Abstract
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Since the advent of the "talking cure," (Breuer and Freud, 1893) questions have been raised as to how, specifically, a particular kind of verbal interaction between two individuals is thought to bring about the kinds of change associated with therapeutic outcomes. This essay uses the writings of D.W. Winnicott and Hans-Georg Gadamer to argue for the centrality of the concept of play in a psychological theory of therapeutic action. Play is first proposed as a broad clinical rubric for the catalytic, transformational, liberating, and healing factors associated with therapeutic change. Here it is proposed that what makes play therapeutic, from a clinical standpoint, is its ability to engender a capacity for spontaneous, active, creative, and generative experience. This kind of play is then examined theoretically, though the lens of contemporary philosophical hermeneutics, to argue for its deep indebtedness to concepts such as interpretation, dialogue, freedom, and truth. Here it is argued that what makes this kind of play possible is the capacity for certain kinds of existential movement that revolve around the "ontological difference" (Heidegger, 1921). Some suggestions are then offered for a hermeneutically informed form of psychological praxis.
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