In this book, Steven H. Cooper expands on his thinking of psychoanalysis as a form of play, and the implications of this for theory and clinical practice.

The most important activities of the analyst as a usable object for the patient have to do with finding the patient’s creative elements of self. He illuminates this process of finding within both patient and analyst. Cooper illuminates how play processes occur in relation to such concepts as defense, temporality, and neutrality within the analytic situation. Along the way, he theorizes a complex, but usable clinical relationship between becoming and knowing in psychoanalytic work.

With rich clinical vignettes and a fresh take on the nature and practice of psychoanalysis this book is key reading for all psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists.