Playing for Balance

You never know what might appear in The New York Times. The paper takes its masthead seriously: “All the News that Fit to Print.” Sometimes the paper will present an article that, while not exactly news, provides a refreshing perspective or supports common sense. A recent article on parenting and mental health did both. In fact, the article made me cheer. Last Thursday (1/6/11), the front page of the Home and Garden Section featured an article centered on play. The article, "Effort To Restore Children's Play Gains Momentum", focused on the growing awareness among psychologists, educators and parents that excessive attention to achievement and success is detrimental to children, and that the ethos of achievement exacts a price—often at the expense of playtime, creativity and imagination. As the article rightly points out, playing is crucial to children’s emotional development and mental health.

Play is also vital to the mental health of adults.

Play (how we play, as well as who and what we play with) is something that is rarely directly addressed in psychotherapy with adults. Too bad, because play is essential for living balanced, healthy lives. Being able to play signals a willingness to experiment, to try out new behaviors—regardless of the outcome. In fact, playing creates a space where outcomes are less important than play itself, where failure is acceptable—even valued—for its ability to open doors onto new experiences and possibilities. Children play quite naturally: they use to play to learn about themselves, their abilities, and their relationships to the world. Children playing “dress-up” are, among other things, experimenting with social and gender roles, trying our different identities. They are, of course, not conscious about what they are doing—they’re just playing.

Adults have a much harder time with play; it’s seen as frivolous, especially in Western culture where work and productive outcomes are valued. Adults get caught up competition—and play stops being play and becomes work. Moreover, adults have a difficult time turning off the self-conscious, analytic brain. Indeed, adults have a difficult time just being present. We’re too concerned about outcomes, appearances, meeting expectations, winning. And for adults who experienced trauma as children, playing can be a frightening experience: play requires a loosening of vigilance, and play lowers defenses. Playing can make adults feel vulnerable. Hence, the difficulty with playing. But the inability to play exacts a price: anxiety, depression, addiction, among other problems.

When we are unable to balance work with play, our sense of self becomes distorted. Too often in our culture, one’s sense of self is tied directly to work and productivity, and when something occurs that severs that tie, the emotional and psychological turmoil that ensues is profoundly disorienting. Think of the emotional devastation that comes in the wake of a suddenly lost job: the turmoil centers not just the financial insecurities that arise or the concerns about being able to survive. For many, the real disorientation lies in questions regarding identity: who am I? Upon what ground does my sense of worth rest?

Similarly, couples who do not play—separately or together—often have difficulty with intimacy. They become locked into one- or two-dimensional roles that don’t permit them to see, much less accept or fully experience, each other. They don’t share the space that creates meaningful intimacy.

In a very real sense, psychotherapy is a process that invites play. Good therapy creates a safe space where play can occur. Indeed, therapy is playful. The psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott wrote about this: “in playing, perhaps only in playing, the child or adult is free to be creative” (Playing and Reality, p.71). In play, you can try out new behaviors, new ways of thinking, new ways of approaching life. So it is with psychotherapy: in a sense, therapy is about creating freedom, and playing is a process whereby freedom can be created—an internal freedom that allows us just to be. Indeed, therapy can help you can be your authentic self—balanced and whole. We learn who we are when we play.

Julia, Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way, offered an insightful means for helping adults reconnect with the freedom that arises from play. She suggested that adults take themselves on “artist dates”—engaging in a different activity that allows for experimentation and fun each week. The activities can be anything from exploring a part of the city you don’t know to flying a kite, to singing. These dates need not have any particular outcome other than that they be something that lies outside one’s routine and unrelated to one’s work. (Notice that these are activities—not entertainments. Going to the movies, watching TV doesn’t count, or being otherwise passively entertained doesn’t count. Playing is always active.)

Playing IS therapeutic.

Feeling desire, feeling alive

“I want to understand her… I’m afraid of losing her.” Relationship issues commonly arise in therapy. The scenario goes something like this: a young man comes into therapy sharing desperate distress arising from his relationship. He describes feeling alternately connected and disconnected from his girlfriend, and he is confused about the disconnection. He talks about feeling an intimacy with her that was unlike any other he’d experienced; however, those moments of emotional intimacy quickly dissipate when he felt her suddenly withdraw from him. Whenever she withdraws, he feels abandoned and subsequently absents himself from her. He does not understand her behavior and feels he is on an emotional rollercoaster. He says that he never quite feels that their relationship is on stable ground.

Couples work typically raises questions about communication, about how expectations and needs are being articulated in the relationship, and about the fundamental assumptions each person makes about the other—assumptions that often are not questioned, assumptions that create barriers to meaningful intimacy. All reasonable issues. However, I am also aware of the powerful desire for erotic and emotional intimacy that is being expressed. And yet, equally powerful anxiety about desire is being expressed at the same time. In these moments, I often wonder if the girlfriend was experiencing similar desire and anxiety. It often appears so. Indeed, desire and anxiety create conflict which then shapes many relationships.

Desire is fundamental to being human. We all experience desire, and our desires have many objects. We constantly live with desire. Desire is our growing edge; as such, desire often destabilizes us, particularly as we reach for that which we want. Desire is often erotic, and our experience of erotic desire for one another is probably the most challenging for us; it exposes us as people with needs. We often feel vulnerable when we feel desire. Hence the anxiety that arises when we feel powerful desires. And when we desire something that would appear to be forbidden, our experience of anxiety is likely to be amplified. Indeed, we are often NOT comfortable with our desires. And we are not comfortable feeling vulnerable. So, we defend against our desires—both consciously and unconsciously.

The desire for erotic and emotional intimacy is an experience most of us feel deeply. We desire to be known by another person, and yet we fear being known fully. We desire a sense of connection, and yet we fear connection and often withdraw from it. Intimacy asks us to be vulnerable—to be open to the unknown, to be open to the possible. Intimacy asks that we give up some of our defenses, our need for control and learn instead to risk being vulnerable and share control.

The dynamics of any human relationship are complex, especially our most intimate relationships. Most of us enter relationships with preconceived notions about how relationships are supposed to work. We carry the baggage of our past relationships into the present; for better or worse, our past relational experiences impact how we approach our present relationships. But more important, we also bring our desires (and anxieties) into the relationship.

Over the years, it’s become clear to me that being able to identify one’s desires, understand them, accept them and manage them are keys to healthy relationships and healthy living. Psychotherapy is, of course, known for helping people deal with their anxieties, but it is not as well known for its ability to help people live with their desires. This is unfortunate because that is what psychotherapy is really all about! (One of Freud's most important insights centered on his understanding that fears are really wishes--desires that have been repressed.) Getting in touch with, understanding, and accepting one’s desire(s) is one of the most life-giving, life-affirming aspects of psychotherapy. Learning to be vulnerable, take risks, and take responsibility for one's desire is similarly life-giving.

Indeed, to feel desire is to feel alive.