation, where play is an

important component, one sees that it is a broader, more diverse conception of
aggression; the ability of the son to shift from one form of aggression to
another develops, forming the basis of a characteristic of major and positive
importance in the life of the individual.
In Greek myth, Dedalus begs Minos, the King of Crete, to release him from
exile in order to return with his son Icarus to his homeland to be buried.
Minos refuses, blocking escape routes by land and sea. Dedalus, an inventor
and gifted engineer, outwits him by building wings for himself and his son.
Icarus, interested in his father’s handiwork, reaches out to touch them; his
father raises his voice in warning, explaining that they will leave Crete by
flying with the wings. He teaches his son to fly, admonishing him to navigate
according to his instructions: not to rise too high lest the wax holding the
feathers to the wings melt from the heat of the sun, and not to descend so low
that the wings will be weighed down with the dampness of the sea. Icarus
acquires the skill of flying, gathers his courage and in a fit of youthful haste,
against his father’s instructions, flies above him, tragically fulfilling his father’s
warning: he falls and is swallowed by the sea (Ovid).
The myth deals with hubris; that is, the sin of arrogance: the adolescent son
flouts his father’s authority by flying upward, thus challenging his father and
the gods, and is punished for his sins by falling into the sea. Or, in psychologi-
cal terms, the adolescent is carried away by grandiose and omnipotent feel-
ings, loses his ability to reason and to judge reality, fails and falls apart. Such
situations are familiar from daily life: the adolescent may challenge, oppose,
rebel, attack, destroy or harm himself. He misbehaves and must bear the
responsibility. What brings him to this situation is often hidden from view.
Dedalus, however, a brilliant craftsman who attempted to guide his son in
flight and who is pained deeply by his tragic death, is also a man who, in an
attack of envy, pushed his nephew Talos from a tower to his death, but Athena
transformed him into a bird – called Perdix, with implications we shall see
below. Polycaste, Dedalus’s sister and Talos’ mother and who is also known as
Perdix – meaning partridge – had sent her son Talos to serve as an apprentice
to her brother; Talos, the gifted student, it turned out, was a greater talent
than his teacher (Bullfinch 1855/1979; Graves 1955; Rose 1959). This aspect
of the story widens our perspective and provokes questions about the nature of
Dedalus as a man and as a father. Athena, the goddess of wisdom and crafts,
took pity on Talos, stopping his fall by turning him into a partridge, a bird
that does not fly high and nests in low branches, as though in fear of falling
(a detail whose significance is discussed below).
There is yet another surprise: Dedalus, seemingly a loyal subject of Minos
and his wife Pasiphaë, plots against Minos. He comes to Pasiphaë’s aid when
she falls in love with a handsome bull sent by Poseidon, the god of the sea, to
be sacrificed. Minos takes pity on the bull because of its good looks and allows
it to live, which is seen as an offense to Poseidon. In order to punish him,

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Poseidon causes Pasiphaë to fall in love with the bull. Dedalus helps her to
disguise herself as a cow in order to couple with it. The result of this encounter
is none other than the Minotaur, a monster: half-man, half-bull. Later Dedalus,
who is also a talented architect, builds the famous labyrinth at Minos’ request
in order to trap the Minotaur, but Dedalus has acted against King Minos, his
symbolic father, by helping Pasiphaë, and challenged the gods as well by
attempting to escape his punishment for the terrible sin of killing a child. For
these reasons, Dedalus’s character as a father and teacher may be seen as highly
flawed. Mythology teaches us that there is a price to be paid for sins and errors.
This is true as well in our experience of emotional and family life.
Now we have a broader, more complex picture of Dedalus as a father: a
talented artist, strict and emotionally problematic so that, overcome with
envy, he attacks and murders his nephew. He is unfaithful, disloyal to his
father-king, preferring to plot with the mother-queen, a dangerous action
evincing lack of judgment, and raising a question with regard to his ability to
identify with a father figure. What kind of relationship can this father build
with his own son? Can a son approach such a father, identify with him, learn
from him?
Kafka’s Letter to my Father (1919) reveals a difficult, distorted relationship
with his cruel father, a sado-masochistic symbiosis that brings the son to
despair of ever marrying – the only way Kafka sees to exit the insufferable
connection and grow up. Kafka describes these relations:

The fundamental thought behind both attempts at marriage

was quite sound: to set up house, to become independent. An idea
that does appeal to you, only in reality it always turns out like the
children’s game in which one holds and even grips the other’s hand,
calling out: “Oh, go away, go away, why don’t you go away?” Which
in our case happens to be complicated by the fact that you have always
honestly meant this “go away!” and have always unknowingly held
me, or rather held me down, only by the strength of your personality.

There are those who contend that this no-exit situation brought Kafka himself
to a distaste for living and to his embrace of the illness from which he died.
Six years earlier, in 1913, Kafka had written the short story “The Judgment,”
which laid out his relations with his father in a subtle and succinct form. It is
possible to read it as a modern variation of the myth of Dedalus and Icarus.
In “The Judgment,” the hero Georg, a young merchant, gives the impression
of having matured. He has succeeded in managing the business passed down
to him by his father, which is now doing better than it was in the past, and he
is about to wed his beloved fiancée. Before his wedding, Georg considers
writing a letter to a friend who lives abroad and whose life is not going well.
Until now he had written very little to his friend, in order to avoid provoking
jealousy, but he decides to write about the upcoming wedding directly, saying,

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among other things, that that’s the kind of man he is and that his friend has
to accept him as he is – a statement that seems to demonstrate maturity.
But Georg hesitates in sending the letter. He decides to show it first to his
father. And here the story takes an unexpected turn: his father reacts first with
suspicion and then with rage. He blames his son for betrayal of his friend. At
first Georg tries to understand his father’s reaction and he is moved by
compassion. He considers it a consequence of his father’s weakness in his old
age. He arrives at what seems to be an even more mature attitude: he decides
that he will take more care of his father and he will invite him to live in his
new home after the wedding. But his father continues to pour out even wilder
accusations, not only against his son, but even against the fiancée. He accuses
Georg of strutting through the world, of finishing off business deals that he
had set up for him, of bursting with triumphant glee and of stalking away from
his father with the closed face of a respectable business man! Georg remains
compassionate and he calmly retorts to his father that he is behaving like a
comedian, although, in his head, he is wishing his father to topple and smash
himself to the ground. The father, instead, gradually becomes stronger, leaving
behind the role of the weak old man. He builds up other harsh accusations
until in the end he explicitly sentences his son to death by drowning!
Surprisingly, Georg hurries to the bridge and throws himself into the river.
Like Icarus, who also receives exact instructions from his father, Georg’s
position at the beginning of the story is more than promising; he has already
taken several large steps toward maturity. Like Icarus, it seems that Georg has
learned the role taught to him by his father and, like Icarus, he even overtakes
his father. Like Icarus, he tries to rise above the father – a kind of symbolic
attempt to declare “I am a man” – and fails; Georg attempts to say, “That’s the
kind of man I am and he’ll just have to take me as I am” but is unable to live
up to his declaration and hurries to consult his father, who weakens and
ridicules him.
Kafka describes what happens when the father sees the son rising above
him: in his rage he attacks and destroys the fruit of his loins whom he once
loved. Georg cannot bear this confrontation; his own maturation is perceived
as a realization of the concomitant desire to destroy the father, and so he
hurries to throw himself in the river. In the mythological story, the father’s
open anger against his nephew Talos/Perdix and the threat he poses is symbol-
ized by the figure of the other Perdix, the partridge which corrects the mistake
made by Talos – his previous incarnation – in its life by avoiding heights, in
a sense refusing to realize its potential to fly. Icarus, like Kafka’s Georg, brings
about his own death by drowning. In both stories we are surprised at the
unnatural and tragic ending: the son, who should inherit the father’s place,
sabotages himself at exactly the critical moment when he “stalk[s] away from”
the father.
I have chosen to use a mythological story and a modern classic to represent
failed father–son relationships, and a failed maturation process, ending in the

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tragic death of the son who does not achieve manhood, who does not become
a father himself. Fathers know very well the doubts connected to the questions
“What kind of father am I?” and “What kind of a man I am raising my son to
be?” Parents also know situations in which we are convinced we have done our
best and yet the child responds in an unexpected way, or the results are less
than we had hoped for. The question may be asked: what brought on failure?
I will deal with the aspect of not-good-enough fathering which seems central
to me: fathering that does not prepare the son to contain aggression, to
integrate it into his personality, to make mature use of it, to be assertive and
effective in order to advance, compete, achieve, conquer, win and even destroy
in order to rebuild.
In psychotherapeutic and rehabilitation work with young people who have
been hospitalized, we repeatedly come across problems of dysfunction in
expressing aggression in its positive senses – assertiveness and constructive
competition. On the other hand, we encounter indirect expressions of aggres-
sion, whether directed at the environment or at the patient himself.
Confrontational intervention is often accompanied by a feeling of relief, move-
ment toward others, a return of order and confidence, on the side of both the
patient and the staff. Many times we are able to meet the patient’s family, to
observe it, and learn just how much this type of intervention seems to be
lacking in patient–family interaction, because it arouses fear; upon deeper
examination, it becomes clear that there are outbursts of aggression and even
violence. These facts continually raise the question of where the aggression has
gone in relations between the family and the patient. Why is the positive
aspect of aggression lacking in the patient, and why may this lack lead to
displaced aggression which expresses itself in pathology and illness?
Again and again we encounter situations in which aggression is not
contained, in the sense of an inability to withstand it and even to challenge it
without being intimidated. It seems that in these situations, aggressive wishes
are pushed into the shadows of personality or family relations; there they are
liable to burst out in a less controlled and less moderate, raw and even
malignant manner, the way that Dedalus attacked his nephew.
Aggression, in its broadest sense, is of great importance in individual
development, especially for men. In this context, I will emphasize its central
position in the father function and focus on the period of adolescence, a crucial
time for the integration of aggression in the personality of young men.
James Joyce in his novel Ulysses has one of his main characters, Stephen
Dedalus, say: “Who is the father of any son that any son should love him or he
any son? . . . The son unborn mars beauty: born, he brings pain, divides
affection, increases care. He is a new male: his growth is his father’s decline,
his youth his father’s envy, his friend his father’s enemy . . . What links them
in nature? An instant of blind rut.” A tough statement, without a doubt, in
which one of the greatest writers in one of the greatest works of the twentieth
century finishes off the subject.

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In Jewish sources, in addition to the binding of Isaac, there is an interesting

approach in the Proverbs: “He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who
loves him is diligent to discipline him . . . If you beat him with the rod, you
will save his life from Sheol” (Prov. 13:24; 23:14)
There is also the myth of Laius and Oedipus, which psychoanalysis has
turned into a central metaphor in understanding human development. It
presents us with the dominance of aggression in father–son relations, which
includes the possibility of murder.
All these respected sources deserve, each one separately of course, a profound
discussion, which does not fall within the limits of this essay. I have mentioned
them in order to emphasize the fact that, despite the general focus on love
and positive emotions as significant in the process of raising children, there is
a no less central place for aggression and its vicissitudes, and not only as
elements to be restrained and rejected.
Generally, the approach to aggression and its manifestations is problematic,
the result of social prohibitions and taboos, and, therefore, the importance of
aggression in development and in the proper functioning of the individual is
largely underestimated. Society’s attempt to restrain the violence that threat-
ens its existence poses the danger of throwing out the baby with the bath-
water. Whether aggression is as primal as sexual instinct or a later response
whose source may be seen in frustration in object relations, its importance in
development and functioning is central, in my opinion; experience teaches
that difficulties in dealing with aggression always involve difficulties in func-
tioning. Depression, for example, apparently the most common pathology in
the West, is understood from a psychodynamic point of view as the turning of
aggression against one’s self, which may interfere with functioning to the
point of paralysis.
There is a place for the expression of aggression and its behavioral
manifestations in every normal relationship. In the mother–infant bond, there
is already a need to contain aggression. A mother who is able to contain with
love the painful attack of the child nursing at her breast permits him, at this
early stage of life, a relatively comfortable response to his aggression, in
contrast with a mother who, in a similar situation, rejects her child in disgust
and imprints on him a connection between aggression and rejection by the
object.
At later stages of development things are more complex. Acceptance and an
apparently loving response to violence are likely to be both dishonest and
inappropriate. The child requires a consistent response: aggression up to a
certain point meets with containment, is tolerated and leads to accomplish-
ments. Beyond that point, it involves discomfort and might cause pain,
leading to injury, frustration, rejection and destruction of the object or one’s
self. Containment on the part of the object at this stage also involves the
ability of the adults, the parents, to stand up to aggression and violence on
the part of the child. All parents recognize the sense of relief after an

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aggressive outburst and the renewed closeness that takes hold after a tough
response, whether verbal or physical (a slap on the bottom or the cheek), to a
child’s violence. A parent who is not able to bear the aggression aroused by a
child’s attack and to respond in a suitable manner, creates the impression in
the bewildered child’s mind that his aggression is genuinely too threatening,
too destructive and perhaps evil. This experience detracts from the child’s
ability to integrate aggressive elements into his personality. This child will
not grow up, it seems, to become a brave warrior, and his ability to compete
in much more subtle ways will be handicapped, or he may become a bully who
identifies with badness. In this connection Jewish sources (Shemot Rabba,
Chapter 1) include a midrash: “‘One who spares the rod hates his child,’
teaches us that whoever refrains from ruling his child brings him to ruin and
to hatred, like Ishmael who longed for his father Abraham, who did not
control him, and so he went to ruin and hatred and his father removed him
from their home, which happened when Ishmael was 15 years old, and he
began to bring idols from the market and play with them and laugh like the
others.”
I will, as I have said above, limit the discussion to the relations between
father and son. What then is the role of the father?
Freud (1910), in a psychoanalytic analysis of Leonardo da Vinci, emphasizes
the absence of his father in the first five years of his life, and the overly close
connection with mother figures, to explain Leonardo’s exaggerated admiration
for his father; his overt asexuality and latent homosexuality at maturity; his
rejection of religion; lethargic work habits and the tendency to leave his work
unfinished, and later, completely ceasing to paint; his childish behavior all his
life turning stranger toward the end, and his death in an asylum in France.
Leonardo dealt often with the subject of flight; according to Freud, dreams
and fantasies of flying are a way the child realizes sexual desires, a boy’s desire
to be a man. Leonardo indeed rose to nearly unattainable heights in art and
science, particularly aeronautics and anatomy, and did not fall like Icarus, but
it appears he was dependent on external pressure in order to complete his
work, and over the course of his life suffered a decline in and then a loss of his
ability to function.
Melanie Klein (1932/1950) describes a developmental stage involving
the separation of one’s joint image of parents, when the child projects the
image of the good mother on the mother and she becomes the object of his
love (of libidinous desire). At the same time, the child projects the image of
the bad mother on the father, who becomes the object of fear and of loathing.
At this point, the importance of real-life parental figures increases, and it is
clear that each of the parents receives a distinctly different role to play,
including that of the father to withstand and contain the child’s hostility.
As interest in ego-psychology increased in psychoanalysis, the place of the
father was marginalized, with only a few clinicians researching or relating to
it; Loewald (1951), Mahler (1955), Blos (1985), and others emphasize the role

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of the father in advancing the process of separation from the mother in the
early stages of the mother–child relationship. The son’s early experience with
the father accompanies him all his life as a defense against the dangers of
regression – the existential pull toward the object, to a merger with it, a
lack of differentiation, which may result in a lack of individuation. But none
of these analysts deals with the question of how the father may accomplish
this.
Blos reminds us that the role of Laius is often ignored in the discussion of
the Oedipal complex: the hostile feelings aroused in the father by the birth of
a son. He says, “Normally negative paternal emotions are reduced to
insignificance under the onrush of joy and elation elicited by paternity.” The
question may be asked: Are they ever really insignificant?
If it may be said that the mother offers her child the experience of accept-
ance, in the area of Being, the role of the father in containing aggression is
expressed in the realm of Doing. In this way the father becomes a figure who
more substantially represents secondary thought processes, and reality, organ-
ization, boundaries, and the struggle over them – active, open aggression. By
identifying with the father, the son acquires patterns of coping behavior for
his own aggression and that of others, and the way sons are raised by fathers
allows them to experiment with realistic limits with which to deal with strug-
gle and compromise.
At the Oedipal stage, the quality of the solution to the conflict depends on
a reasonable compromise between the ability to contain hostility and
aggression directed at the father/rival and fear of him – fear of his aggressive
response – and, of course, on the basis of the positive connection between
them, the ability of the son to identify with the father. Lacan (1968) expresses
this idea beautifully when he says that “the child, who is the phallus for his
mother, comes, through the Oedipal complex, to have a phallus for another
woman” (emphasis in original).
In adolescence these occurrences, until now existing largely in the realm of
fantasy, become more realistic and their dangers more concrete; the adolescent
son, with his physical strength and sexual potency, may act out his aggression
and the desire to kill the father, so the father must be strong enough to survive,
not to be destroyed and also not to prevent the growth of the son. “Especially
in boys,” Winnicott (1965: 242) writes, “violence feels to be real, while a life
of ease brings a threat of depersonalization.” Winnicott goes even further
and takes a stand some may consider provocative: he claims that there is no
way of knowing whether extended periods of peace have a positive influence
on society’s mental health. He casts doubt on the potential of adolescents to
channel aggression only into dangerous, competitive sports, and emphasizes
that we already know that localized wars, with all the tragedy caused by them,
contribute to the reduction of tension for the individual, allowing paranoia to
remain in potential only, and giving a sense of reality to persons who do not
always feel real when peace reigns supreme.

