From:
The Art of Play: Helping Adults Reclaim Imagination and Spontaneity, by Adam Blatner, M.D. & Allee Blatner.
(Published by Routledge, 1997, now out of
print and being revised into 3rd edition. ) Comments welcome: Email to
adam@blatner.com
Chapter 3: THE BENEFITS OF PLAY
Revised September 2, 2008 (Back to
Table of Contents)
Imaginative play develops a variety of
skills (McCaslin, 2006), and your competency in these areas generates
major psychosocial benefits which may be applied in several aspects of
living:
• Personal: emotional: enhancing vitality and mental health
• Social: strengthening involvements and reducing alienation
• Educational: developing the capacity to learn more effectively, and to learn in the broadest sense of the word
• Cultural: stimulating the kind of creativity that is required to meet the challenges of a changing world
These dimensions of your living are helped when you augment them with the following component skills:
• Flexibility of mind: a broad role repertoire, and a capacity to change set and see various points of view
• Initiative and improvisation: a willingness to recognize,
modify, and act on your mistakes while cheerfully moving forward
• Humility: a sense of humor, an ability to have some objective detachment, a capacity for utilizing criticism
• Effectiveness in communication: clear, non-reproachful,
constructive, honest, self-disclosing, friendly communication,
including the skill of reflective listening
• Inclusiveness: an ability to be comfortable in groups, willing
to negotiate, support others, mediate, consider everyone's feelings
• Questioning: a seeking beyond the obvious, able to "break set" and think of unusual alternatives
• Problem-solving: being acquainted with a variety of techniques and strategies
All of these skills are exercised anew in the setting of sociodramatic
play. They are constantly utilized in the activities of selecting
characters, elaborating scenarios, allowing the implications of each
role to be mixed with personal style, and interacting with
co-characters in stories so that enjoyable events result. Friction does
arise, and learning to work it out in the spirit of cooperation is a
major part of the experience.
Personal Benefits
Your personality functions most effectively when it is expanding and/
or integrating its roles. Consciousness is nourished by experience,
even if it is symbolic, as in fantasy or imaginative play. As J. L.
Moreno (1953, pp. 534-535) observed, "Social life has the tendency to
attach a definite role to a specific person, so that this role becomes
the prevailing one into which the individual is folded.... Everybody is
expected to live up to his official role in life-a teacher is to act as
a teacher, a pupil as a pupil, and so forth. But the individual craves
to embody far more roles than those he is allowed to act out in life.
It is from the active pressure which these multiple units exert upon
the manifest official role that a feeling of anxiety is produced."
Role playing is then a method of liberating and structuring these
unofficial roles. You get tired, bored or slightly burned out when
restricted to living certain dominant roles. Excessive or prolonged
enactment of authoritative, submissive, controlling, competent,
helping, helpless, or any other general type of role generates a kind
of psychic fatigue. It is a relief to engage in an activity that
embodies a role that contrasts with a previously extensively enacted
role. For example, a teacher may enjoy being a passive student at a
continuing-education workshop. On the other hand, a child may enjoy
playing the role of a bossy teacher with playmates. Businesses respond
to this need by rotating jobs in some factories. It might be a good
general principle of group mental hygiene in all businesses for
explicit and implicit roles to be clarified and periodically
redistributed.
Beyond the healthful aspects of shifting your various roles in real
life, there is a deep desire to experience roles you can imagine. You
might want to explore being a dragon, a monster, or a bulldozer. Most
of us find some identification with the fictional character, Walter
Mitty, whose secret life in fantasy is replete with heroic roles. The
Art of Play establishes a context within which it is beneficial
actually to play those roles in physical enactments with the help of
playmates. For instance, if you work at a job that requires you to be a
constant and firm disciplinarian, you might want to play roles such as
a pampered little baby or shy kitten.
The playful enactment of scenes that offer a shift from over-utilized
roles and introduce the opportunity for satisfying the desire to expand
into a limitless variety of roles results in a kind of healing. The
word "heal" is related etymologically to the word "whole." (i.e., and
also to the world "holy," through the Indo-European word root, "hals").
To balance your roles through actively expressing them generates an
experience of wholeness in your psychological existence that nourishes
and heals your psyche.
Because many people work and live in contexts where high levels of
self-control are the norm, there tends to be a muting of emotions.
Prevalent methods of maintaining self-control are found in statements
disqualifying feelings: "You shouldn't be reacting this way." "How dare
you be angry?" "Stop feeling sorry for yourself." "You should have
learned this by now." "Those thoughts are crazy." Commonly repeated
inner statements such as these result in a loss of self- esteem and a
tendency toward shameful emotional isolation, both of which are
tragically unnecessary burdens to add to the realistic stresses in
people's lives.
