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, very seldom with "positive urges" like 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. Both in children and adults, the lack of play or the incapacity to play almost always has a traumatic cause - this book also shows the crucial importance of play in relation to the survival in warfare and during traumatic times.
In this book Emilia Perroni argues that whether we regard play as a spontaneous creation or wheth