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If I may derive the role of the father from the preceding remarks, I would
say that it is to awaken the son, not to allow him to sink into lethargy, because
it is regressive, a longing to merge with the symbolic mother. How should the
father accomplish this? With love and solidarity, but also not sparing the rod;
that is, with open aggression, preparing the son to be constantly alert to face
danger, according to the father’s best estimation of the demands of reality.
With his words to his son before they set out on their flight, Dedalus challenges
him, warning that if Icarus swerves from his father’s route, flying too high or
too low, he is likely to plunge to his death. It seems that a didactic warning
from father to son is insufficient – it may be too controlling (Tatham 1992,
p. 130). The potential of the son to maintain alertness and to understand real
danger, which demands that he listen to his father, his potential to move from
a play situation to a real one, depends on an extended period of good-enough
interaction with his father. What is a good-enough interaction between father
and son? Apparently it must pull the son away from the regressive temptation
to Being posed by the devouring mother, who offers the illusion of total
avoidance of unpleasant situations, toward those which call for immediate
action, unrest, searching and achievement, and the ability to manage with
competition and obstacles.
Icarus represents an adolescent who has not had the benefit of such fathering;
his ego is not aware of and not prepared for danger: he has a tendency to let
himself get carried away, perhaps to draw close to his father or to challenge
him, “I can do everything without you, better than you,” or to challenge
the gods, to try to be like them. And this “flying off,” apparently another
antagonistic proof of manly action and adventurousness so characteristic of
adolescence, is none other than the expression of its opposite in disguise, of
the regressive wishes suddenly revealed by Icarus’s plunge into oblivion.
The factor that most strengthens a son is, therefore, his complex relations
with his father: relations that include, aside from love, an element of struggle,
nearly from the start. It is not possible for the figure who separates son from
mother to remain entirely positive. He is also an enemy, an object of hate, a
partner in the terrible struggle for life and death that lasts our whole lives.
Both partners must remain alert, prepared, cunning, wise, strong and aggres-
sive as primeval hunters, although the mission is impossible: to do away with
the partner while leaving him alive, a mission in which Laius and Oedipus,
and Georg and his father failed. The role of the father is even more complex:
while inside this interminable struggle, to teach the rival-son to fight and to
survive.
In any case, I would like to emphasize the contradictions and complexity of
the role of the father in raising a son. To my mind, the idea is not only of the
loving father who gives and receives, and of course makes mistakes and is far
from perfect, but rather one whose strategy impels him to act with tactics that
contradict the open expression of love, affection and tenderness. The father,
like a coach, leads the son-athlete under his wing in the tiring process of

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increasing levels of skill, with ceaseless and uncompromising demands to

improve performance. There is no doubt that there are elements of trust,
admiration and love in any good relationship between an athlete and a coach.
But in any day-in, day-out relationship, there is also firmness, aggression and
even cruelty. In sport, the army, and professional training courses, they are
accepted as the only way to make significant gains. Fathering, to my mind, is
the prototype of these relationships and contains them all. The father who
leads his son toward maturity faces the need to disappoint his son’s expectations
of receiving warm maternal attitude from his father: tender, not insistent,
sympathetic. The son, for his part, identifies directly with the masculine role,
and, on the other hand, passively wishes to take his place at his side, in place
of the mother. The father must tear the son away from the mother, real or
imagined, from the eternal wish to merge with her, and to lead him on the
bumpy path of real life.
Blos (1985), a psychoanalyst who has contributed greatly to our under-
standing of the process of adolescence, distinguishes between different com-
ponents of the Oedipal complex. The unresolved elements in the early
(pre-Oedipal) relations of the son with the father are repeated during adoles-
cence, creating a threat to the adolescent’s sexual identity, along with a threat
to his autonomy. He is in danger of regressing to earlier relations that may
harm his ability to deal with the tasks of maturation, leaving him passive and
unable to demonstrate assertive action, unsure of plans and goals and given to
searching for an unrealistic, ideal father. Working through these factors in
therapy is likely to bring about the development of a more mature “ego-ideal”
and more mature thinking, which may be identified by determination, and by
a mature functioning in reality and tolerance for one’s limitations.
It may be said of Icarus that he represents the pathological option of an
adolescent who remains trapped in childish thinking. He is unable to under-
stand his father’s warning and make the necessary transition from the abstract
to the concrete – to the disaster awaiting him personally should he step beyond
the limits set by his father.
In the mythological story we may find an example of the connection or
mutual affinity between two apparently different factors which explains,
according to Erlich (1978), the particular danger of suicide in adolescence: the
ability to think abstractly (here, basing myself on Blos, I recommend a small
change – a disturbance in the development of abstract thinking that damages
the formation of the mature “ego-ideal”); and the regressive wish to merge
with the mother.
As may be understood from Dedalus’s background in his relations with his
son, there is lack of all-important aggressive playback; a symbolic hint may be
found in the strict warning of the father to “Beware!” (Ovid) in response to
Icarus’s curiosity in reaching out to touch the wings his father has constructed.
Whoever is not allowed to play on the ground will certainly find it difficult to
play according to the tougher rules of space. The father has failed.

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The absence of the mother in the stories of Icarus and Georg is not without
significance. In both instances it seems that against the background of the
“incorrect” distance of the father, the importance and influence of the mother
increases to that of a threat. Icarus symbolically returns to the womb and if
there are any doubts as to the significance of the plunge into the sea and
drowning, they are dispelled in the story of Perdix, the nephew who is thrown
off a tower by Dedalus, and who is described as living in an incestuous
relationship with his mother, even sharing her name. Perdix’s mother also
commits suicide after his death; they were as one entity. With Georg, the
father connects his son’s accomplishments and his weaknesses to the death of
his mother and Georg’s defilement of her memory.
Back to flying and a more symbolic level of the myth: wishes and experiences
of flying and floating, interpreted by Wolff (1982) as expressions of the wish
to return to the primal state of floating in the womb before meeting up with
one’s earliest experience of reality – the force of gravity. Flying, therefore, is an
attempt to control a weighty conflict and what it symbolizes: an attempt to
release the tension of living and restore the earliest state of undifferentiated
existence in the womb.
Using the example of Peter Pan, who succeeds in freeing himself of the
force of gravity and from time, to remain an eternal child winning out over
birth and death, the psychoanalyst Wolff brings us closer to the archetypal
significance of Icarus according to the analytical psychology of Jung: Icarus is
a classic example of puer eternus, the eternal youth. Individuals whose inner life
is controlled by this archetype remain connected to their mothers, immature,
ignoring external reality and given to unrealizable fantasies, to drifting and
life-threatening falls (symbolic and real). These are adults who always seem
like adolescents, remaining dependent on their mothers, sometimes with
problems of sexual identity. Jung said that the puer was a parasite of the mother
who functions as a creature of her imagination, only able to survive if rooted
in her body. The puer is the connection to the mother archetype and appears as
her son-lover (Tatham, 1992).
Icarus tries, symbolically, to draw close to the father – the sun which
enlightens with consciousness and logic – but cannot, and he plunges into the
sea, the body of the mother from which he has not managed to separate. In a
more concrete version in the preceding story, Perdix, who is pushed to his
death by Dedalus, was actually the lover of his mother, who commits suicide
upon his death (Graves, 1955). That is, Perdix is the incarnation of puer eternus,
the son-lover. Dedalus represents the father who has failed to distance his son
and his nephew, a boy in his charge, from the all-consuming mother, a father
who has not filled his role of “coach.” He himself, in his behavior toward
Pasiphaë and her betrayal of her husband, may be seen as overly tied to his
(symbolic) mother and has difficulty identifying with the father.
In sum, it may be said that the role of the father is to save his son from the
condition of eternal youth, to allow him to mature and become a man and

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father himself. The proper process, which I attempted to analyze here, consists
of play and tough coaching, rather than tenderness and consideration, in order
to allow the son to integrate aggressive aspects of himself and of his
environment into his personality. The youth must internalize awareness of the
facts of the passage of time, of real danger and the finality of death. The father’s
role is to accompany the son during this complex process, to prevent him
from succumbing to engulfment by the mother or to the passive desire to be
like a woman at the father’s side. The father must lead the son to understand
the limits of reality so that he may deal with them, without regressing into
lethargy or detachment or to be carried away to grandiose omnipotence,
situations that present the danger of collapse ranging from depression to
psychosis, or even death.
The place of the mother in the world of the son is protected and regulated
through the experience of the son with the father: a good-enough father allows
his son to maintain the proper distance from the mother, not a closeness that
leads to regression and failure to separate, and not a distance that leads to
alienation and disrespect. If the conditions for flying in the father’s lane are
maintained, they allow for the experience of flight, a kind of combination of
floating in the womb and the height of liberation and autonomy, proof of the
existence of a strong and flexible ego which permits the necessary transition
between the experience of Being and that of Doing; between love-making and
the making of war; between involvement and participation, and separation
and individuation.

Acknowledgments
Thanks to Y. Bernstein, Dr E. Weistub, and D. Steinberg. The essay was
translated by Liza Katz.

References
Blos, P. (1985) Son and Father, London: Free Press.
Bulfinch, T. (1855/1979) Myths of Greece and Rome (The Age of Fable), London:
Penguin.
Erlich, H. S. (1978) “Adolescent suicide”, Psychoanalytic Study of the Child,
33:261–277.
Freud, S. (1910) “Leonardo da Vinci and a memory of his childhood”, Standard Ed.
Vol. 11, pp. 57–137. London: Hogarth Press.
Graves, R. (1955) The Greek Myths, London: Penguin.
Joyce, J. (1922/1946) Ulysses, p. 205. New York: Random House.
Kafka, F. (1912/1971) “The Judgement”, in The Complete Stories (ed. Nahum N.
Glatzer), trans.Willa and Edwin Muir, Tania and James Stern. New York: Schocken
Books.
—— (1919/2008) Letter to My Father, trans. Howard Colyer. Raleigh, NC:
Lulu.

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Klein, M. (1932/1950) The Psychoanalysis of Children, Chapter 12, London: Hogarth

Press.
Lacan, J. (1968) Speech and Language in Psychoanalysis, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press.
Loewald, H. W. (1951) “Ego and reality”, International Journal of Psycho-Analysis,
32:10–18.
Mahler, M. (1955) “On symbiotic child psychosis”, Psychoanalytic Study of the Child,
10.
Ovid (43 BC–AD 17), Metamorphoses, trans. Sir Samuel Garth, J. Dryden et al., Book
VIII, provided by the Internet Classical Archive.
Rose, H. J. (1959), A Handbook of Greek Mythology, New York: Dutton.
Ross, J. M. (1986) “Beyond the phallic illusion”, in G. I. Fogel, F. M. Lane, and R. S.
Liebert (eds.) The Psychology of Men: Psychoanalytic Perspectives, New York: Yale
University Press and Basic Books.
Samuels, A. (1985) The Father, New York: NYU Press.
—— (1993) The Political Psyche, London: Routledge.
Tatham, P. (1992) The Making of Maleness, London: Karnac.
Winnicott, D. W. (1965) The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment,
Chapter 22, London: Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis.
Wolff, E. C. (1982) “Flying”, Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 37:461–483.

Father’s truth-and-lies game:

On Peter Weir’s The Truman Show

Yael Munk
There is a Latin proverb Pater sive natura prima, meaning “Father or primal
nature.” If “Father” is the law, by setting rules and conventions and by making
a meaningful existence possible in a world with clear boundaries, then “primal
nature” can be generally identified with the “Mother.” Primal nature represents
a form of chaos, an endless space inhabited by a series of details in which a
human being can wander with no precise purpose. In our postmodern times,
we have rejected in many ways the father model. We have opted more for a
quest for any kind of truth within the boundless chaos of our lives. In doing
so, we have renounced any form of meaningful system, whether ideological,
theological or psychological, and we have engendered a new kind of Sisyphean
hero: someone who prefers the void over the law. Transgression, intended as a
boundary-breaking act, has become a central topic in many postmodern texts.
It denies any form of narrative closure, and it replaces the notion of “being”
with that of “becoming.”
In the 1960s, this boundary-breaking trend became one of the favorite
themes of Western cinema. During this period the rules defined by the society
began to fall apart and the flower-children opened for us a world with no
boundaries, a world that would become the predilection of the postmodern
intellectuals. During this period, rebellion against the father found many

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ways of expressing itself in art – the death of the father, including, in some
more extreme cases, patricide was often among them. This was the way in
which the artists expressed the Zeitgeist, the spirit of their time: a wandering
in a boundless world, a world for all those who would reclaim freedom.
Not for the first time in Hollywood this theme was addressed by the main-
stream cinema. Rebellion against an “almighty father,” against his laws and
his system, was expressed by the cinematic superpowers through mega-films,
with grandiose scenes of violence, becoming the chosen topic for the pro-
duction of blockbusters. Hollywood, however, tried often to find a way for
a reconciliation between father and son: either with the repentance of the
father or his return to a positive father figure, or by the son becoming a
father. The option that was avoided was, of course, the one of a return to the
matriarchal order, to primal nature, which remained the eternal threat to
the paternal order.
Peter Weir’s The Truman Show (1998), one of the blockbusters of the 1990s,
offered a profound reflection on the theme of the father figure in a postmodern
context. More allegorical than satirical, the film places the polemic in the
context of a play set up by the father figure – a play of truth and lies. As a
typical text of the postmodern period, the film deals with three of the hottest
contemporary topics: criticism of television, paranoia and the always-open eye
of Big Brother. Although these three critical features were adapted in various
ways in order to fit into the text, they created a common inter-text – that of
an analogy between the end of the millennium (when the film was produced)
and America’s dark days of the 1950s, the years characterized by the Cold
War, the years during which hegemonic efforts were entirely invested in
keeping the citizens in their homes, and thus distancing them from the true
and dangerous political games of the world.
The Truman Show is the story of Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey), who lives a
perfect life, a life that goes by the book – a book that only the hegemonic
decisions-makers could have written. One morning, when the sun is shining
and the sky is as blue as ever, a huge light falls from the sky in front of
Truman’s stupefied eyes – an incident which leads him to realize that
something is not right in his perfect world. His attempt to decipher this
supernatural event leads him to investigate his “normal” past memories, in an
attempt to find a clue to this event. All Truman is able to discover in his
investigation, however, is a number of traumas: his father’s death at sea when
he was a young child; a broken heart caused by a mysterious event that had
prevented him from meeting the woman he loved; and an unrealized fantasy
about a trip to the Fiji islands. From the moment the light fell to earth,
something radical changes in his life: although he apparently continues to live
his routine life, he becomes increasingly suspicious about the reality he is
living in, the only reality he has ever known. For him this is the beginning of
what Nathalie Sarraute called l’ére du soupçon. And although nothing really
changes in his routine, he understands that he is a prisoner, as his wife tells

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him: “We have mortgage payments, Truman. We have car payments. What?
Are we just going to walk away from our financial obligations?”
As this suspicion little by little grows stronger, Truman realizes that he has
never been able to change his life and the form of existence it dictates, an
existence based on a cloying, suffocating routine. From this point on he begins
to develop consciousness. From here, the way to the understanding of the rules
of the game and its creators is short. As he becomes more aware, Truman
begins to understand that he has always wanted to leave the place, but, for
various reasons, this has not been possible. Up to now he accepted the reality
without questioning it. Now he realizes that he needs to see the world beyond
this picturesque village, behind the eternal sunshine and the ever-polite
neighbors who recite the same lines every morning. Most of all, he realizes
that he has to find the woman he once loved. Here Truman’s journey begins.
It is a journey to the place where the play ends, a journey to the “borders of
reality.”

From sitcom to postmodern drama

For Truman, the borders of reality are clear and well defined. Without his
knowing, he has become the main character of a sitcom with the highest
audience rating, a sitcom running twenty-four hours a day. He is being
watched by millions of TV viewers all over the world, all enchanted by his
average and satisfying existence. He has become a role model, and any turning
point in his “normal” life is experienced by the viewers as a moment of thrill
and suspense. Moreover, since the show has been on the air since his birth, his
loves and sufferings have become part of the collective participation of millions
of viewers. Now, as the era of suspicion begins, the television genre, of which
he is the hero, undergoes a transformation: it is no longer a sitcom; it becomes
a real drama, spreading over endless episodes with a limited number of
protagonists. From now on, Truman’s pain and suffering become increasingly
dominant, and they begin to influence the viewers’ lives. The escapist
cinematic mode (that is, a narrative intended to make the viewers escape from
their boring lives) changes into a realistic one.
Christof, the producer of this worldwide successful program, declared his
megalomaniac intentions at the beginning of the movie: “We’ve become
bored by watching actors giving us phony emotions. We’re tired of pyrotechnics
and special effects. While the world we have created is in some way counterfeit,
there’s nothing fake about Truman himself. No scripts, no cue cards . . . It
isn’t always Shakespeare, but it’s genuine. It’s life.” Christof now fears that
things will get out of control. This fear is exemplified by the fact that, while
a classic sitcom traditionally takes place in an indoor studio, The Truman
Show drama has to represent the outdoors too. The film describes, along
with Truman’s attempt to regain his freedom, Christof’s attempts to avoid a
change: he engages the supporting actors so that they will convince Truman

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that great dangers are lurking beyond his neighborhood’s borders. He invents
concrete obstacles such as natural disasters in order to prevent him from
escaping into the outside world. The pseudo father–son relationship between
the producer and his “creation” is defined by the archetypal tragic dialogue
between the two. This dialogue will reach its peak in the last sequence
(discussed below).
According to Christof, the father–creator figure, life on television has a
lot of advantages in respect to real life: whereas the real world is bad, full
of injustices and pain, television is good and comforting, as it is based on
identifiable stereotypes and it takes place in an environment in which all
the major human issues have already been solved – at least according to its
representation in the 1950s television sitcoms. Moreover, as opposed to real
life, television, just like Hollywood cinema in the 1950s, prefers happy
endings over sad or uncertain ones. Evil will always be conquered, even if
it will remain a continuous challenge. With such simple formulas, it is no
coincidence that The Truman Show had so much success with so many viewers
all around world.
However, as the plot evolves, it reveals one of postmodernism’s main issues:
the danger of border crossing, of transgression. Curiosity, as we all know, was
not part of the television system (as opposed to the voyeurism that nowadays
seems to be more and more a part of it). The danger with Truman’s curiosity
is that it may lead him to a world of lesser certitude, a world of simulacra, of
that which resembles reality without being reality (Baudrillard 1988).
Moreover, transgression will lead inevitably to chaos, to a world where the
traditional binary oppositions between good and evil will no longer exist.
There will no longer be just one world but a number of them, all coexisting
side by side, where decisions will be made on different grounds. And Truman
seems to prefer this incommensurable world, which just happens to be
ours. By the end of the movie, Truman’s choice will lead us to a complete
identification with his pain and his desperate search for a truth that no longer
exists.
As opposed to the Hollywood heroes of the 1930s and 1940s that inspired
his character (as reflected in the design of the neighborhood and the costumes),
Truman will choose a world that is not necessarily good (and may also be evil),
and may even not be true. But this is only one option as there are a number of
possible truths that can be defined, according to the eyes of the beholder.
Truman opts for a postmodern existence, for a world of incertitude that is
accompanied by an endless search for a set of values that will confer significance
on the world’s meanings. By the end of the film, Truman understands what
most of us had already understood towards the end of the twentieth century:
that, whether God plays dice or not, we human beings are constrained again
and again to define the name of the play in order to rewrite its rules. And one
cannot forget that any designer-legislator, enlightened as he may be, will
always carry within him the potential of becoming a tyrant.

