Apprendre à jouer, apprendre à penser: Un travail à deux

Abstract

Analytic work with a patient presenting great difficulties in conceptualisation and in modes of reducing affect is confronted with the author's suggestions as to approach in child therapy through a specific view of play. The aim is to open up an imaginary space in analytic work, a prelude to the reconstruction of processes of symbolic transformation in the treatment of emotions. The transferential link and support by the analyst's capacity to think enable a renewal of psychic activity. This implies a different positioning of the analyst and a taking into account of the non symbolised aspects of the patient's material and accompaniment by an infra-verbal mode of interpretation. Recent statistics in developmental psychology highlight the determining role of the emotional expression of the maternal response in enabling the constitution of a capacity to treat emotions in the child, and a theory of the mind. Confrontation with this domain of research is particularly enlightening for interpretative hypotheses regarding these types of psychic organisation. © Presses Universitaires de France.