Internal self-suppression is a pervasive situation that results in many
movie and television presentations in our culture (and worldwide) that
appeal to the need to experience roles expressing great anger, triumph,
tragic-but-proud defeat; heroic, and powerful, clear emotions. It is
very doubtful that these shows provide any catharsis. Many writers and
researchers now propose that the shows actually contribute to the
further expression of those emotions.' Truly to cleanse the psyche of
the accumulated, unclear, inhibited feelings generated in the course of
everyday life, people need the opportunity to person-ally enact their
own expressions of events and characters in a sociodramatic or
psychodramatic setting that creates the means and context for
catharsis.Blatner 2000 4th ed look up'
Whether the emotions be enacted as they really happened, as in
psychodrama, or in a more distanced, symbolic, sublimated form, as in
creative dramatic play, there is not only an expression of emotion, but
also the additional benefit of validation of the feelings by other
people. Furthermore, being in a group with others who are portraying
their own chosen scenes provides a vicarious and shared experience. By
stimulating each other to play more vigorously and spontaneously, the
group process also demonstrates the commonalities of the human
condition, and thus counteracts the sense of emotional isolation and
"being different."
Social Benefits of Play
A repertoire of noncompetitive, easily performed social activities can
be a valuable asset in a busy, impersonal world. When people engage in
spontaneous, imaginative activities, it functions as an enjoyable
bonding force. Instead of engaging in subtle social games of
one-upmanship, people can discover ways of interacting that reward all
the participants. Even in groups of two or three, talking about how you
used to enjoy play, and ideas you have about play, can be a pleasurable
topic of conversation.
One of the biggest social benefits of imaginative play is that it
satisfies both the needs of the group and the needs of the individual.
Whereas in many task-oriented groups, the personal idiosyncrasies of
the group members are generally ignored or suppressed so there can be a
unified effort, in play groups those elements of difference are welcome
additions to the process. Since much of the fun comes from seeing how
the roles will be elaborated, the originality of each group member adds
to the enjoyment of the event. We laugh with shared glee at the unique
way George portrays the tiger, and we are delighted with the subtleties
Emily shows us in her version of the teddy bear. Thus, make-believe
play offers a group format that fosters the expression of the
authenticity of each of its participants.
Imaginative enactment provides another benefit by offering a
comfortable distancing from the roles of everyday life while still
engaging in social interactions. In therapy groups, at parties, or in
many meetings, discussion often involves events relevant to the
official roles concerning work, love, family and friendships-all
"serious" subjects. This gets tiring and boring. It's refreshing to
share roles in make-believe play that don't "mean" anything, where no
resolution to a problem is required. No one has to be a "helper,"
"helpee," or authority figure. The playmate role is pleasantly
different, and it may be co-created freely to establish the social
relationship.
The Need for Play
(This section was added in 2008.) Let’s go a step further: Our culture
is advancing in ways so that play is not just beneficial, but needed.
Daniel Pink (2006) argues for this in his book titled A Whole New Mind,
and his point is that, economically, what is needed in order to be
competitive in the world is innovation. This in turn requires a
flexibility of mind that comes from balancing the capacities often
associated with the left hemisphere of the brain—especially logic and
language—and the abilities associated with the right hemisphere of the
brain—especially intuition, sensitivity to relationships and emotion,
and imagination.
When much of work was more brute labor, the work was impelled largely
through will. This kind of work is compatible with a measure of anxiety
or even fear. Slaves fearing the whip can pull an oar on a ship. Bosses
can yell at subordinates and think they are increasing their
productivity. However, with automation, the nature of work has begun to
change. Increasingly what is needed is less brute labor and more
creativity, and this requires a different kind of processing in the
brain.
Creativity requires a flow of more subtle messages from the higher
brain functions on the outside of the brain (the cortex) in and through
the central processors. This flow is inhibited (if not almost shut down
entirely) in states of high emotionality—especially the defensive
emotions of fear, anger, or shame. When there is significant negative
emotion, the middle part (limbic system) of the brain dominates
function, leading to a tendency to react according to habit (or
military training) in a “fight-flight” way. As I noted, certain types
of work can happen in states of stress, but not creativity.
For creativity to happen, things have to feel safe, the limbic system
is quiet, and the mind can then be more open to hearing the “still
small voice,” the inspirations of the muses, the input from the
cerebral cortex. Management of a workplace that requires innovation
must change in its fundamental character from intimidation to
facilitation. Angry or shaming bosses are counter-productive, and what
is needed are supervisors who are emotionally intelligent.
As described in Chapter 2, a key element in the nature of play is that
it “doesn’t count” in the same way as actions in real life do. This
makes play a context in which activities are structured so that
negative consequences, should they occur, are somewhat neutralized. (In
this sense, play is a kind of psycho-social laboratory.) Such a context
is thus made safer, fear is lessened, and thus the mind is opened more
to the potential for creative thinking.
To restate, adding a measure of play not only adds the intrinsic
motivation of fun to an activity, but also gives it a greater potential
for creative thinking. We live in a world where we need a good deal of
creativity, not only for innovation in industry, but also for
innovation in our social and cultural institutions. Some of these
points are elaborated further in the last chapter, also.
Educational and Cultural Benefits
Building on the previous few paragraphs, the fostering of creativity
may well be the most valuable aspect of imaginative play. The various
component skills are in the same general realm as those noted by a
variety of authors who have done research on the phenomenon of
creativity.
Since around the 1950s a major interest has developed in this subject,
no doubt because people had the foresight to realize that creativity
was the central skill needed for dealing with what was be-coming a
society full of ongoing changes. Interestingly, the word "creativity"
wasn't even in the dictionary in the early 1930s (Moyers, 1982).
Actual methods for promoting creativity have been limited to more
intellectual approaches (Torrance, 1979) or indirect techniques (Luthe,
1976). The Art of Play is a method that refines the normal process
whereby children develop their creativity, and adapts it for use by
adults.
Here at the end of the twentieth century, the global society needs the
vast resources of human imaginative energy in the same way it needed
sources of physical energy in order to enter the industrial age. (In
the last two centuries we’ve found a growing variety of resources for
physical energy. But the resources (such as petroleum) became more
valuable as the technology developed. In the realm of imagination, we
are beginning to develop mental and social technologies (extended by
computer and internet abilities). It is becoming generally recognized
in many areas of society that there is great value in open-mindedness,
intuition, independence of thought, and similar qualities. Fostering
such abilities is possible through a synthesis of developments since
mid-century or so in group dynamics, sociodrama, psychology,
management, education, and other fields.
Another way to think about creativity or the balancing of right and
left brain function is that it is part of what happy and healthy
children do. The qualities that are needed in the coming years are the
qualities associated with youthfulness. Ashley Montagu (1981), a noted
anthropologist and commentator on contemporary society has discussed
this idea at length in his book, Growing Young. He points out that the
human species exhibits the sociobiological traits of "neoteny" or
"paedomorphism." This means humans are designed to optimize the
youthful characteristics of the species because these qualities have
evolutionary advantages. He has one specific suggestion for
implementing his conclusions: "Hence, the implications of all this
should be fully understood and recognized: the importance of the
sociodramatic experiences in the life of the child continue into the
life of the adult" (Montagu, 1981, p.163).
I want to emphasize that while the qualities of enthusiasm, exuberance,
spontaneity, physical enlivenment, curiosity, creativity, play,
imagination, a twinkle of the eye, emotional resilience, a sense of the
dramatic, and the like emerge naturally in childhood and are not yet
suppressed, these qualities should not in themselves be considered
juvenile! Rather, adults should cultivate them further, and elders
should become advanced practitioners of what I have also called “joie
de vivre” (The French phrase, prounced “zhwad vivr,” meaning this
“young at heart” quality, but by no means to be thought of as only
belonging to youth.).
While Montagu notes how this can be cultivated through promoting some
basic behavioral themes, the Art of Play offers a specific method for
adults to use in accessing these experiences.
Summary
Imaginative, playful enactment offers the following benefits:
• Facilitator of creativity and mental flexibility
• Vehicle for self-discovery
• Channel for enhancing vitality and satisfying the desire to enact ideas, events, and characters
• Opportunity for shifting, expanding, and balancing roles Enjoyable recreation and noncompetitive social activity
• Mode for broadening role repertoire and developing the skills of empathy
• Naturally develops the component skills that foster creativity and experiential learning
• Method and context that can satisfy the adult's need for sociodramatic experiences
References
Blatner, A. (2000). Catharsis (Chapter 11), in
Foundations of psychodrama: history, theory, and practice (4th ed.). New York: Springer.
Comstock, G. (1983). Media influences on aggression, In A. Goldstein (Ed.),
Prevention and control of aggression. New York: Pergamon Press.
Luthe, W. (1976).
Creativity mobilization technique. New York: Grune & Stratton.
McCaslin, N. (2006)
Creative drama in the classroom and beyond (8th ed.). New York: Pearson / Allyn & Bacon.
Montagu, A. (1981).
Growing young. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Moreno, J. L. (1953).
Who shall survive? (2nd ed.). Beacon, NY: Beacon House, .
Moyers, B. (1982). The meaning of creativity.
Smithsonian, 12 (10), 64--75.
Pink, Daniel. (2006).
A whole new mind: Why right-brainers will rule the future. New York: Riverhead.
Torrance, E. P. (1979).
The search for satori and creativity. Buffalo, NY: Creative Education Foundation.