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The choice of the name “Truman”

The choice of “Truman” as the name of our hero seems not to be casual. We
cannot overlook the fact that, since it was given by the producer–father figure,
it should also reflect his ideological orientation. Critiques of the film are all in
agreement as to the verbal combination of “true” and “man” – “true-man” –
referring to the hero’s quest for truth. This would be in agreement with the
role played by Jim Carrey as a man who will unmask the “educational good
father,” even at the cost of losing the only truth he knows. Nevertheless,
I believe that the hero’s name should be read also on an inter-textual level.
That is, it may also be related to the American President Harry Truman
(1884–1972), who led the most powerful nation from the end of the World
War II until 1952. President Truman inherited the tremendous task of
restoring self-confidence and self-assurance to the American people, which
was so badly affected in the aftermath of the war (Roosevelt had died in
April 1945). In his book A People’s History of the United States, Howard Zinn
writes: “When, right after the war, the American public seemed to favour
demobilization and disarmament, the Truman administration worked to
create an atmosphere of crisis and of Cold War. True, the rivalry between the
USA and the Soviet Union was real. The Russians had come out of the war
with their economy in wreck. More than 20 million people died, but they
were recovering very rapidly, rebuilding their industry and their military
strength and in a very short period of time. The Truman administration,
however, depicted the Soviet Union to the American people as not just a rival
or a competing superpower, but as an immediate threat.” (Zinn 1980:
412–413).
During Truman’s presidency, television was introduced into most American
homes. Those were also the years of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s “black list,”
which, among other things, considerably restricted and censured cinematic
contents (Zinn 1980: 431)
It gave rise to an atmosphere of suspicion. The notion of “common good”
was being interpreted more and more as something that had to be good for the
government, and one of its consequences was to leave the American citizen
outside of the public debates. Therefore the television heroes of that period,
such as the famous Lucy from I Love Lucy (which happens to be our Truman’s
favorite television program), showed no concern with public and/or political
issues. Most of such protagonists’ concerns were of a domestic nature. However,
behind the large studios, another America was being represented: a threatened
America, in which the “others” – whether Jews, communists or foreigners in
general – were excluded. All this was justified by the Cold War. Even the
atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were turned into a
religious issue. America’s citizens learned how to live in a fabricated world
suited to the Cold War ideology.

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During these years, television became the main enemy of filmmakers. Many
filmmakers appeared on the infamous black list, and some were consequently
forced to emigrate from the USA in order to continue their careers. Those who
remained had to adapt the content of their films to the dominant public
policy. Moreover, all of them had to compete with the optimistic messages of
television. One way of succeeding in this competition was to utilize new
technologies in order to make the cinematic medium more attractive: three-
dimensional cinema (3D) represented a revolution; Cinema-Scope and
Technicolor were innovations of that period. Wild and rebellious young male
stars, such as James Dean and Marlon Brando, emerged as Hollywood’s new
heroes. The scripts became more realistic and adopted a domestic appeal.
Only in the 1950s, when melodrama became one of the most popular
genres in movie theaters and was also imitated all over the world, did
Hollywood policy-makers realize that their efforts had not been in vain. But
the revolutionary effects of this new trend would be apparent only some years
later, during the mid-1960s.
Ironically, the man who indirectly caused this revolution was none other
than President Truman himself, who deluded the nation with powerful lies,
even if in the belief that it was for the nation’s own good. Fifty years later, in
The Truman Show, the hero would review President Truman’s positions and
ask: “Is there any truth in a lie even if told for the purpose of good?” “And
what would happen if the father’s absolute power was to be contested?” These
questions are brought up in the film’s last sequence, as the hero, Truman
Burbank, sets sail on a boat during a terrible (artificial) storm, intended to
prevent his journey to freedom. He reaches the “end of the world,” the horizon,
represented by a white wall, which is actually the border of the huge studio in
which he has always lived. He looks at the wall and asks himself if this is
the inevitable dead end of his quest for the truth. Suddenly, he sees some
white stairs next to the wall that might lead to a hidden door. Hesitantly,
he climbs the stairs, knowing that each step will bring him closer to some
unknown truth and away from the absolute good. In other words, as he stands
in front of the white door, Truman becomes aware of the vast number of
private and public interests held by politicians/leaders/filmmakers and script
writers, who had built a meta-narrative; that is, a coherent framework of
interpretation. The policy-makers’ meta-narrative is intended to prevent this
familiar–artificial world from collapsing into chaos, into a place where good
and evil dwell side by side. Truman realizes that no premise and no meta-
narrative will ever have the power to hide the absolute truth. But the absolute
truth has already been dead for a while and it will probably never come back.
Truman Burbank has reached the postmodern world and he now begins a
journey to an ancient world that is both a prehistorical and a post-heroic
pantheon – a space with no answers.

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The father’s quest

As he steps outside, beyond the limits of the huge studio, Truman addresses
the sky and asks: “Who are you?” and the answer arrives rather rapidly, in a
deep male voice: “I am your creator.” This mythical situation recalls the
biblical chapter in which God addresses Abraham for the first time, demanding
the sacrifice of his son, Isaac. In the film, this reflection has an aspect of parody.
However, the biblical chapter turns into a postmodern one, as Frederic
Jameson writes in his Postmodernism or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism
(1991). Christof, unlike God, had never asked for the sacrifice of a human
being. All he had asked for was to respect the world as he had created it. In
other words, God apprehends deconstruction. What would happen if the
traditional borders (represented in the film by the studio’s white walls)
were to fall down? What would be left of the great father, the almighty father,
the Lacanian nom du pere? For rejecting the father implies rejecting all valid
interpretations of life. A man who has lost his god, just like an actor who has
lost his director, is condemned to improvising towards an unknown end.
As in the biblical scene, Christof, the father, has difficulties in convincing
his son of the rightness of his way. In a dramatic dialogue he introduces
himself to Truman as his “creator” and, just like President Truman in the
1950s and like many other politicians after him, he claims that he did what
he did for “his son’s” own good, and that all he had ever wanted was to make
him happy. Thanks to him, he says, Truman has become the star of his most
popular television show. But then Truman wants to know what is real. To his
question, Christof reassures him, saying that the outside world hides no truth
but only lies and deceits. In the world he has created there is nothing to fear,
because he, his father/creator, knows his “son” better than anyone. By the end
of Christof’s speech, Truman realizes that he has outgrown his “father” and no
one, not even his creator, can have access to his mind. In a last attempt to
convince him, Christof adds that he has always been like a loving and protect-
ing father, that he has followed his “son’s” life since the day he was born,
witnessed his first step and his first day at school. This is why Truman belongs
to his creator. But as Truman remains silent, Christof realizes that he has lost
his battle and his “creation” is about to leave his flawless world. Truman steps
out into the outside world, into reality. He becomes one of us: a postmodern
creature, someone who had enough of the endless interpretations of our
present time, a man who will only be able to reveal the falsity of the past. And
just like the other postmodern heroes, Truman too will understand that he has
been betrayed by the most meaningful figure in his life: his own father.

On players (actors) and play inventors

The fact is that Truman had too many fathers and now he is left, at the end of
the day, an orphan. His biological father had left his mother before he was

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born, thus making him an unwanted child, one of the many babies that, in
other circumstances, might have been thrown into the hospital’s garbage can.
He is rescued by the producer. His biological mother agreed to collaborate
with the television capitalistic system and sold him to the production that
would make him the star of a grandiose reality show, The Truman Show. One
could claim that it was the biological father’s rejection of any recognizable
order and commitment to dynasty that led his son to a world of play and
actors. In contrast to professional comedians, however, Truman has become an
unwitting actor without his own consent. Even his childhood memories have
been pre-planned to allow the presence of a good and merciful father (an actor,
of course), who could be a role model and take his child on challenging
physical journeys. The actor-father, as opposed to the biological father, fell in
love with his own role, and began to think more and more of revealing the
terrible secret to Truman; but if the terrible secret were revealed, then
the actor-father would lose his power as a patriarchal figure and his role would
end. Therefore the father-actor had to be eliminated. He was drowned in mid-
ocean in a brilliantly staged scene.
And now, after his biological father and his actor-father, remained the
almighty-father, the super-producer Christof. The producer invented the play
and its rules; he is the one who bought up Truman after he had been abandoned
by his biological father; he is the one who eliminated Truman’s actor-father
the moment he was becoming a danger to the entire production; and finally,
he is the one who confessed his endless love for his son, a love that had used
lies in order to protect him, to place him in the “right” world, albeit to justify
his means. The film’s closing dialogue reveals Christof not only as cynical, but
also as a sensitive and paternal figure. The play he created was for him a way
to protect his “son” from the illusory visions of good and evil, of truths and
lies. As someone born in the twentieth century, Christof knew that the only
way to protect his beloved son from the finitude of existence was the invention
of a play. And so he invented The Truman Show, the most successful show on
television. He offered to his son an artificial board-like world, an organized
world with clear defined borders. But the moment Truman realized that he
was only an actor in a play, he gave up this artificial world in favor of a
postmodern one of endless possibilities and meanings. In doing so, Truman
renounced his almighty father’s authority – symbolically, metaphorically and
psychologically. This act of rebellion turned director Peter Weir’s hero into
the antithesis of President Truman, after whom he had been named, and into
one of the most authentic representatives of Western existence at the end of
the second millennium.

References
Baudrillard, J. (1988) Selected Writings, ed. Mark Poster, Stanford, CA: Stanford
University Press.

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Jameson, F. (1991) Postmodernism, or The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, Durham,

NC: Duke University Press.
Sarraute, N. (1956) L’Ere du soupçon: Essai sur le Roman, Paris: Gallimard.
Zinn, H. (1980) A People’s History of the United States: 1492–Present, New York: Harper
Collins.

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 Part IV

PLAY AND THE THEATER ARTS

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 7
THE THEATER AND PLAY

Introduction: To act and to tell

Emilia Perroni
In many languages, including Hebrew, English, and German, the verb “to
play” has many meanings, including play-acting in a theater, and many people
believe that theatrical play is the very heart of the concept of play – play par
excellence. The source of the word “theater” in ancient Greek is related to a verb
meaning “to observe,” “to watch,” “to contemplate.”
Today the term “theater” indicates the building where theatrical play takes
place and also the combination of stage, curtain, corridors, and audience.
Furthermore, the word “theater” relates to the duality inherent in play from
the point of view of the player: on one hand, play is an artistic expression,
and on the other hand it is a manner of behavior. We should also recall that
the word “theatrical” has also the negative connotation of exaggeration or
dramatization.
Acting in the theater allows actors to play between the visible and the invis-
ible: entering into a character or role actually enables them to be themselves
by distancing and disguising themselves. Peter Brook wrote about the basic
paradox of all acting, saying that if everything that is connected with you is
hidden, you can allow yourself to be revealed.
The origin of the theater is very ancient. There are archeological remains of
theatrical buildings in Crete and most of the ancient theaters were associated
with ancient Greek culture. Theater apparently began with the cult of the
god Dionysus, the god of wine, of desire, and of the forces of nature in general,
and also the god of death. He was the god of masks and acting, and his cult
was one of the sources of the development of Greek tragedy and Greek comedy.
Tragedy was born from rituals of death, and comedy from rituals of fertility.
At the center, in front of the stage where the actors performed, stood an altar
with a statue of Dionysus on top of it, and a sacrifice was made in his honor
before the beginning of each representation.
From this connection – between a god and the theater – we can understand

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the fierce opposition among the Jews, as early as the reign of Alexander the
Great, to this form of art. But perhaps other factors contributed: Shmuel
Avisar (1957) wrote about the basic lack of talent for theatrical art among
Semitic people in general and the Jewish people in particular. He argued
about the basic Jewish personality of that period, which, in his opinion, was
subjective, emotional, and impatient. Hence it was not suited for the theater,
which demanded objectivity, balance, and concentration.
The abyss between the Jews and the theater grew deeper during the Roman
period, and it is not until the thirteenth century that we see the figure of the
letz (clown), later evolving into the figure of the badhan (jester). These figures
were used for centuries to entertain the public on holidays, at weddings and
circumcisions, in the Jewish theater, including the Yiddish theater and the
Israeli theater.
There have been various efforts to describe the essence of the soul. In the
present context, let me mention “theater” as a metaphor for the “soul,” as
suggested by Joyce McDougall, a psychoanalyst originally from New Zealand
who lived in Paris for many years. In her book Theaters of the Soul (1982),
McDougall developed Melanie Klein’s concept that the life of the mind
expresses itself in concrete acts, and she described the events of the soul as a
theatrical drama. McDougall presents the psyche as a scenario, a stage, on
which the “child self,” the director, organizes the internalized characters, the
actors, in a manner of self-therapy.
As for the symptoms: if someone is suffering from a disease, for example,
the disease is the main actress, and all the other players are organized around
her, and this can be said of the entire personality. McDougall sketched five
central scenes: the neurotic scene, the psychotic scene, the perverted scene, the
narcissistic scene, and the psychosomatic scene.
Another example of the concreteness of the psyche can be seen in the
phenomenon of the “Evil Eye,” in which the evil of another person enters
us – a feeling held among many people who declare that they don’t believe in
it. We see it also with the figure of the “dybbuk,” a spirit (usually male),
which enters a body (usually of a woman) and takes possession of it, a
phenomenon that has inspired a great many dramas.
Theatrical play, before being a form of artistic expression, is the natural way
for children to express themselves at developmental stages before they use the
word “I,” and they express their thoughts and feelings through an apparently
external description of reality (a stage to which adults revert with respect to
traumatic situations). Indeed, although the “child self” develops, it never
entirely disappears and it remains as a primary means by which we create ways
of expressing ourselves: we act out and recount.
The cathartic effect, which we see through acting in theatre, can be seen in
an analogous fashion in the field of fairy tales. An example of this cathartic use
can be seen in the life and works of Hans Christian Andersen. It is quite
apparent that his need to create his fairy tales was mainly in order to find

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consolation or revenge or compensation – like a sort of self-therapy. Charles

Perrault and the Grimm brothers wrote down fairy tales that already existed
in venerable traditions. Amusingly, the story the Grimm brothers told about
themselves, according to which they went from village to village in order to
collect German folk-tales, turned out to be false. It appears most likely that
they collected the stories from the memories of their friends and nursemaids,
and it all took place in a comfortable bourgeois living-room. Nevertheless, we
must not diminish the importance of the tales of the Grimm brothers and of
Perrault. They have their own merits.
Andersen did not work that way. He adapted only a few of his fairy tales
from existing ones; most of them were created by him.
Andersen was born in 1805 in the village of Odense, Denmark. His father
was a cobbler, his mother a washerwoman. His low origins afflicted him all
his life. As a child he slept in a coffin that his father made for him, and
against this background, as well as the loss of his father at a young age,
we understand very well why he was constantly preoccupied with death.
Andersen was a lonely, vulnerable child, and his schoolmates used to make fun
of him. After the death of his father – the family story-teller – Hans used to
console himself by making up stories. He imagined that he was an adopted
child, and that his parents – a king and a queen – had forgotten him in the
village by mistake. He suffered from many phobias, such as that a fire might
break out at any time. It was for this reason that he always kept a rope, with
which he could jump out of the window. He was also afraid of dogs, strangers,
and ghosts.
In his autobiography, The Fairytale of my Life (1867), Andersen describes his
many failures: as a carpenter, as a dancer, as a playwright, and as a novelist.
His only consolation was his firm belief that God was on his side and that He
would eventually lead him to a better future. He also wrote about unrequited
love, disappointments and insults, which are echoed in several of his stories.
Thus, in “The Ugly Duckling,” he describes the residents of his village as
nasty ducks in a swamp, to which he does not belong. In “The Red Shoes,” a
girl enters a church while wearing red dancing shoes, and she is punished: she
must dance without cease until the hangman cuts off her legs, and then the
girl ascends into heaven bearing remorse and with the aid of crutches. As
in his fairy tale, Andersen did punish himself: once he entered into a
church wearing a pair of squeaky new boots and he felt very guilty for his
arrogance. In “The Little Mermaid,” there is an expression of suffering as a
way of attaining individualization: “but the Mermaid has no tears, so her
suffering is even greater.” “The Princess and the Pea” was written after a
quarrel with his girlfriend, and in “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” he pointed
out, with contempt, the stupidity of the aristocracy, to which he so much
wished to belong.
We all enjoyed as children – and still enjoy as adults – these stories,
which are light, sometimes humorous, and sometimes soothing. Nevertheless

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we should not miss in them Andersen’s inner work, which he did with the
awareness of his vulnerability and so as not to betray the great distress that
dictated them. And we should respond mainly to the hope they offer.
This was the hope of the adult Andersen – and of the eternal child in all of
us – who knew how to accept his weaknesses, how to engage in a dialogue
with them, and how to transform them through his writings. He was an adult
who knew how to play.

References
Andersen, H. C. (1985) Fairy-tales. Hebrew version of Sagor och berattelser af Hans
Kristian Andersen, 1877. Stockholm: Hiertas.
Andersen, H. C. (n.d.) La Favola della mia Vita. (The Fairytale of my Life, 1867). Milan:
Edizioni Paoline.
Avisar, S. (1957) Teatro ebraico. Milan: Nuova Academica Editrice.
Brook, P. (1968) Empty Space. New York: Atheneum.
McDougall, J. (1982) Theatres du Je. Paris: Editions Gallimard..

Children and theater

Rami Bar Giora

Preliminary reflections
Readers are invited to peep into my workroom. I am a clinical psychologist.
I meet with children and youngsters. I try to get to know them and hope to
help them in their struggle with various sources of anguish and distress.
In my workroom there are many tools for helping my young clients –
whatever their age – to tell me their stories, without fear of the publicity
or confessional atmosphere that even many adults would find hard to bear.
In this room I follow their behavior, drawings and doodles with great interest.
I observe their creative efforts and their efforts to unburden themselves, their
games and stories, the language of their voice and the language of their bodies,
their words and their silences – even though the inexperienced observer
might see these as meaningless, incidental and of little interest. My basic
assumption, “the creator creates in his own image,” assures me that every deed
has something important to say about the doer, even though the import may
not always be instantly apparent.
I am assured, as are my colleagues, a greater pleasure than the literary critic,
who bestows the understandings without which we would be lost: greater
even than the detective, who, aside from the intellectual satisfaction of solving
a mystery, can bask in the knowledge that he has made a worthy contribution
to the individual and public good; yet in treating children we do even more.
Our contributions are significant, our therapeutic efforts laden with empathy

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for all that we touch, and all the while we participate in a world of aesthetic
qualities that no one has taken the trouble to refine.
In this room, as in a theater, one finds all the important elements of the
world of the stage: the playwright (is he not the creator of the text?) the
director, the actor and the audience. The implementation and execution of all
these can be varied indeed: there are times when the playwright decides to use
a prepared script (Little Red Riding Hood for instance) and the playwright, or
should I say the child, is also the actor. Usually the child is playwright,
director and actor all rolled into one, and if he happens to be alone, the role of
audience also becomes his. As in a dream, where the entire theater is present
within the dreamer (who is of course also the observer of the dream), so too in
the child’s play we are offered a glimpse of the observing ego looking down
from the pinnacle of the psyche at what is unfolding below in the vale of
experience.
In this fascinating arena, which includes both audience and theater, both
observer and observed, at least two equally powerful tendencies are at work.
One of these amalgamates, clarifies, and embodies the observer’s understanding,
absorption and even identification with what is happening on the stage; the
intent of the other is distance, deception, disguise and prevention of an
encounter, face to face, here and now with the source of distress, so that even
when it is happening on stage, it is happening “out there and not in me.”
And now, let us return to my workroom, where we can observe the wonderful
use of theater in therapy to represent the paradox of distance facilitating
intimacy and of intimacy clarifying what was formerly distant, and thus we
formulate the golden rule that whosoever wants to approach should first take
his distance.
The child I want to tell you about is ten years old and dreadfully afraid of
his father, who reacted angrily and violently to his son’s difficult and distressing
case of encropesis (defecating in his pants), and burnt his rear end with a
lighted cigarette.
The boy spends most of the time hiding in a corner in his house, “so that
nobody will find either the kaki or the kaki doer,” says his father. Meanwhile
the child continues to sit on what is “warm and soft” for him, and like the
snorer who is unmoved by his own snores, he is untroubled by the smell
and feels free to daydream. It should be said that there has never been a
“kakastrophe” in the clinic.
At the beginning of the hour he disappears behind the theater (a structure
that could easily contain three children), and closes the curtains. After several
long minutes of silence there is a first sign: a hand appears from behind the
screen. This is not a bare hand, but a hand gowned in a crowned male puppet,
who now says in an affected tone: “hello, I am the king.” Thus far I have
counted three removals. The boy has moved away from me and behind
the walls of the theater, he has disguised his hand in a king-puppet, and his
voice has changed. The king returns behind the scenes, more minutes pass and

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at last the play begins: a trumpet sounds, as in a circus band, announcing the
arrival of the king and queen (on his other hand) and the false voice continues:
“once upon a time” (and I count to myself removal number four), “in a far
away land” (number five!) “there lived the king of China, King Pong and his
wife Queen Ping.” This is already the sixth removal. Now he returns to a
normal voice and says: “soon they will have a baby and the king and queen
who wanted him so much will allow him do whatever he pleases. They will
even let him play in the mud in the palace courtyard.”
Presently the king gets angry because soon important visitors will be
arriving and the prince has not yet washed up; he decides to use a torch – that
is how its done in China – to investigate the prince’s body, and I am asked to
provide a lighted match. Remember – whosoever wants to approach should
first take his distance.
This child is participating simultaneously in several spectacles: the play he
has performed for me, the play that he often enacts with a friend, one in which
his younger sister enthusiastically participates. This energetic child, whom
I never met, but whose pranks have been described to me, sometimes demands
a fee for participation in the plays put on by her brother and his friends. She
establishes herself as the director so as to perform a play of her own choosing:
she is a princess sending her secret warrior to fight the wicked sorcerer and
eventually saves the day by herself. However, let us return to our own child:
before falling asleep he moves about in his mind, to and fro, like a film director
in the editing room, selecting scenes from the memories of the day in his
life that has come to a close, adding several important improvements and
renovations. To distinguish from what has gone before – in these plays it is he
that has the upper hand. These dramas, which provide him with great pleasure,
are absolutely secret, and it is rare that he gives me some scrap of information
about what goes on in them; he claims that he himself forgets their plots, just
as he forgets his dreams – dramas in their own right, in a grand interior
theater that I will soon be discussing.
Even when he is playing alone with his soldiers, or his favorite cars, soldiers
and airplanes, he is creating his own very compact theater world in which he
plays all the important parts: playwright, director, actor and audience. This
child, like most children his age, has had fewer experiences than we would
wish for him of children’s theater. Needless to say he has gorged himself more
than we would recommend on TV movies about pirates, or on the video fare
that for many parents today is the grown-up electronic version of the pacifier,
whose very name represents a plea to the child to “take it, calm down and
leave us alone!”
Thus the many theaters in the lives of a child invite us to take the journey
on which we will now embark, a journey that begins with the first breath of
life and whose impact is felt years later in our enjoyment of the theater as
adults.

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The journey begins

The world is the theater on whose stage will now appear a production entitled
“The Home and the Family.” As we sit expectantly in the darkened hall where
presently the stage will be revealed and the play will begin, we are also waiting
for other transitions: from the darkness to which we have become accustomed
to a light full of surprise and novelty, from the passivity of being within
ourselves to the activity of discovering a world full of sights, sounds, and new
experiences.
This is how it has always been: the new infant waking up in his crib, again
and again, to a veritable stage with all the elements of the theater: scenery (the
furniture of his home) lighting, actors whose costumes change from time to
time, even as their voices remain the same, occasional background music, and
even repeated texts (such as “what an adorable baby” or “go to sleep already!”).
Thus the world of the newborn can be compared to a theater. Our young
observer, from his classic observational position, takes everything in: myriad
stimuli taking shape around experiences and meanings. When it all becomes
too much, just like the adult theater-goer, he is free to shut his eyes, distract
himself, listen without hearing (not to mention cough, sneeze or truly fall
asleep). Yet it should not be forgotten that this mixture of shapes, voices,
sights and sounds cannot cohere into a theater-like experience without magic
first and then meaning later.

Act I: The birth of magic and its descent from the Milky Way
Even the empirical rationalist will wholeheartedly admit, I dare say, that
wonder, magic and miracle are not the sole prerogative of charlatans and
mystics. How so?
The rationalist is invited to observe a moment from the domain of alert
infant experience that recurs dozens of times in the lives of a mother and baby.
(The expression “mother and baby” includes all the possible combinations of
regularly nurturing/caring adult and nurtured/cared for young: father feeding
his baby girl or a grandmother her granddaughter, and so forth.)
Now call to mind the figure of a baby. He is but a few days or weeks old: he
is hungry now. He still has no word for this feeling. He certainly has not yet
acquired the confidence that his hunger will soon be satisfied, that he is soon
to be the recipient of first-class nutrition, comfort, calm and satisfaction. At
this moment the infant knows only physical discomfort and overwhelming
distress. His experience could be summed up, if at all, as “The whole of me,
my body, my experience, my being, feels bad.”
Look at him: he is all clenched up and tense. Listen: he is crying and
screaming. Now we are witness to part one of a miracle: as soon as his mother
takes him in her arms, an amazing transformation occurs. The greater part of
his anguish vanishes. If an equally effective a drug were to be invented for

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headaches, it would surely be hailed as a wonder-drug! Part two of the miracle

is when the good warm milk starts to flow into the baby’s mouth and throat.
Not only has the all too recent misery waned, but now the infant looks as if he
is on an express train to heaven. Now, even an empirical rationalist will have
to agree that so instantaneous a leave-taking of anguish, and so rapid a take-
off to heaven cannot be called anything but wonder, magic or miracle,
especially when they recur time and again in the first months of the life of
every ordinary child.
This exciting event, which recurs many times in early life, does not take
place in a vacuum. Let us not forget my premise that it is set in a theater, a
primary theater of sorts (the etymological source of the word “theater” is
valley of visions, the place that is observed). Yet there is also a dramatic
difference between the living room, also a place in which to observe, and the
theater, which is charged with the incomparable role of touching, moving and
infusing with feeling. Theater is meaningless if it fails to fulfill this very basic
function of touching and eliciting care and emotion.
Sunset lovers surely know those magic moments when the sun extends its
wondrous golden light, across the waves and into their enchanted eyes. Yet
such a marvelous and personal gift often distracts one from the embarrassing
question of “why me?” And what about the viewer who is at this very moment
at another place on the beach? If truth be told, the sun is also sending its
golden rays in his direction, and in the direction of every other person who
cares to look. The fact is that the surface of the entire sea is wrapped now in
gold, but there isn’t an observer who sees anything but his own personal
sunset. Sometimes the enthusiastic applause at the end of a moving play may
remind the entranced viewer that his own private rays of gold have been
shared by hundreds of others, but the fact remains that were we not under the
spell of our very own viewing, it would not be theater at all.

Some later permutations of magic

Our ability to remain open to wonder, long after the first days of our lives,
offers us a huge expanse of opportunities, even as adults, to set sail for those
same heavenly realms.
In one region of this expanse (albeit far from the heart of it) is the chemical
department. Bacchus has a stand of alcohol bottles there and drug lovers
wander among beds of marijuana. Everyone there promises relief from distress
and a send-off to the heights of pleasure and inspiration.
At the center of the expanse is of course love, in all its physical, emotional
and chemical forms of expression. Expectations are high in this domain – that
life’s bitterness will be sweetened by it; that we will be exalted by it – yet it
is like Jacob’s ladder, whose legs are in the material world, though its peak be
in the realms of heaven. The same can be said of the arts, scattered everywhere
in this expanse. They invite us to partake of the sublimation they represent,

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or at the very least to be enchanted by their excellent means for coping with
every aspect of life. Nature and its wonders also invite us to an oceanic merging
that has much in common with the replete drunkenness of a satisfied babe in
the loving arms of his mother.
And yet theater, or its more modern relatives, opera and film, also play a
significant role in our lives in their ability to bring us magic. Which of us has
not partaken of the wonderful elixir sometimes sold to us for an hour or two?
Now let us turn the lens of theater once again on childhood.

Act II: From observer to participant

The dramatic transformation that takes place toward and often during the
second year of life turns an infant into an active toddler, who literally gets on
stage during the performance of “The Home and the Family.” Like children
who climb onto the boards at the end of a play to take a closer look at the
scenery and the players, so too does our increasingly more verbal and mobile
one-year-old move up onto the stage that until now he has only observed.
He moves, speaks and is to some extent acted upon by the production
team, but for the most part it is he that is acting upon them, to his immense
delight.
There is likely to be more than one scene in which he acts as director, actor
and viewer. For example:

Toddler: Bottle!
Mother: Just a second sweetie. I’m just coming.
Toddler: Mommy! Bottle!
Mother: I heard you. I’m coming.
Toddler: Mommy.
Mother: (Enters) Here is your bottle.
Toddler: (Smiles, takes the bottle and begins to drink. Looks at his mother and shouts)
No! Hot! (Cries and throws down the bottle)
Mother: OK, I’ll cool it down.

Like a young actor entering a troupe of kindly players, our young child learns
some important principles about growing up from the more senior performers
in “The Home and the Family.” Just two verses after chaos in Genesis it is
written: “And the Lord divided between lightness and darkness. And he called
the light day, and the darkness he called night.” Growing up also means
making distinctions and calling things by their separate names, and learning
to act serves this purpose well.
The basic distinction between me and not me, self and other, can be both
difficult and trying to learn. Every part of the body has its own name, as does
every item in the house. The child is even expected to know the sounds made
by animals he has never seen. “How does a cow go?” “And how does a dog

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go?” There is indeed much to be said for this only seemingly foolish game.
It helps to set the stage for making differentiations among the various things
that surround us. This process is critical in the course of an emotional life, in
which containing competing and divergent forces is no mean feat. Yet the
socialization of the second year of life, which begins with the reining in of
aggression and toilet training, helps to simplify the distinctions between
what you’d like to do and what you need to do, between anger and the fear of
losing love.
The toddler’s play as he grows into a young child offers expression and
release amid the clash and tumble of these tendencies. The child who plays
“angry tiger” or “frightened Bambi,” “Superman,” “king,” or “policeman” is
writer, director and actor, not to mention audience of the entire scene. Every
time he plays one of these games, and he plays them with all of his heart, he
is playing another strain from the multi-voiced partition of the psyche. Thus
slowly, out of the mayhem of narcissistic omnipotence (me and only me,
everything is about me, because of me and for me) different voices from the
partition begin to be sounded out: there is this and there is that, now it is one
way and later it will be another way, now me and then you.
Observation of a child at play yields excellent examples of this line of
development. It reaches its peak, perhaps, in the play of several children
together, play that begins from simultaneous monologues and ends with
differentiated role-taking.

Girl: Now I’m the nursery teacher.

Friends: OK.
Friend: But then it’s gonna be my turn.
Girl: OK. So sit quietly and clasp your hands together and be quiet and
I’ll tell you a story.
Friends: Yeah! We want Little Red Riding Hood.

Act III: From personal to universal narrative

The encounter with Little Red Riding Hood and friends of hers, such as Goldilocks
and the Three Bears, provides the child with a canon. This canon may not be
treated with the care one reserves for the sacred, yet it is not to be deviated
from, other than with a wink and a chuckle. These stories, which are so often
the stuff both of children’s theater, and of the plays that children themselves
delight in performing, invite us to digress for a moment into what has
preceded theater and the story, what is in fact the private theater of each and
every one of us – the dream.
The dream is a loyal and trusted servant of the psyche. It serves so many
significant roles, and all this while everyone sleeps! Its principal virtue is the
invention of measures for expressing and easing pressures, deliberations,
difficulties and distress, in a manner that is effective, even as it is veiled and

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indirect. For to fling the truth directly in the face of the sleeper – even if there
may sometimes seem just cause for this – is to rob him of precious sleep.
There are, of course those times when pain and distress are so burdensome
that even this theater of one can offer no relief. Yet in most cases, the dream
does its work admirably as many as five times a night. And take note: poverty
stricken as we may be in our waking hours, we are each possessed of our very
own personal and perfectly attuned theater; it accompanies us wherever we
may wander, and appears before our eyes wherever we lay our heads down to
rest.
Understanding of the dream, which in effect means undoing its very art of
deception, is a splendid undertaking in which psychotherapist and dreamer
combine forces in the quest for treasuries of meaning. Since Freud’s Interpretation
of Dreams at the close of the nineteenth century, the dream and work of its
unraveling have not lost their charm, notwithstanding expressions of derision
on the faces of many a doubter. Certainly the meanings of the dream, like the
materials used in its disguise, are private, unique and impermeable to the
outsider, even though the act of disguise and its principles are universal.
What this means is that the dream is made to order for the dreamer, and
deals with the issues that are central in his life at the moment, while the
allegories, deceptions, background, and wealth of images that participate, all
of them, in the dream-maker’s deceptive art are also taken from the personal
world of the dreamer. This is course what lies behind the painstaking work of
gathering the dreamer’s associations to the dream so as to better understand
it. One could say that the interpretation that finally emerges from this
laborious effort is like a pair of prescription reading glasses (made of course
according to universal optical principles) which help to see what needs to be
seen. And here too there is magic of a kind: there are times when a dreamer is
lucky enough to dream a dream that speaks immediately to his understanding.
These dreams are understood by both dreamer and others because they
reverberate with fables and folk-tales that have already crossed from the realm
of the private to that of the universal. For instance, a dream of a red sphere
that is swallowed up by darkness; fear and anxiety reign until the red ball
returns, emerging from the black depths into which it had descended.
Indeed, even if a dream assumes a literary cast, and recount a tale of a girl
in a red hood who is swallowed up by a wolf, but then emerges again intact,
it is still speaking in a universal tongue to anyone who fears that the darkness
of night threatens calamities, the worst being despair that the good light and
warmth of day will be forever swallowed up by darkness. This tale is a kind of
central bus station whose bus lines travel in many directions: is as opposed to
isn’t (as in peek-a-boo games), darkness as opposed to light, a safe home as
opposed to the forest, the foreign as opposed to the familiar, curiosity and its
risks as opposed to safety and the restraint it entails. The tale of Little Red
Riding Hood is made up of all these universal materials and it is but the most
famous and widely disseminated of many.

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It could be said that a story like Little Red Riding Hood is a kind of emotional
vantage point from which to look down on a significant and momentous
scene, whereas the private dream is a one-time occurrence, meaningful only to
its personal owner, just as a pair of reading glasses are useful only to their
owners, and at that only for a limited time.
Now, armed with two major distinctions – between the private and the
universal; between the passive and the active – we can order our thoughts
about the romance between child and theater, according to two trajectories.

1. From the passive theater in which an infant observer receives (or shall we
say suckles) from the play and its actors, impressions, expressions (and
yes, milk and pleasure) to the active theater in which the infant who has
become a toddler, then small child and later schoolboy, participates or
actively directs.
2. From the “personal theater” in which the text is unique and private (as in
the child’s dreams and games) to the encounter with universal theater in
which, notwithstanding the alternations of actors and directors, the script
and the figures are constant even as they hold the potential for elaboration
and improvisation.

Act IV: “Same-thingness” and otherness,

or the pleasure of “improvisation”
Kindergarten and young primary school children (aged four to eight) are
invited to participate in a delightful exercise: to improvise on relatively
familiar characters and text. Improvisation can offer a brilliant compromise
between two extremes: on one hand the “exactlyness” of obeying without
question and on the other the freedom to change and the urge to break all the
rules. Exactitude demands extreme discipline – the kind that allows children
to produce pure tones at the price of hundreds of hours of succumbing to a
steamrolling “this way and no other!” One could describe the whole of life,
and certainly the whole of childhood, as an ongoing struggle between these
two trends, and one could see improvisation as an excellent solution for the
almost tragic conflict between the two, which are called at times obedience
and conformity as opposed to individualism, or conservatism as opposed to
innovativeness.
Jazz music offers a prime example of how this struggle can be resolved This
is the artistic resolution of the “good form,” as Pinchas Noy (1979) called it,
which rather than eradicating either side of the conflict, makes space for both
and orchestrates their shared expression.
In jazz music a group of players (the tempo keepers, among them primarily
the drums and contrabass) rigorously preserves the beat and the harmonic
progression of a basic melody. The parameters of the beat and harmony in this
music remain extremely firm while exactly at the same time, other players are

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improvising on the basic melody, twisting it, pulling it taut, reversing it,
turning it on its head, and adorning it with notes from other melodies. Yet all
the while they retain an excellent harmony between them, merging between
the two opposite activities: the repetitive conservatism of the tempo group
and the free improvisation of the other players.
This is a wonderful example of “same thingness” and otherness living peace-
fully together. A religious Jew might call to mind the image of the sermonizer
on Shabbat offering a new Midrashic interpretation of one of the texts that
mustn’t be altered.
The principles and limitations of biblical interpretation are more or less
constant, yet there is no limit to the creative possibilities of Midrashic
interpretation. Pinchas Noy (1999: 288) notes a similar phenomenon in
language, which needs to abide by the principles of “same thingness” in order
to remain communicative, even as poets use new and surprising combinations
to infuse increasingly banal and everyday words with innovation, freshness
and surprise.
The same tension between “same-thingness” and otherness is present when
a child plays at theater. His text is usually more or less fixed – even it if it is
not canonic or unchangeable – but the child is nonetheless always playing and
improvising on a given role and a text.
Improvisation, as everyone knows, can be a tiring and exhausting enterprise
sought in the effort to be original at any cost, or it can be a refreshing and
pleasurable act of play, as can be seen and heard in good jazz performances. The
pleasure is of consequence because it involves playing by the rules while
dancing one’s own steps; seeking a shared goal, but on one’s own personal path;
affixing one’s own unique signature alongside one’s impersonal family name.
Children’s pleasure in acting out stories they know in advance is the pleas-
ure of improvisation, the fascinating play between “same-thingness” and other-
ness, a profound play of freedom within meaning, of originality and uniqueness
within a constant routine.

Epilogue: Before the curtain falls

We have brought together concepts and experiences from the world of the
theater on one hand and the developmental world of the child on the other,
in the hope that they might illuminate one another. In a similar way we will
try to identify ongoing developmental trajectories on one hand and, on the
other, traces of the child’s experience in the world of the adult. Thus, for
example, the journey from “open your eyes and behold the spectacular per-
formance before you (daily experiences in the life of the child)” to the protocol
of darkness falling in the theater hall before the lights come up and the play
begins.
The adult’s rapt absorption in a play, which can even make him forget that
he is sitting in the theater stalls, is reminiscent of the way in which the child’s

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curiosity and fascination so easily traverse the limits of reality. In contrast to

this experience is the safeguarding against immersion, loss of control and
abrogation of restraints that causes some children to withdraw, pull back, and
avoid taking chances, just as the adult may choose to leaf through the program,
look around at the audience, divert his thoughts elsewhere, doze, or whisper
to his neighbor, all or any of these so as to avoid getting lost in the play.
So too, memories of the child’s theater experience repeat themselves in
endless variations on traditional theater in all of which a curtain separates
audience from spectacle: theater-in-the-round, psycho-drama, street theater
and more.
Imitation, which is the ultimate educating medium for the infant, is also a
basic element in acting, pantomime, and various other entertaining spectacles.
Let us also not forget the ravenous and grouchy infant’s “express train” to
heaven before returning to our adult spectator. The tradition of popcorn and a
coke in the cinema (and of cigarettes in the not-so-distant past) allowed the
lips and palate to participate in enjoyment of the play, whereas the more solid
theater setting required the viewer to confine his oral pleasures to before, after,
or during the break, but still permitted a sweet or chocolate, whose rustle as
it was unwrapped was an unmistakable sound in the hall.
Could it not be that these oral delights share a “prehistoric” bond with the
first theatrical encounters in our lives? Think, too, of the prima donna ritual.
The wreaths of flowers in her dressing room, her secret and not so secret
admirers, the newspapers, and gossips, who put the stories and photographs
at the disposal of the public. Could it not be that the urge to possess or at least
touch the prima donna has a similar “prehistoric” connection to that first
spectacle in which a wondrous mother bestowed graces on her infant?
Or consider the similarity between the infant held up by a doting parent, so
that he can better see the action, and the zoom technique of the cinema, which
carries the viewer to the screen with barely a quivering muscle, just like it was
way back then.
The emotional possibilities that are as a matter of course made available to
the infant are what adult directors work so hard to create according to
Aristotelian principles of time, place and plot. Yet, above all, the two principles
of magic and of meaning rule the art and determine its emotional value in our
lives.
The various relations between magic and meaning give way to many and
varied versions of experience and form, among them the composition, which
is neither academic paper nor essay.
Yet the theater cannot exist without some measure of this and that.
When we say “to get to the bottom of something” or “to be uplifted by an
experience,” what we are referring to is the entire range of adult or mature
satisfaction to which an adult progresses as he develops. The theater, a loyal
companion throughout our lives, reflects the aspiration to be in touch with
this range of possibility, and with the entire spectrum of human experience.

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So, before the curtain falls let me take just a few more moments to tell you
about the little boy we met earlier, a child who needed to go all the way to
China before he felt safe enough to admit that both his rear end and his sense
of pride were smoldering.
Eventually the therapy ended and we had to part company (his father proved
impervious to change, but the child had learned to make peace with his lot
and avoid provoking this irate parent). As we said our goodbyes, this resilient
ten-year-old stoically commented that although he regretted not being able to
come any more, he would still be able to do plays and tell stories away from
the prying eyes of others. I could only add that no one would be able to take
his stories and plays away from him.
Many years have passed since then. A little while ago I chanced to hear that
the little boy had grown up and is now involved in a theater program for
children.
The End

Acknowledgment
This essay was translated by Yael Oberman, PhD.

References
Noy, P. (1979) “Form Creation in Art: an Ego-Psychological Approach to Creativity”,
Psychoanalytical Quarterly, 47:229–256.
Noy, P. (1999) Psychoanalysis of Art and Creativity, Tel Aviv: Modan Publishing House.

The actor as eternal child: The role of play in the

training of actors

Noam Meiri
To be a good artist, an actor should carefully observe the dialogue he carries on
with himself and with life around him. To “put himself” on stage in a vibrant,
flowing manner in the here and now, to put life into characters and situations
foreign to him so that he can freely and effortlessly change at any given
moment, believing in his imagination and internal world in a way that can
carry the audience away for a brief interlude to an illusion of real and imagined
reality – to do all this the actor must be able to connect to an inner state
beyond the curtains of his personality and the layers of his soul: the eternal
child. The eternal child is the purportedly free character each of us remembers
from early childhood, when we identified with the games we played and the
world around us bore little significance.
It is no coincidence that distinguished drama coach Philippe Gaulier, who
studied with Jacques Lecoq in Paris and went on to establish the École

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Philippe Gaulier in London, begins his drama training with a course

known in French as Le Jeu (The Game). The aim of the course is to bring
the students back to their childhood games, to remind them of the childlike
state within them, to make them aware of the close relationship between
the quality of child’s play, the childlike state, and the quality of acting for the
theater.
But what are those qualities of child’s play that can be internalized by the
actor to improve his acting, enhance his professionalism and bring the
necessary traits to life? One quality is the “danger” lurking in some facets of
acting. The essence of this sense of danger is experiencing the unknown,
celebrating the moment itself without knowing what the next moment holds,
taking a risk that we know is not real. We enjoy taking a risk ourselves, or
watching someone else take it, in simulation of the vacillation between desires,
feelings, emotions, and urges. For example, the more we tease the child who
is “It” before he catches us, the more fun the game of “Tag” is. And our
enjoyment of “Red Light, Green Light” is enhanced by waiting, focusing on
the risky anticipation of not immediately running to tag the player with his
back to us.
In this game, the purpose is known and thus the essence of the game, like
the essence of the pleasure, is related to a journey, to the route and the
adventure to which the game takes us. The more frightening the witch that
jumps out at the child in this game, the greater the child’s pleasure. He will
be startled, but his fear will turn to laughter because he knows it is make-
believe, and then he will immediately ask to be frightened again. We want to
take as many “sweet little risks” as possible. This requires maximum alertness,
preparedness and the ability to be in a state of tactical choice, a clear goal and
will, paying strict attention to the conditions of the road. Most important is
the pleasure derived from the action of the game.
When we hear a story or watch a play, we want the actor to draw the
character into risk-taking, to tease the object that serves as impediment and
barrier, and to confront the conflict. We want to be with the actor for every
minute of the character’s unexpected journey, expressing the authentic feelings
that emerge during the journey. As opposed to our feelings toward the
character of Othello, we want the actor who plays him to enjoy the circuitous
journey of jealousy he takes, including the moment he murders Desdemona.
The actor’s pleasure in his performance is an important component in the
audience’s pleasure and its satisfaction as observer, just as enjoyment is an
important factor in creating the actor–audience dialogue.
Another factor in training an actor is the naiveté of child’s play, consisting
of the capacity to discover something new without initial judgment and
without self-criticism, the capacity to accept and absorb a new fact or a new
situation before reacting, the capacity to listen totally, with the entire body,
and a capacity that also enables immediate passage from one emotional state
to another.

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When we take a toy from a small child he will get angry and cry, but the
tears may soon turn to pleasure if we offer him a more attractive and intriguing
alternative – here and now. Such a spontaneous and uninhibited transition
between situations is important for the actor too, a transition well defined by
the term Respond (react, relate), describing the ability to move from one
situation to another, from one sensation to another, from one emotion to
another, with no judgment or inhibition.
The actor should avoid becoming fixated on the feeling that accompanied a
past reality and should be totally open to discover a new moment, to say “yes”
to the offers of his acting partners, to listen to the flow, to the “here and now”:
words sacred to the theater.
Arlecchino, a central figure in the Commedia dell’Arte, accepts totally
everything that comes his way. When Capitano, the boastful military officer
in Commedia dell’Arte, tells him: “Arlecchino! Go to war!” Arlecchino does not
hesitate but enlists at once, convinced entirely of the urgency of the situation.
He runs off to war like a fanatic patriot, never questioning the justification of
the war or considering the deadly danger hovering over his head. Only later,
when he stops for a moment and observes his actions, can he hear hesitation
and fear.
A third factor is investigation. At certain ages a child can play by himself
for long periods of time without getting bored, immersed in his or her natural
curiosity. A young drama student will not hesitate to quickly declare a lesson
boring or claim that he already knows the exercise because he already did it a
year ago. Unlike him, a child will want to hear a story again and again, ready
to confront it time after time. Only at the end of an extensive process will the
drama student realize that it is his responsibility not to be bored, to agree to
want to take the journey each time anew, without trying to recreate the result
he remembers from the past.
This responsibility is important both during rehearsals, when the student
must investigate the dramatic situation and the character’s behavior, and every
evening on stage, when he has to rediscover his character for each performance,
to be curious about the encounter that recurs afresh at another time, in a
different place, before a different audience.
A fourth factor is the unmediated connection between feeling and its
expression. A baby does not doubt his gut feeling and immediately expresses
his sensations and emotions. He cries without affectation when he feels pain
or hunger. Later a child learns to think before reacting, to judge and criticize
himself and others and to delay the expression of feeling; he knows he needs
to behave well, speak politely, not to shout and cry, and then he will get what
he wants.
At play, however, a child is completely absorbed in the world of fiction, and
the game grips his entire body. He enjoys discovering his feelings in the game,
he lets them lead him, and he gives them full expression in his actions,
believing in the truth of his emotions and feelings. For the audience to identify

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with and follow the actor, the actor must believe in the emotional world that
awakens in him while acting.

The actor’s way to the childlike state

There are many techniques that enable an actor, through a slow and conscious
process, to connect to the childlike state within him. One technique is to
improvise the simulation of a kindergarten based on improvisation. Using
guided imagery, like a time machine sending the participants back in time,
the actors are led on a journey to their childhood. A space in a room is defined
as the kindergarten, and in that space the actors experience the childlike state.
They are happy to play games, to act, to have relationships as children.
They enjoy romping in the mud, in the rain, or in the kindergarten itself.
They delight in fighting, being frightened, loving, feeling jealous, and so
forth. The exercise creates a deep and emotional experience, and the actors are
enthusiastic at how quickly they let go of the “grown-up” and delve into the
liberating experience of childhood.
Another technique makes use of the Alexander method, which is an early
part of training in most European acting schools. It takes a good deal of time
for the drama student to internalize the connection between his chosen
profession and the Alexander method, which is usually perceived as treatment
for back problems (Alexander 1985). But the Alexander method offers much
beyond that. It gives meaning to managing and organizing life on the fine
level of remedial thinking, improving the body’s delicate equilibrium and
creating ideal conditions for listening and self-observation, both external and
internal, which leads to reaction, to action from choice and not out of our past
patterns of indiscriminate responses to reality.
If we observe a three- or four-year-old child as he plays on the floor, sitting
and getting up again and again, we can see that his movements follow the
Alexander method: He sits in the perfect Alexander position, with the correct
balance – poise – between his head, face, loose neck, and long, wide back. This
position enables the child to connect his feelings, sensations and actions, the
sounds he makes, his emotional expressions and his desires, allowing him to
be totally himself, in optimal flow, while observing, investigating and acting.
In time, the process of maturity focuses more on the aim and less on the
journey: everything has to be done quickly and with impressive results; the
highest grades must be attained as rapidly as possible. In the course of
this process we become more “end-gaining,” to use the terminology of the
Alexander method, no longer stopping to discover and listen for a moment to
“the here and now.”
If we take another look at the game of “Red Light, Green Light,” we notice
that while one who is “It” turns around quickly and tries to catch whoever
moves slightly from his place so that he can order him to go back to the
starting point, the other participants stand motionless, alert and attuned to

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their bodies so they are not caught. Their eyes shine and look straight ahead,
filled with the joy of play. The Alexander method calls this “delay” (in the
sense of inhibition) and in the theater it is known as “fix point.”
This is a unit of time replete with alertness and listening to ourselves, to
our partner, our place, the space that surrounds us, and the audience. It is a
unique moment that ignites our imagination as well as the audience’s, a
moment of anticipation of things to come, on the actor’s part as well as the
audience’s; the moment in which we experience the unknown of what is to
come.
Another technique is related to the time factor, such as making use of
short-term assignments. This could be an exercise in which a group of
three or four actors must carry out a task within two to three minutes, such as
creating a single imaginary animal made up of all the group members. The
brevity increases the degree of pleasure, and in the course of the exercise
impressive physical group structures are created, which serve as a basis for
more advanced analysis of the use of body language and movement in space.
For the sake of comparison, I do not always impose a time limit on carrying
out the first task; in this case the tendency is to sit and consider general ideas,
as each of the group members tries to convince the others why one idea is
better, and instead of taking action the group indulges in talking about taking
action.
In one version of the game of “Musical Chairs,” the loser who is left without
a chair when the music stops can save himself only if he immediately becomes
an animal and moves around in a way that pleases the other participants. As
soon as the loser stops the process and begins thinking about which animal to
choose and how he can move to save himself, he is doomed to failure because
the flow has been disrupted. If the loser is willing to quickly take advantage
of his enthusiasm and his pleasure in the game, rapidly changing without any
self-criticism, agreeing to play the fool, then the whole group – including
himself – will enjoy his romping.
Another sure technique is using masks. Beyond the power the mask
embodies on stage, it bears significant power for the actor as well. Its main
aim is to enable us to lose control. The mask is larger than life and its power
is sweeping, magical and ritualistic. It helps us lose control for the benefit of
the world of desires within us, the secret world of deep emotions, of urges that
can lead to actions that, in retrospect, are surprising.
The use of masks enables the actor to express directly the impulses emerging
from within him. The pleasure of acting with a mask creates and enhances
the actor’s belief in his internal world, improves his creative imagination
and summons a theatrical celebration with his stage partners. This is
exemplified by the use of masks in Commedia dell’Arte during the golden age
of theater.
Even the use of neutral masks, whole and symmetrical ones devoid of any
expression, can help the actor profoundly experience the joy of acting.

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During an actor’s basic training, these and other techniques are intended to
remind him of his childlike qualities, so that he believes in them and lets
himself believe that all the information and material required for acting are
already within him. All he must do is listen to them and trust his intuitive
feelings. But as well as the childlike state, the actor must use his adult abilities
to identify these qualities, select and investigate them.
At a more advanced stage of his training as an actor, the drama student
must accept responsibility for the development of the dramatic structure, for
the use and aesthetic application of his body and of the space around him. He
must learn how to use his emotional energies and urges as a source for
movement and action. He must analyze his movement, use its potential to the
fullest, control his energies to make maximum use of the precise visual
expression of sensation in his body and in space, in order to create a dramatic
process and construct a meaningful story.
Various techniques train the drama student in such skills. One exercise
calls for the student to imagine a figure standing behind him, ordering him
to give him all his money. How should he react? There are several options.
He can stay where he is; he can turn just his head, or just his head and
upper torso, in the aggressor’s direction. He can raise his right hand in
warning; he can turn his entire body in the direction of the attacker and then
lift his arm slowly, waving its full length in the air towards him. He can take
two steps backward, turn around, take two more steps, and then quickly run
away.
Obviously there are many other options: he can turn around quickly, take
two rapid steps and then saunter away; he can walk away in a straight line, or
indirectly, or jump or crawl to the exit; he can stop in the middle, or do any
number of other things.
Rudolf Laban, one of the most important figures in modern dance, created
dance notation: a detailed and complex sketch of the kinds of movement
that can be taken in a given space (Laban 1998). This includes analysis of
directions in the dancer’s personal space – up, down, sidewise, diagonally – as
well as the character of movements – light or heavy, direct or indirect, slow or
fast.
Every choice will create and express a different feeling, a different intention,
a different story. The actor analyzing his movement will thereby engage in an
intriguing investigation of the relationships between his internal world and
the language he chooses to express himself on stage.
For instance, the awareness of movement analysis enables the actor to
engage in an ongoing examination of the primal urge and to consider its
immanent dramatic potential, as well as to listen to the emotions that such
analysis evokes in him. Of course, movement analysis is not limited to practical
actions but can apply to any physical means of expression the actor uses to
convey feelings and intentions. The actor is welcome to play with all his
heart’s components.

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Physical theater and the art of storytelling

My work in recent years has focused on developing the genre of physical
theater and the art of storytelling. My starting point is the natural need and
desire to tell and listen to stories, focusing on the actor as performer and
center of the work of art who makes utmost use of his unique physical qualities
and abilities as a person.
We are all natural-born storytellers, and we all relate to one another
through stories. No one teaches us how to tell a story, yet nevertheless we
do so marvelously – moving from one sensation to another, from one moment
to the next, from one place to another. For example, a man comes home and
says:

Don’t ask what happened at work today. I walked into the office and
there she was, standing next to the window and holding a letter. “Get
out!” she said, but I kept standing there. She crumpled the letter
slowly, threw it on the floor and left. Near the doorway she turned her
head towards me and quickly went out. I left the office and drove to
the beach. (Pause) I went up to the water. (Pause) A hand touched my
shoulder. (Pause) I turned my head. There she stood, holding the
letter.

Anyone hearing or reading the extract has already constructed the beach and
the shoreline in his or her imagination and is eager to learn who touched the
storyteller’s shoulder. We complete the picture in our imagination and
anticipate what is to come. In essence, we engage in a dialogue with the
storyteller as well as with the story.
The same dialogue continues to be relevant when we bring the story to the
stage. In creating a story for the theater, one needs to focus on the relationship
between storyteller, story, and audience. The audience is a significant partner
in the dialogue. The story happened there and then, while the renewed encounter
with the story in the presence of the audience is here and now.
The storyteller is always the main character of the story, even if the story is
not his or her personal one. If the character is Little Red Riding Hood, the
character becomes the storyteller’s Little Red Riding Hood. And therein lies
the storyteller’s challenge: he must sustain himself through his internal world
of feelings, emotions, desires and wishes in order to give them expression and
to present them to the audience. The mask he wears in such a case is transparent,
as there is no character behind which to hide.
Another challenge facing the storyteller is the “empty space,” a term coined
by Peter Brook in his book of the same name (1991). The storyteller’s starting
point is standing alone on stage, without any props or scenery. The use of
empty space presumes that the artists and the audience are always aware that
this is theater, and they agree to accept this illusion. As a result, the actor has

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more freedom in how he expresses himself. He can find his stage language by
using his voice, his body and his movements. He can create complex physical
stage images dynamically without any scenery or any other technical
encumbrance on stage. This creates a vast crucible for the actor’s creative
imagination.
For this to happen, the actor must engage in an intensive period of rehearsals
in order to find his own special way to present the story. He must examine
every given moment in the story and decide how to present it. At times he
will choose one word to convey his meaning; at other times he will choose a
physical gesture. This style also enables the audience to make fertile use of its
imagination, mentally elaborating situations and allowing itself to get carried
away with the flow of feelings in response to the stimulus of the stage. Thus
an active audience is created within the dialogue he maintains with his
internal world.
To help the storyteller listen to his internal world as he constructs a story
for a performance, he may use an exercise that takes him back to his child-
hood. The actor imagines himself back to his childhood home, at the age of
six, with a video camera; he must share the pictures that are evoked in his
imagination with his fellow actors. This exercise is intended to demonstrate
and reinforce belief in the dramatic power inherent in minute details, those
small moments of life, and their ability to evoke authentic feelings and emo-
tions in the presence of the audience, thus constituting an additional stage in
the actor’s training to listen to and make use of his internal world when he
encounters a new story.
At this stage many actors contend that they don’t remember details.
However, the more they are willing to forgo contrived thought in favor of
observing the picture emerging from their imaginations and waiting, in a
state of delay and non-activity, the more the details of the picture will take
form. The storyteller himself is usually surprised by the number of details.
When a certain detail comes up, we can note a reaction that repeats itself – the
storyteller will smile and say, for example: “I can see my first grade notebook
on the desk!”
His body language has already exposed the quality of his dialogue with
place and time before thought became spoken word. This phenomenon
increases when the drama student is asked to walk around the space and move
his hand along the items in his childhood bedroom. This action, which
reinforces the body–mind relationship, conveys more information to the
audience. The actor’s responsibility is to discover and identify the feeling, so
that he can find a way to express it on stage.
At this point the actor must tell a story about an incident that occurred at
that time and which includes another character: “And then Mom said, ‘Get
out of the room right now!” And what did she do when she said what she said?
Did she move her hand to her face? Did she turn around and leave the room
quickly? Slowly? Did she stop at the doorway and again turn only her head?

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The storyteller must immediately apply the new information, listening to his
feelings and creating a dramatic stage construction.
Thus the storyteller gradually experiences and recognizes the energies, the
urges, the feelings, the emotions, the intentions, and the actions that he will
summon for himself with his body. We are not always aware of the hidden
intentions behind the information that our body allows us; however, if we do
not listen to ourselves, if we do not believe in our honesty and our good faith,
we cannot create a true and human dialogue with the audience.
The actor’s basic training is meant to remind him of those qualities and to
allow him to listen to them, to believe that he was born with them, believing
that all the information and materials for acting exist within his body, within
him. He must listen to them and trust his “gut feelings.”
With the help of his thoughts as an adult, he must identify, select and
investigate. Any piece of information he receives will stimulate material for
the art of acting within him and will drive him into action. It is action –
from which source the word “actor” derives – that is the basis of acting,
flowing and life.

Epilogue: A prince in a donkey’s skin

I would like to conclude with a personal note and a story I have adapted from
a tale of the Brothers Grimm (1884/1994), “The Little Donkey” or “The
Prince in a Donkey’s Skin.” This story, which wonderfully incorporates the
qualities of the childlike state over the course of an entire life-story, has been
a source of inspiration for me in my creative process. I tell it in nearly every
new encounter with a group of children. Through it, I have again met the
child within me and through it I have learned about myself. Here is the story.

The Little Donkey

Once upon a time, many years ago, in a faraway country, there lived a king and
a queen. They had palaces and castles, money and gold, riches and jewelry.
But what they did not have was a child. Every night the queen knelt by the
bed and prayed: “Please Lord, let me have just one little child, I ask for no
more.” A year passed but nothing happened. “Please Lord,” she prayed, “is it
so much that I ask you for?”
Another year passed and still nothing happened.
Then one night the queen awoke startled. She felt something tickling
her in her belly, which quickly began to swell. There was not a shadow of a
doubt: her wish had been fulfilled! The queen was expecting a little boy or a
little girl.
Nine months passed and the miracle took place: A son was born to the
queen and king. “We have a new prince! The kingdom has an heir,” the word
spread throughout the palace.

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All the people in the palace rushed to see the newborn prince. Dancing and
prancing before them, the queen led the parade. They all went into the baby’s
room and the queen bent over the crib. Everyone behind her waited excitedly.
Suddenly she saw that her tiny baby had very long ears. When she lifted the
blanket she discovered that he also had a tail. The queen let out a scream. All
the people who had gathered ran for their lives. The queen was left alone, and
she realized that she had given birth not to a normal baby but to a donkey!
A little donkey!
That very same evening she decided that she could not raise a donkey in the
palace, let alone as her son! She would take the creature and abandon him in
the great forest. When night fell she softly entered the baby’s room, took him
out of his crib and started making her way into the dark forest. As she stood
in the palace doorway a shout was suddenly heard:
“What are you doing? This is our son! This is our prince! This is what we
have received! He, and only he, will be king after me!”
The queen trembled. She had no choice and, together with the king, she
returned the donkey to the palace.
The king named the baby Little Donkey. The queen took all the mirrors
from all the rooms and halls in the palace, and ordered everyone in the palace
to say nothing. Little Donkey grew up and became a wonderful donkey. He
had lovely long white ears and a happy wagging tail. He was also bright and
very talented. He did not know his secret.
One day he asked his parents, the king and the queen, that he be taught to
play the accordion [or lute, in other versions of the story]. After much
consultation, they summoned the most famous teacher of the accordion in the
land.
The teacher arrived, walked into the donkey’s room, saw the awful sight,
and quickly left the room. “Who ever heard of a donkey playing the accordion?”
he whispered. “Am I to teach a donkey to play the accordion?” He packed his
bags and fled.
Little Donkey was shocked; he went into his room and cried. When he
calmed down a little, a thought came to his mind: “If no one is willing to
teach me to play, I will learn by myself.” He ran to the red box where a little
accordion lay ready for the lessons, placed it on his shoulders and slowly began
to play. The days passed and soon a year had gone by, and Little Donkey had
become the finest musician in the kingdom.
One day Little Donkey went for a walk in the forest near the palace. He
reached the river and stopped; he bent down to drink, looked at the water and
cried: “What is this? Why do I have such long ears? And why do I have a tail?
Why? Why am I not like everyone else?” No one dared answer. No one knew,
not even the king or the queen.
Little Donkey ran to his room. That same night he made a decision and the
next morning he took leave of his parents: “I am leaving the castle. I am going
on a journey. I do not know when I shall return, if ever I do.” His royal parents

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had no choice. They kissed him goodbye and presented him with the accordion
as a parting gift. He put it on his back and went into the wide world.
He wandered for days and weeks. He crossed forests and mountains, until he
reached the great sea. There he put the accordion on his back and crossed the
water.
Little Donkey had reached a new and unknown land. From afar he saw the
palace of the kingdom. He approached the palace gate and called: “Please let
me in.” Silence. “Please let me in, I am the son of the king of a faraway
country.”
A guard looked out, saw the dreadful sight, and shouted: “A king’s
son?? . . . But you’re a donkey!”
“I am the donkey son of a king.”
The guard laughed: “We don’t let donkeys come in here!”
Little Donkey sat down by the wall, lowered his ears and wept. He took the
accordion out of the red box and began to play, sad and melancholy music.
And that music, that very beautiful music, found its way over the wall and
landed in the palace yard. It made its way along the paths of the palace until
it reached the king’s ears. The king listened and asked: “Who is it playing the
accordion so beautifully?”
“Your Majesty, there is a donkey outside the palace playing the accordion.
In accordance with the law, I did not let him in.”
“I order you to bring the donkey here at once!” said the king.
Little Donkey was led to the king. He bowed before him deeply and said:
“Please let me spend one night in your palace so that I can rest and continue
on my way tomorrow. I promise not to leave my room.”
“And I,” said the king, “I ask that you play.”
With great fear and trepidation, Little Donkey pulled the accordion from
the red box and began to play. And the music – the music was so very beautiful,
soft and ethereal. The king listened and was so impressed and so touched that
when Little Donkey finished he said: “I will agree to your request on one
condition: that tomorrow morning, before you leave the palace, you return to
me so that I may hear you play the accordion once again.” Little Donkey
agreed.
The next day, when Little Donkey appeared before the king and played . . .
and played, the king could not control himself and he shouted out: “Little
Donkey, I want you to stay in my palace with me! I want you to be my personal
musician. I will give you anything you may want!”
Little Donkey was still for a while and then said: “I agree. I will stay! But
promise me, please, that when I want to leave, you will not stop me.”
“I promise,” said the king. And so Little Donkey remained with the king
and played every night before he went to sleep. And the king was very happy.
And thus one year after another went by and soon many years had passed,
until one day, when Little Donkey had finished playing very late at night, he
said to the king, “Your Highness, it is time I continued my journey.”

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“Please stay!” cried the king.

“You promised me that when I wanted to go, you would not stop me,” said
Little Donkey.
“But I ask that you stay,” said the king. “I promise I will give you anything
you want! Please stay!”
Little Donkey was insistent, but so was the king: “I have grown so attached
to you, I love you so much. Please stay.” Little Donkey kept silent.
“If you stay,” said the king, “I’ll give you houses and a palace, silver, gold
and jewelry. I’ll give you whatever you want!”
Little Donkey still remained silent. Then he asked to be allowed to return
to his room for a moment and promised to return at once. When he came back
he said: “I will stay if you let me have your daughter as my wife.”
Now it was the king who fell silent. And then he suddenly called for his
daughter the princess to be brought to the hall. She entered the hall and,
when she heard the news, became frightened and ran away. Little Donkey ran
after her.
They both ran up the stairs until the princess lost her footing and fell,
crying. Little Donkey bent down and gently took her hand. She did nothing.
Little Donkey brought her hand closer and kissed it. That very moment the
donkey’s hide vanished as if it had never been. A handsome prince now stood
before the princess. Little Donkey led the princess to the palace hall. The next
day the wedding was announced. After the wedding Little Donkey took the
princess and returned to his parents’ palace. A big celebration was held. When
the old king died, Little Donkey became king in his parents’ kingdom. The
princess became queen, and they lived happily ever after.

Like most children, Little Donkey came into this world out of his parents’
yearning. He was given to them as a priceless gift, but the queen refused to
accept this gift. So long as he had not discovered that he was a donkey, Little
Donkey had no problems; he was a happy little donkey. But as soon as he
made the discovery, his donkey’s skin became a problem for him. He was
forced to cope alone with his distress. No one dared say a word. Little Donkey,
who loved life, the joy of life, and art – as he was a gifted musician – decided
to leave, alone, on a journey toward maturity.
The light at the end of the tunnel is personified in the character of the king,
who chooses to allow him into the palace even though he is a donkey. The
king is enchanted by his playing and his soul and comes to love him. Little
Donkey receives love and affection in the foreign land and stays there for many
years. When he feels he has completed this stage of his life and seeks to move
on, he yet again encounters a problem. He wants to continue looking into his
life, set for himself a new goal, and taste more and more of his journey. He
does not want to remain in the kingdom just because the king wants him to,
and so he dares make a bold request – and comes out a winner. Only then does
he want to return to his parents’ home. He is true to his quest, bears no anger

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toward anyone, and does not seek revenge. He is now king of the entire
kingdom.
For years I did not stop to wonder what it was in the story that evoked such
strong emotions in me, what it was that coaxed my best work out of me, that
provoked such strong reactions from the audience (I sometimes meet adults
who remind me of the story that they heard me tell many years ago).
My first insight came seven years ago, when I invited my then psychologist
to watch my storytelling performance. He later told me that the donkey’s
mask gave me complete freedom to engage in an intimate and authentic
dialogue between me and Little Donkey’s story, to be in the extraordinary flow
between my internal world and the language of the theater that I created on
stage.
Later in treatment I realized that Little Donkey was me – but not only me.
We are all Little Donkeys, we are all judged, and as we judge ourselves, we
also judge others. When I tell the story, every listener meets the donkey
within him, that part of him that is different and unique, the essence within
him, which is not always apparent to those around him.
The earlier we accept the donkey within us, the sooner we listen to him, the
more we encourage a child or any person, young or old, the actor – and not
only the actor – to love the donkey inside him, to embrace him and not be
judgmental; so we will be more open to the child within us and will become
more creative toward the life that surrounds us and, no less important, toward
ourselves.

References
Alexander, F. M. (1985) The Use of the Self, London: Victor Gollancz.
Brook, P. (1968) The Empty Space, New York: Atheneum.
Grimm, J. and Grimm, W. (1884) Household Tales, transl. and edited by Margaret
Hunt (1994), London: G. Bell.
Laban, R. (1998) The Mastery of Movement, Plymouth, UK: Northcote House.

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PLAY AND MASQUERADING

Introduction: The play of the soul behind the mask

Emilia Perroni
To witness a baby dressed in a tiger costume and bursting into tears is
something unexpected. It happened some years ago on Purim (a Jewish
holiday falling in the same period as Carnival, to which it is similar). The
baby, who was about six months old, was sobbing out loud. His mother was
holding him next to her breast in order to soothe him. The weeping of a tiger-
baby can be seen as a contradiction to the common stereotype of tigers.
Perhaps his costume has been chosen by his parents with the hope that one
day their son would become as strong and brave as a tiger.
The purpose of a costume is to arouse reactions in other people or to deliver
a message or to tell our personal story: wearing a mask or a costume is an
expression of the inner story of the person. Usually, during the first years of a
person’s life, it is the parents that will choose the costume; they want their
child to enjoy impersonating something unusual and at the same time they
want to entertain themselves with their own desires. Later, the costume will
express the child’s inner wishes. For example, during the Oedipal period (ages
four to six), the child may conceal forbidden desires. So the possibility of
impersonating a queen or a dancer in the case of girls, or of impersonating a
soldier or a policeman in the case of boys, may reveal their inner desires, which
are both of the individual and universal. The Oedipal drama also demands
from the child that he or she must take a decisive position in their self-identity
in respect to their parents and the world.
Masks have been found in all cultures and among all people, and they have
evolved extensively during the course of human history. From their original
use in religious ceremonies they subsequently became artistic creations. From
antiquity to the present day, masks and disguises have been created according
to the role they were meant to fulfill: for example, war masks had to protect
the warrior’s head and therefore they were molded in the form of helmets with
frightening aspects. Masks used in ceremonies are sometimes characterized by

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their enormous dimensions. They can represent the founding patriarchs or

mythical creatures or spirits. In Africa masks represent real figures, in the
islands of Melanesia they represent imaginary creatures, while in eastern
India, Sri Lanka, Tibet, among the Inuit, and in some parts of North America,
masks represent monstrous creatures who were created from a combination of
naturalistic, symbolic, and anthropomorphic elements.
Carnival celebrations – the apotheosis of masks – have evolved from pagan
holidays, which symbolized, among other things, the end of winter and the
rebirth of spring. Bakhtin (1965) has written extensively about the carnival
rites during the Middle Ages and during the Renaissance in France. From the
material gathered in his research he showed that the “grotesque” was a sort of
necessary complement to the classical and official culture by the popular one.
The dizzying liberation of the carnival season, which is carefully contained by
a well-defined period of time, has inspired many writers, composers, and
painters.
Sometimes the mask expresses the unconscious of the person. Sometimes it
reveals the dark side of the person’s character and sometimes the person’s ideal
image. It may express also the wish to release our contained instincts and an
opportunity to dismantle the division between genders and classes.
Much less attention has been paid to the interaction between masqueraded
people and those who observe them. Sometimes we are curious to learn what
costumes our friends or acquaintances will wear, because we believe that by
learning about their choice of costume, we may find out the “truth” about
them: from this angle we are driven and inspired by the search for truth, like
when we want to find out the truth in a detective novel.
The Latin word for mask is persona – a character played by the actor in the
ancient Greek and Roman theaters. The persona conceals the true identity of
the actor. As a matter of fact, masks and disguises conceal and reveal at the
same time. The play between concealment and revelation is part of humanity’s
nature. For example, in Genesis, immediately after Adam and Eve are punished
and become mortals and are subjected to consciousness and pain, they both
feel the need to cover parts of their body. Shame is the first emotion that
appears in the Bible (Hopp 1996). However, shame is certainly not the only
motivation for people to cover or dress themselves.
Those of us who deal with the constant vicissitudes of the psyche are
witnessing all the time the “disguises” of the human soul. After Freud dis-
covered the existence of the unconscious, investigated its essence, and traced
its modes of functioning, it was important for him to seek what lies behind
the manifested identity of a person: Freud was resolute in his search for the
“truth” and he wanted to understand what is hidden inside people, what lies
behind their conscious memories, what hysterical phenomena they conceal,
and what is behind their paranoia. From the beginning of the process of the
development of the psychoanalytical thought up to this day, the place of truth
has been changed: Winnicott (1960) wrote about the true self and the false

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self; M. Masud R. Khan (1983) emphasized the importance for people to

protect their secrets when dealing with themselves or with others, and thereby
confirmed the importance of secret as a form of potential space.
Thus a new way in the expansion of the concept of truth was paved: the
discovery of the true self became crucial not only in order to diagnose the deep
sources of suffering. True self and false self are two complex dimensions in the
relationship between ourselves and others. Thus, the concept of an objective
truth lost its monolithic character and paved the way to the search for
subjective truths.
Therefore, we find that, despite our tendency to emulate detectives or to
look for traces of the truth hidden behind a mask or a costume, we should
interpret the disguise as a kind of play by the person: a play between various
parts of the self and a play in which the person has the chance to arouse
reactions and emotions in others. The mask can arouse surprise, an adverse
reaction by the others, a simple story manifested by the person in disguise,
and enthusiasm (the word “enthusiasm” comes from the Greek “en-theos”,
which means “god inside”). The main purpose of the mask, in my opinion, is
the wish of being accepted by the others with all our parts, including the
negative ones.
Indeed, the mask not only conceals, but it can also create, through countless
combinations, new meanings, a variety of aspects, and different modes of
communicating with others. Thus, it is also a means for people to renew
themselves and their relation with the world.

References
Bakhtin, M. (1965) Rabelais and his World, Trans. H. Iswolsky, Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1984.
Hopp, D. (1996) “And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they
were naked” (Genesis, 3,7), Sihot 1:63,
Khan, M. M. R. (1983) Hidden Selves, London: Hogarth Press and the Institute of
Psychoanalysis.
Winnicott, D. W. (1960) “Ego Distortion in Terms of True and False Self”,
pp. 140–152 in Winnicott, D. W. (1965).
Winnicott, D. W. (1965) The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment:
Studies in the Theory of Emotional Development, London: Hogarth Press and Institute
of Psychoanalysis.

The mask

Jacob Raz
People yearn for an alternative reality to that in which they live. By various
means such as carnivals, festivals, plays, rites, and social gatherings they
invent instruments for living and experiencing that alternative reality. The

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mask is one of the instruments by which people succeed in experiencing

alternative reality or other aspects of their identity most rapidly. In rites and
carnivals society permits people, at least once a year, to make use of other
identities, even when they are reversed, strange, threatening, subversive,
demonic, evil, satanic – and all of this, mainly, by means of the use of masks.
At the same time, the mask arouses a feeling of mistrust. The Hebrew word
for mask, masekha, is connected to the word masakh (curtain). The words for
mask in other European languages – maschera (Italian), masque (French) –
derive from the Arabic word, mashara, which means commerce, deceit, buf-
foonery. “Mascara,” makeup, has a similar etymology. All these terms refer to
concealment, disguise, deceit – in short, everything that society condemns
and rejects in the framework of its principal values. The mask is connected
with an alternative reality, but not necessarily a decent one.
Many people think that the Latin word for mask, persona, derives from per
(through) and sono (to make a sound), since a mask is something through
which one sounds a voice, something that conducts the voice. Nevertheless, a
more convincing hypothesis is that the root persona came from the Etruscan
phersu, which had the meaning of mask. The mask was the instrument through
which the actor made his voice heard in ancient Greek and Roman theater.
Since then, of course, the meaning of the term has expanded, so that it relates
not only to the theatrical mask but to personality. The persona – that is to say,
the mask – does not veil the personality. Rather it is identical with it and
reveals it.
In Japanese the situation is quite similar. The word omo or omote means both
mask and face. The meaning of the word “face” is also identical to a person’s
“personality,” and “identity.” Thence derive expressions in Japanese (and in
English) such as “to save face” and “to lose face” (and in Hebrew, there is an
ancient expression: to white someone’s face). Here, as in Latin, we see identity
and not separation between the person and the mask. The mask is the character
itself, and not a covering. The Italian sociologist, Alessandro Pizzorno, argues
that the mask is a synonym for character. Character is what a person reveals in
his relations with his fellows. That is to say, character is a person’s role (mask)
at a certain moment, but also his true identity at that moment.
The mask thus represents two different approaches to personal identity.
One approach assumes the existence of a basic, central identity, which the
mask – material or metaphorical – covers during various events, hiding it
and even deceiving people by presenting itself as the true personality.
The psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung, for example, used the term “persona” to
emphasize the way in which people adapt themselves to a certain social order,
while hiding that which is unique and intimate in them.
The other approach does not assume the existence of a central personality.
According to this approach, any manifestation of a person is another true
identity. Our entire lives are one revelation or another of our identities,
and the mask represents the multitude of identities. This approach recalls the

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basic assumption of Buddhism, which denies the concept of the self. The
Orient has no monopoly over this description of the person. The West is also
replete with philosophies, psychologies, and anthropologies that argue for the
absence of the self or describe people as possessing any number of selves.
The magical power of the mask is inexplicable. It is astonishing to note how
body language changes the moment one wears a mask. Anyone who has put
on a mask will testify to the rapid and strange effect of that act: you disappear,
and a new figure appears immediately, wild, liberated, different, or even the
opposite of you. Now you are evil, a criminal; you are your fears, your
nightmares, and see how your fears have left those things behind.
The French theater director, Jean-Louis Barrault, said of the mask: “What
happens to the actor who puts on a mask? He is cut off from the outer world.
The night he deliberately enters allows him first to reject everything that
hampered him. Then, by an effort of concentration, to reach a void, a state of
unbeing. From this moment forward, he will be able to come back to life and
to behave in a new and truly dramatic way.”
Children and adults respond to a mask with a mixture of repulsion and
attraction. The mask is living and dead, an expressive organism and inexpres-
sive material. We want to talk to it because it is like us, but it responds with
estrangement, like someone who is not like us. It is simultaneously familiar
and unfamiliar.
In the history of rituals the mask appears as early as the prehistoric period
in shamanistic ceremonies. In places where shamanism exists to this day, the
ceremony is held in a manner very much as it must have been held in the past.
The shaman, the person who makes contact with the spirit world, the dead
souls, and the gods, wears the mask of the spirit that he wishes to evoke. By
putting on the mask he first represents the spirit, but the moment he enters a
trance he becomes the spirit itself, and there is no longer any separation
between them. The shaman becomes ecstatic, his voice changes, his body
changes, and he becomes another entity. The person, known to the audience as
someone who lives with them, is revealed in an entirely different identity. The
audience fears and avoids proximity with him, but it supports him from a safe
distance, because it needs him as an emissary to dangerous worlds.
On other occasions a person used the mask to embody events from another
place and time, such as a hunting expedition from a week earlier. This was not
merely a representative act. By wearing the mask, the man turned himself
into the animal that he hunted, or to the enemy against whom he fought, or
to himself in a different time.
The mask enables people to undergo metamorphosis. By dancing and the
use of other ritual means, which are effected by wearing the mask, they strip
away their quotidian, social, familiar identity, which limits them so severely
with its laws and routines, and they depart or fly away (according to shamanistic
belief) to entirely different realms of existence: the world of spirits, ghosts,
animals, enemies, and the gods. By means of the mask, a person becomes one

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of the beings that dwell in these realms, and thereby he gains control over
them. In fact people experience a more complex reality when they wear masks;
they attain double identities: their own identity and that of another figure,
which the mask represents.
When the hunters of the Mandan tribe of North America failed to catch a
bison, they would hold a ceremony in which every man would bring a horned
bison mask from his tent. These masks were kept for such emergencies. Ten or
fifteen dancers would don the masks and the dance began. They would form a
circle and accompany the main dancer, who was in the center of the circle,
with drumming, pounding, and wails. When the dancer grew tired, he would
pantomime an animal that had been wounded by an arrow. The others would
pantomime the skinning of the “animal” and cutting it into pieces. Another
dancer, who stood prepared with a bison mask on his head, then took the place
of the first one within the circle. Thus the dance continued night and day, for
a long time, until a herd of buffalo was seen on the plain.
Lommel (1972), who investigated the role of the mask in various cultures,
sums up its ritual meanings, saying that it has three main meanings: two are
related to the connection with the ancient forebears and to preservation of
the tradition, and these appear in Africa and Malaysia. The third meaning, the
mask as a guardian spirit, is found in shamanistic ceremonies in Siberia and in
North America. The combination of the first two meanings, and in some cases
even all three, appears in the masks of South America, India, and Indonesia
(Lommel 1972).
During long periods in human history, masks were the most important
works of art. The creation of masks was the source of a large and splendid part
of the art that we call “primitive.” Sometimes the masks covered just part of
the face, sometimes the entire face, and sometimes even the entire body. Masks
represented frightening, amusing, pleasant, grotesque, familiar, or imaginary
figures.
Unlike the place of the mask in modern art, as a possibility for examining
the relation between the symbolic and the concrete, use of the mask in ritual
represents a world view in which the natural and the supernatural, the
symbolic and the concrete, are two aspects of the same world; the duality of
man is not an occasion for philosophical or postmodernist discussion, but
rather an accepted, though not at all simple, reality.
In the social sphere the mask also played a central role. The European
masked ball was a place where those attending could shed their private
identity, including gender and social class, and put on whatever identity they
wished. The permission granted by the mask for such behaviors is familiar
from hundreds of novels, operas, and poems, which express the liberating,
erotic, wanton, and rebellious charm of the mask.
Among masks one can distinguish between those with expression and
those without, which are called “neutral.” Many of the artists who deal with
masks, as well as many of those who observe them – in ritual as well as in

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theater – testify to the special enchantment of the neutral mask. The complete
or almost complete lack of expression gives it a particularly powerful
charm. The white, expressionless mask is closest of all to the figure of
death, but, amazingly, this is the most expressive mask of all. To the same
degree, the death mask has the most vitality. A mask stamped with a powerful
expression – anger, exuberant laughter, envy, pain – cannot express much
more than anger, laughter, or pain. In contrast, a mask that has nothing on it
is capable of expressing any emotion, any identity, any figure, any gender,
any social class. The emptiness of expression is identical with fullness of
expression. In Japanese Noh theater, the Ko-Omote mask is regarded as
the most beautiful and important of all. It presents the greatest challenge
to the actor because of its minimal expression. Therein lies its great
power. Anyone who has watched a skilled actor wearing it will testify to its
unlimited possibilities of expression. To use Buddhist language, let us say
that the empty world is identical to the absolute world in it, and the world
of unity is entirely identical to the world of plurality. This, perhaps, is the
reason why the source of the word for “interesting” in Japanese (omoshiroi)
means: white mask.

Reference
Lommel, A. (1972) Masks: Their Meaning and Function, New York: McGraw-Hill.

Carnival: The return to chaos

Micha Ankory
In truth at the first Chaos came to be, but next wide-bosomed
Earth, the ever-sure foundations of all the deathless ones who
hold the peaks of snowy Olympus, and dim Tartarus in the
depth of the wide-pathed Earth, and Eros (Love), fairest among
the deathless gods, who unnerves the limbs and overcomes the
mind and wise counsels of all gods and all men within them.
From Chaos came forth Erebus and black Night.
(The Theogony of Hesiod, translated by
Hugh G. Evelyn-White)

The contents and symbols of Carnival are culture-dependent. However, the

very existence of Carnival as a worldwide phenomenon and the many parallels
between its contents and symbols in various cultures testify to its source in the
universal foundations of human nature.
Carnival is a channel for the expression of the man’s hidden desires. It is an
intensified expression of the eternal conflict between the primal instincts and
the demands of culture and society. Every culture places restrictions on the
selfish and “bestial” needs of the individual. Carnival is an expression of the

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culture’s recognition of the inner tension created as a result of the self-control

that it imposes on its members in everyday life.
One of the conspicuous universal characteristics of Carnival – beyond
culture and time – is the struggle with issues of boundaries and restrictions.
In all Carnivals appears the motive of transgressing borders, which is rigorously
restrained during the rest of the year. Carnival gives a framework of date and
duration to the violation of law and order. During Carnival free expression is
given to some of the irrational and chaotic elements in the depths of the
human soul. Actions that are permitted during Carnival offer a dependable
representation of the Id as defined by Freud: the hidden desires, especially
sexual and aggressive ones, including tendencies defined as deviant by social
norms – everything that is hidden on the floor of the soul and in the lower
abdomen. Carnival is a collective catharsis. It is a violation of the law within
the framework of the law. It releases the individual’s urges in the framework
of a holiday for the entire culture.
The cultural norms that everyone internalizes during development construct
boundaries that permit normal activity of the psyche and the affiliation of the
individual with the society. However, the internalization of these norms exacts
a heavy price by creating gaps between the various strata of the psyche.
Carnival is the institutionalized payment of that price. The meeting of worlds
that takes place in Carnival is represented by symbols of border-crossings and
of meetings between areas, which are very frequent in Carnival: hence the
disruption of law and order, and hence the violation of the continuum of time
and the presentation of the opposite of everything that is regarded as
respectable and proper in everyday life. Repressed early childhood breaks
through the amusements and laughter and discovers its power and vitality.
Thus we see in the Carnival in Rio – the Carnival of all Carnivals – the
intensely rhythmical music, the ecstatic samba dancing, and the exuberant
sexuality.
The routine of daily life is connected to a linear conception of time. This is
expressed in the regular rhythms of activities and strict schedules. In Carnival,
the linear order of time is disrupted. Carnival takes place outside of time, in
twilight, a time when the old order is no longer valid, and the validity of the
new order has not yet been renewed. This is a stretch of time without law, and
therefore it arouses curiosity and hope, on one hand, and fear and awe on the
other. Carnival gives these situations a framework that makes their existence
possible and alleviates the anxiety bound up with them.
Interestingly, Jewish mysticism (the Kabbalah of the ARI) distinguished
between tohu and bohu – the pair of words translated as “without form and
void” in the second verse of Genesis. It interprets tohu as excessive fullness, as
when a cup is full to the brim but the liquid has not yet spilled over the sides.
Bohu is the stage when the liquid overflows the confines of the vessel, and
order is violated. This is an expression of the primordial fullness and the
breaking of boundaries, and awareness of the complexity of chaos.

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One of the figures typically connected with Carnival is the trickster

(Arlecchino), who symbolizes more than any other the breaking of boundaries
and the meeting between worlds. The trickster appears in a costume that
is half white and half red or patched with many colors. Thus he symbolizes
the opposition and connection between the conscious and the unconscious.
His costume violates social norms. His laughter alternates with tears, and
his benevolence gives way to outbreaks of violence. The trickster is allowed
to say both wise and foolish things, to dwell with the servants and to enter the
royal palace without invitation. He is the messenger of consciousness to the
dark cellars of chaos. His stupidity lays society bare and reveals the cost of
being cut off from the true sources of consciousness. His wisdom and cleverness
testify to the value lying in the bidirectional transition and flow between
the structured and the chaotic, between the rational and the irrational. The
frequent appearance of the trickster in the art of every period, beyond place
and time, indicates his deep symbolic significance.
The figure of the trickster thus expresses one of the basic ideas of Carnival:
the dialogue between the level of consciousness and structure and the dark
and chaotic level.
The attraction to chaos, despite the dangers entailed in approaching it,
can be clarified on the basis of what is attributed to it in ancient cultures.
Many myths tell us about the origins of life in chaos. The return to chaos is
therefore not only a retreat to the primordial and primitive but also a return
to the sources of life. In the depths of the unconscious, in the dark chaos, the
powers of instinct dwell together with the powers of creativity, along with
knowledge regarding the processes of its coming into being. Not only turbid
muck is there but also the true essence of humanity, bearing with it the
potential for development and fulfillment. In Greek mythology as well, chaos
was seen as a source of life and the origin of its growth.
Chaos was the first god to be created (Gaia, Tartarus, and Eros were created
afterward). Chaos, according to the Ancient Greek poet Hesiod, gave birth to
darkness (Erebus) and night, which gave birth to the air and the day. The attraction
toward the sources and secret of life explains the attraction toward chaos. To
experience the materials that compose the sources of life, one must cross the
boundaries of order and experience the world of chaos. The figure that represents
this transition in Carnival in the most pronounced fashion is the trickster.
During Carnival, motives surface that are laden with symbols of fertility,
growth, and construction. Modern psychology discovered that organizing and
constructive forces also have a deep source in the human psyche. Nietzsche
was a harbinger of these discoveries when he described the Apollonian forces
active in the depths of the soul along with the Dionysian drives. Apollo, the
god of medicine and beauty, represents the powers of organization and culture.
Dionysus, the god of merriment and the instincts, and of wine, represents the
physical and bestial side of man. In Carnival, the Apollonian and Dionysian
forces find expression alongside one another.

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The Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung found fascinating parallels

between ritual ceremonies and myths of primitive cultures and the motives
and structures that appear in people’s dreams in all cultures and at all times
( Jung 1959). Jung concluded from this that ritual ceremonies as well
as dreams express deep strata of human experience, in which “the
objective spirit” is active, bearing knowledge, tradition, and insight. In this
stratum of the unconscious deep knowledge is revealed, recognition of the
powers active at the foundations of creation and in human nature. This
universal “order” is also revealed in the customs of Carnival. Western culture
has developed linear reason and made it a central instrument for understanding
reality. On the basis of causal reason, the West developed science and
technology, which has brought Western culture to immeasurable achievements.
However, the depths of the soul do not submit to logical laws. The irrational
plays no less important a role in the psyche than the rational. Ancient cultures
acknowledged this and gave human beings non-rational tools for understanding
the chaotic elements in their souls. In recognition of the dangers inherent
in traversing boundaries and the encounter with the irrational, Carnival
provides those who participate in it with well-defined frameworks of time
and place. Beyond the area of Carnival and beyond the framework of time,
the world returns to what it was and encloses itself within the walls of
its laws.
For the child, play is an adaptive tool, especially aimed at the outside world.
The world offers the child a reality that does not suit his abilities or needs: the
objects and people are too large, the pace of action is too fast for him, and
the dilemmas involved in his growth and exposure to the surroundings require
special tools – including play. In play the child transfers impossible dilemmas
to a world of imagination where everything is possible – and he transfers the
solutions that he obtains there back to real life. For adults Carnival plays a
similar role – however, now through its adaptation to the inner world, which
has become distant, strange, and alienated.
One of the frequent motifs in Carnival ceremonies is that of death and
rebirth. This motif, taken from nature, describes deep processes of the soul
that are bound up with fear and suffering. Exposing consciousness directly to
contents connected with death and rebirth is impossible. Hence, they are
revealed to us in symbols, dreams, and ceremonies. The combination of death
and birth as a symbol signifies giving up existing structures of consciousness
in order to make way for expanded and more developed awareness. The
individual’s attitudes and beliefs serve as a support and source of security, and
giving them up entails anxiety and suffering. In the depths of the soul there
is “knowledge” that renewed consciousness cannot be born, fresher and more
flexible than before, without giving up what exists; however, the forgoing of
existing attitudes and beliefs is experienced as death – death of parts of the
self, which is the high cost of future development. This dilemma, which
everyone experiences, is expressed in Carnival, which provides a ceremonial

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and social framework for expressing symbols of the painful processes involved
in growth. Chaos is the meeting point of destruction and rebuilding.
Carnival is the means by which the culture and the individual are invited to
discover the complex of strata present in the depths of the unconscious. The
dark side, present in the dusky cellars of the individual and collective soul,
gains revelation in Carnival, giving the powers of creativity to the personality
of the individual and to the culture. That which is permanent and absolute,
present in the depths of the unconscious, is revealed through fixed symbolic
patterns and the figures of gods and immortals. The encounter with these
gives a person the taste of eternal experiences. In breaking through bounda-
ries, the boundaries of individual consciousness are also crossed, and the indi-
vidual takes part in the infinite flow of life. Here the consciousness of the
individual takes part in the consciousness of the entire universe.
In Carnival both the sub-human and the superhuman found in people are
revealed. These revelations play a therapeutic role of the first order both for
the participants in the Carnival and for those who observe it, as well as for the
society that gives a person tools for these revelations.

References
Hesiod’s Theogony: The Castration of Uranus and the Birth of Aphrodite. Available at
http://ancienthistory.about.com/library/bl/bl_birth of_aphrodite.htm
Jung, C. G. (1959) The Concept of the Collective Unconscious, in CW 9, Part 1,
par. 87–110, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Trickster (Wikipedia entry). Available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickster

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 AFTERWORD: ON A
PERSONAL NOTE

During the first Intifada, more than twenty years ago, I had a dream.
I dreamt that I was standing in the courtyard in front of the Jerusalem
cinematheque. It was dawn. The sun hadn’t appeared yet on the horizon and
there was a peculiar light in the sky. The plaza was full of people. I could see
that the crowd was composed of Palestinians and Israeli Jews, males and
females. I felt that we were all enveloped in a kind of heavy and dramatic
atmosphere, which gave the feeling that we were about to participate in a
historical moment.
We were all silent and we were standing in front of the cinematheque
forming two lines: one line was composed of Palestinians and the other of
Israeli Jews. Actually the place looked more like an extermination camp, and
everyone was accepting the fact that all of us, Palestinians and Israeli Jews,
were going to be annihilated as a result of not being able to live side by side.
We were all ready to accept the verdict in silence and with resignation.
The two lines were parallel to one another and next to each Israeli Jew stood
a Palestinian, as if each of us, male or female, had a Palestinian male or
Palestinian female as a partner. We were slowly moving toward the entrance
of the extermination camp.
Suddenly we saw the figure of a famous commander of the IDF (Israeli
Defense Forces) appearing in the sky. He was huge, gigantic, and he began to
speak with a deep voice, as if he were God addressing the children of Israel at
Mount Sinai, as narrated in the Bible. He said: “We are two people standing
side by side, we both don’t know how to get along and therefore we shall all
be destroyed. There is no other choice.” After a long silence, he spoke again:
“But . . . since we are not so stupid, we, of the highest ranks of the IDF, have
decided that we shall all go to see a movie at the cinematheque.” The silence
was immediately broken by bursts of joy and happiness. Some Palestinians
threw their keffiyehs into the air. We were hugging one another. Couples were
forming between Palestinians and Israeli Jews. I also had the feeling that some
of these new couples looked as if their relationship would begin to develop
into something more profound and romantic. The Palestinian who at the
beginning of the dream was standing next to me became my partner, and all

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the couples so formed entered the cinematheque, which now looked like
Noah’s ark. Nevertheless, there were more Palestinians than Israeli Jews, so
the Palestinians who remained single began to disturb the others during the
movie.
This dream, which I felt originated from very deep parts of my soul, does
not only reflect my own personal wish. It also reflects the desires of many of us
here in Israel. It is a personal and, at the same time, a collective dream. This
dream did not offer me a new insight into the meaning of play. I had been
dealing with this subject much before the dream. Nevertheless, it dwelt in my
memory during the many years I was consolidating the idea of setting up a
series of lectures on play at the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem. It accompanied
me also when I was preparing the first edition in Hebrew on the subject of
play. And it has been present in the preparation of this book in English.
I have devoted a great deal of time, thought and energy to working on this
topic. I had many moments of deep emotion and many moments of fear as
well. I felt it was a daring project and very often I felt apprehension. However,
all along the way I experienced a deep feeling of enjoyment. While working
on this new edition, various images arose before my eyes: Italy and Israel,
Rome and Jerusalem, past and present. I had also visions of my parents, my
brother, my doll, my companion, my son, my friends, my teachers, the thera-
pists I have trained and also my patients. They have all given me inspiration
and they have made me see the richness of the human soul.
In retrospect, it became clear to me that the act of working on this project
was in itself an act of play. At the beginning I felt that the initial idea of
planning the whole program and of editing the first book was a sort of illusion,
a phantasy. Then I began to see, during the realization of this project, all the
many aspects that are associated with the act of playing: the amusing side, its
seriousness, the risks I had to take, and the gambling it would entail. More
than anything, I was stunned by the enthusiasm it aroused in so many people.
This project could not have taken shape if it had not inspired each person
I approached in the same way that it inspired me.
My hope, dear reader, is that through this book I shall succeed in transmitting
to you too the passion of playing.
Emilia Perroni

222
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226
 INDEX

Abraham 166, 178 Brando, Marlon 177

acting xix, 183–4, 187, 195, 196, Britten, Benjamin 24
197–205; and movement analysis Buddhism 214, 216
202
Adam xviii Cabaret 11
adolescence xvii, 10, 7, 29, 30, 106, Caesar, Julius 31
161, 164, 167–70 capacity to play xvii, xxiv, 3, 7, 29, 35,
aggression xx, 4, 118, 120, 121–5, 128, 38, 41, 45, 46, 53
157–8, 160, 164–7, 217 Carnival(s) xxiv, 68, 76, 210–11;
Agnon, S. Y. 116 216–20
Alexander the Great 184 Carrie, Jim 175
Alexander method 200 catharsis 11, 184; collective 217
Andersen, Hans Christian 184–6 chaos 216, 217, 220
anima 68, 143 Chekhov, Anton 64–5
animus 68 child development 6–7, 10, 38;
Apollo 68, 218 stages of 38–40, 104–5, 116
area of illusion 134 childlike state 200
archetypes 16, 32, 67, 135, 137–8, children’s therapy 33, 35–8, 40–7,
141–3, 147, 170, 218 48–50, 186–97
Aristotle 196 Chiron 68
Arlecchino 218 Christianity 108
Athena 72, 161 cinema 172–9, 191, 196, 221–2
auditory system 17–18 civilization xix, xx, 66, 120, 122
Australian tribes 69 Chuang Tzu 16
autism 5 Cold War 173, 175
comedy (Greek) xix, 183
bain sonore 4 Commedia dell’Arte 198, 201
Bar Mitzvah 72 compassion 6, 58, 64, 113, 163
Beethoven, Ludwig van 26 computer games xvi–xvii
Benigni, Roberto xxii, 88 consciousness 17, 51–2, 134, 143, 220;
Berlin Wall, the 125 collective 137–8, 141; cultural 137,
Bernstein, Leonard 22 141; political 137
Bible, the xvii–xviii, 6, 16, 17, 22, 115, container–contained 122, 125, 127
195, 221 containment 6, 11, 12–13, 15, 16, 134,
Bion, Wilfred, 12–15, 49, 122–3 157, 165, 166
body, the: grotesque 75–6; ideal 75 Cora 68, 69
body language 22–3, 24, 201, 204, countertransference 131
214 Creation (biblical) xvii–xviii, 17

227
 INDEX

creativity 7, 29, 30, 38, 46, 67, 68, 87, “face” 213
105–6, 110, 134, 209, 220 fairy tales xx, 32, 141, 184–5, 193
culture 19, 20, 30, 136, 220; of children fascist state of mind 128
32; susceptibility to 120; Western 28, fathers–son relations 158–79; and
81, 83, 219 aggression 160; in cinema 172–9;
and play 160
Dahaysheh xvii femininity 57, 60, 78–9, 81, 138, 144
dance 18, 19, 40–1, 69, 98, 101, 202, fiction 26
215, 217 folklore 77, 185, 193
Darfur 118 Frankl, Viktor 108
Dean, James 177 free association 7, 8, 12
death xx–xxi, xxii, 37, 49, 126, 133, Freud, Anna 29, 51
170, 185, 219 Freud, Sigmund xxi, 28–30, 49, 72,
Dedalus 161–2, 164, 168, 169–70 75–83, 118–20, 157, 158, 166, 193,
Degas, Edgar 23 217; on instincts 28, 29, 119–21,
Demeter 68, 69, 72 123; and play 29, 33, 87
Demiurge xix “From Foe to Friend” 116–17
depression 8, 70, 148, 165, 171
depressive position 116 Gaia 218
Descartes, René 81 gambling xx
Diaspora xxi games 31–2, 201; children’s xvii, xxiii,
dice, games of xix 30–2, 88–90, 92–4, 98–100, 192,
Dionysius/Dionysus xix, 68, 69, 72, 198–201; social 31–2
183, 218 Garden of Eden xxi, 81
disorder 63, 65 Genesis, Book of xxi, 17, 191, 211,
dissociation 5, 9, 10, 14 217
Dora (Freud’s patient) 29 Gluck, Christoph 23, 24
dream navel 77–8, 80 God xvii–xviii, 16–17, 63, 67, 175,
dreams 29, 45, 76, 77, 80, 81–2, 125, 178, 185
129, 135, 192–4, 219, 221–2; “big” Goldilocks and the Three Bears 192
151 gong therapy 18
dybbuk 184 Goya, Francisco 26–7
Great Individual, the 142
earth goddesses xx Great Mother 141, 144
ego 29, 30, 31, 53, 65, 67, 78–9, 120, Greek pantheon 68–9
137–41, 168, 171, 187 Grimm brothers 185, 205
ego-psychology 166 group dynamics 9–10, 14
Eichmann Trial, the 88 Gulf War (1990–91) 146–7, 149–51
Einstein, Albert 118–119
“Emperor’s New Clothes, The” 185 Haggadah, the 20
enemy 115–16, 133, 138, 151, 168; Handel, George Friederic 24
Oedipal 115–16; pre-Oedipal Haredi xxii
115–16 hate 39, 119, 120, 122, 123, 168
Equestrian Portrait of Sir John Heart of Darkness, the 77, 78
Hawkwood 81 Heidegger, Martin xix, 49–50
Erikson, Erik H. 30, 87 Heraclites xix, 54
Eros xviii, 4, 120, 142, 216, 218 Hera 72
Eurydice 23 hero 142; myth of xxi
Eurynome xviii Herzl, Theodor xxi, xxiii
Eve xxi Hesiod 218
Evil Eye 184 Hinduism xviii
existentialism 49–50, 52 Hiroshima 176

228
 INDEX

Holocaust, the xxiii, 87–90, 91, 118, Joyce, James 164

127, 129; plays and games from xxii, “Judgement, The” 162–3
88–90, 92–3, 98–100; survivors of Jung, C. G. 67–8, 133–7, 139, 142,
87–9, 125, 129 147, 148, 157, 158, 170, 213, 219
Homer 21 Jungian approaches 66, 67–8, 74, 15
Homo ludens 48
hubris 161 Kabbalah, the 217
human nature xxvii, 60, 216, 219 Kaddish, the 23
human voice 19, 24 Kafka, Franz 162–3
Hunt in the Forest, The 76, 78–80, Kant, Immanuel xix
82–3 Klein, Melanie 29, 49, 51, 116, 122,
166, 184
I Love Lucy 176 knowledge (Bion) 122
Icarus 161, 162, 163, 168, 169–70 Kohut, Heinz 30–1, 48, 54, 63
id 74, 78–9, 217 Kosovo 118
identities (multiple) 213 Kristof, Agota 103
identity: threats to xx Kubelik, Rafael 22
images (psychic) 13, 19, 20, 29, 134–6,
139, 152; Freud’s 76, 77 79, 80–3; La vita è bella xxii, 88
origins of 136; of war and peace 133, Laban, Rudolf 202
145, 152 Lacan, Jacques xiv, 49, 167
imagination 69, 70, 75, 81, 101, 134, Laius 165, 167, 168
219; active 134; creative 201, 204; Law of Return 127
and play xvii, 33, 34, 88, 131, 135 Le Jeu 198
Independence Day (Israel) xxi Lebanon 146
individuation 68, 134–7, 167, 171 Leonardo da Vinci 166
instincts 4, 28, 29, 119–20; death 120, Letter to My Father 162
121; sexual 120 liminal states 66–7
Interpretation of Dreams, The xix, 76–7, listening 3, 5–6, 10–16, 17, 20–7;
80, 193 inner 6–7, 11, 14; to music 25–6;
Intifada (first) xvii, 158–9, 221 outward 6
Inuit 19–20 Little Donkey, The 205–9
Iraq 146, 149 Little Hans 29, 158
Isaac 165, 178 “Little Mermaid, The” 185
Ishmael 166 Little Prince, The 99
Israel xx, 101–2, 127–8, 135–6, 146, Little Red Riding Hood xx, 187,
151; Scud attacks on 146–7, 150; 193–4, 203
State of xxi, xxii, 87, 127, 133 loneliness 8, 46, 111, 142, 147
Israeli society xvi, xx, xxi, xxiii, 87–8, love 4, 13, 23, 25, 29, 39, 108, 16, 117,
115, 149, 152, 221; playfulness in 121–3, 158, 168–9, 171, 190; and
xxi–xxii; and trauma xxii, 145, 147, hate 120, 122, 168; lack of 8
152–3
Italy xxii Mandan tribe 215
masculinity 25, 59, 50, 69–70, 78–9,
Jacob’s ladder 67, 190 138, 144
jazz 194–5 masks 183, 201, 203, 210–6;
Jesus Christ 108 Ko-Omote 216; meanings of 215
Jewish holidays xxi, 210 McCarthy, Joseph 176; “black list” of
Jewish humor xxi 176–7
Jews 115, 127–8, 133, 176, 184, 195, Mercurius 147
221; observant 64; ultra-orthodox Midrashim xviii, 63–4, 166, 195
158–9 Minos 161–2

229
 INDEX

Minotaur 162 Perrault, Charles 185

Mishnah, the 62 Persephone 68, 69, 72
Monopoly 88 persona 25, 142, 211–13
morality 104, 107, 108, 110–13 perspective 80–1
mother–child relationship 12, 38–9, Peter Pan 170
58–9, 105, 122, 140, 165, 167, 189 Pinocchio xxi
mother–infant attunement 8, 13–14, 56 Plato xix
motherhood xx, xxi play xvi, xix, xxi, xxiii, 33–4, 65, 105,
Mount Sinai 22 131; children’s xvii, xxiii, 29, 30–1,
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus 24 33, 39–45, 51, 134, 192, 198–200,
Munch, Edvard 26–7 219, 222; and competition xvii;
music 3–5, 17–23, 32, 194–5, 217; and cooperative 105; conceptualization of
the Ancient Greeks 25 xix; and creation xvii–xviii;
Musical Chairs 201 definitions of xvii, 7, 30, 31;
mythology xviii, 69, 73, 137, 162, 163, emotional climate during 44–6; and
218–19; Egyptian xx; Greek xviii, xx, father–son relations 160; fragility of
169, 72; Hindu xviii; Orphic xviii, 34, 39; and the Holocaust 87; lack of
23; personal 73 xvii, 33, 41; and psychoanalysis xvi,
xvii, 7, 28, 31; and risk 34–5;
Nagasaki 176 spontaneous xvii, xxi, xxiii, 31;
Nietzsche, Friedrich 65, 218 symbolic 134, 135; theatrical 183–4;
Nile, the 81 transcendental 51–2, 60, 66; and
Noah’s ark 43–4, 46, 149, 222 trauma 30; “unexpected” in 40–1;
Notebook, The 103–14 Winnicott’s concept of xiv, xvii, 7, 30,
33–6
objects 4, 30, 33–6, 38–9, 122, 124, playfulness xix, xxi; in Israeli society
127, 138; subjective 48, 122; xxi–xxii
survival 90; transitional 30, 31, 39, pleasure principle 29
90 see also selfobjects Poseidon 161
Oedipal complex 160, 167, 169, 210 postmodernism 48–9, 172–3, 175, 178
Oedipus 165, 168 potential space 34, 36, 39, 50, 51, 65,
Olympian myth xviii 66, 89, 105–7, 110, 114, 126, 131,
opera 21, 23–5, 27, 191 212
opposites: tension between 134; union primal nature 172
of 67–8, 74, 133, 135 “Princess and the Pea, The” 185
order 62–3, 65 projection 5, 13–14, 66, 68, 124, 125,
Orpheus 23, 68 128, 138, 151–2
Ophion xviii projective identification 122
other 50–1 psyche 60, 68, 116, 133–6, 145, 150,
152, 193, 219; “field” concept of
pain, psychic 4, 5, 8–10, 38, 153, 165, 48–9, 58, 60; definition of 136;
175 model of 76–7; as network 79;
painting (children’s) 35–7 political 138–9; strata of 136–9, 147;
Palestinians xvii, 115, 128, 221 as theatre 184
paranoia 31, 167, 173, 211 psychic energy 133
parenting xxiv, 3 psychic survival 88
Parvati xviii, xix psychoanalysis 3, 7, 12, 15, 28, 48–9,
Pasiphaë 161–2, 170 60, 66, 72, 80–1, 104, 118, 165–6; of
Passover 20, 60 children see children’s therapy;
Paz, Octavio 13 feminine aspect of 60; as field theory
Pelasgian mythology xviii 48–9, 58, 60; and gender 157–8; and
Perdix 161, 163, 170 listening 3, 12–15; masculine aspect

230
 INDEX
of 60; and meaning 6, 7, 11–12, 13;
Oedipal nature of 158; and play xvi,
xvii, 7, 28, 31; and transcendentalism
48–9, 52, 58
psychoanalytic language 28–9
psychoanalytic schools xxiii
psychotherapy 41, 63, 164, 193
puer eternus 170
Purim 210
reality principle 29
rebirth xx, 66, 72, 73, 211, 219
“Red Shoes, The”, 185
Renaissance, the 79–80, 82–3, 211
restorations (Winnicott) 7
reverie (Bion) 12–13, 122
ritual(s) 65–7, 72–4, 214–15, 219;
aboriginal 69–72, 74; phases of 74; in
psychoanalysis 72
romanticism 77, 83
Roosevelt, Franklin D. 175
royal road, the 77, 78, 79, 108
Rwanda 118
sacred, the 67, 74
Saddam Hussein 150, 151
sand-play therapy 133–5, 140–53
Schiller, Friedrich xix
Schubert, Franz 21
schizoid–paranoid position 116
second birth 72
Self (Jungian) 68, 139–41, 143
self 73–4, 127, 140, 214; false 105,
142; primary 139; sense of 35, 52, 67;
true xix, xx, 46, 105–9, 111, 142,
211–12
self-development 65, 74
self-healing 46, 134
selfobjects 27n3, 31, 32, 48, 50, 55, 60
shadow, the 138, 148
Shakespeare, William 21
shamanism 214
Sharon, Ariel 147
Shiva xviii, xix
singing 19–21, 23, 24–5
sitcoms 174–5
Solti, Georg 22
soul 18, 22, 24, 48–9, 65, 68, 158, 184,
197, 208, 217, 219, 222; collective
220; individual 220; and psyche 60
“soul-murder” 123
sound bath 4
231
sounds 17–18, 26–7
space 78; baroque 81, 82; creative 105,
106; dream 76; grotesque 75, 76–7,
83; open–closed 75, 82; psychic 79,
82–3
spontaneity xviii, xxi, 11, 63
sport 31, 32
St George and the Dragon 80
Stein, Gertrude 26
Stokowski, Leopold 22
storytelling 4, 20, 203, 205, 209
Strauss, Richard 24
suffering xxiii, 73, 90, 104, 107–9,
112
Talos 16, 163
Tartarus 218
television xvi, 22, 88, 159, 173,
174–9
Temenos/temenos 68, 73, 134, 152
terminal links 124, 127–8, 130–1
terrorism 145
Thanatos 119, 120
theater xxii, 20, 21, 24, 45, 183,
187–97; active 194; and children
187–97; Greek 213; Jewish 184; Noh
216; passive 194; personal 194;
physical 203; Roman 213; universal
194
therapeutic relationship 38, 122, 124,
125–6, 128–31
therapy room, the 76
Thomas, Dylan 20–1
threshold crossing 66–9, 72–3
Tibetan monks 18
Titans 72
tragedy xxiii; Greek xix, 183
transference 60, 122
transformation xx–xxi
transformational links 124–5, 130–1
transgression 172, 175, 217, 219–20
transitional space 44, 46–7, 134
translation work 13
trauma xvii, xxii, 30, 88, 124, 134, 147
“trickster” motif 147, 218
Truman, Harry 175, 177, 179
Truman Show, The 173–
Uccello, Paolo 76, 78–81
“Ugly Duckling, The” 185
Ulysses xxi
Ulysses 164
 INDEX
unconscious, the xiv, 28–32, 51–2, 74,
76–7, 135, 136–43 211, 220;
collective 136, 137, 147–9; Freudian
xiv, 137
Uranus xviii
uroboric stage 139
violence 107, 116, 118–19, 123–4,
133, 145, 148, 164–7, 173, 218
Von Karajan, Herbert 22
Wagner, Richard 24–5
war xxiii, 103–4, 107, 110–12, 118,
123, 133, 138, 145–52, 167, 171;
reasons for 118–19; victims of 145–8
232
Warsaw Ghetto 91, 100
Winnicott, D. W. xvii, xiv, 7, 15,
30, 33–5, 38–40, 44, 46–7,
48, 50, 52–4, 60, 65–6, 68, 104,
110, 114, 121–2, 125, 134, 142,
167
Wittgenstein, Ludwig xix
World War II 175
Yad Vashem Museum of the
Holocaust 88, 90, 100
Yevtushenko, Yevgeny 20
Zakopane 92–4
Zeus 72