Book Announcement by Steven Cooper (USA)

Building on Winnicott’s theory of play,  Cooper defines the concept of play from the perspective of clinical practice, elaborating on its application to clinical problems. Although Winnicott’s theory of play constitutes a radical understanding of the intersubjectivity of therapy, Steven Cooper contends that there remains a need to explore the significance of play to the enactment of transference-countertransference.

With a broad theoretical base, Playing and Becoming in Psychoanalysis considers how to help patients as they navigate debilitating internal object relations, supporting them to engage with “bad objects” in alternatively playful ways. In addition, throughout this Routledge book, Cooper develops an ethic of play that supports analysts in finding “ventilated spaces” of their own, whereby they can reflect on transference-countertransference. Rather than being hindered by the limits of the therapeutic setting, this book explores how possibilities for play can develop out of these very constraints, ultimately providing a fulsome exploration of the concept without eviscerating its magic.

www.routledge.com/Playing-and-Becoming-in-Psychoanalysis/Cooper/p/book/9781032207551

Steven H. Cooper, Ph.D. is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute. He teaches at the New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychoanalysis. He served as Joint Editor-in-Chief of Psychoanalytic Dialogues from 2007-2012 and is now Chief Editor Emeritus. He has written four books: Objects of Hope: Exploring Possibility and Limit in Psychoanalysis (2000), A Disturbance in the Field: Essays in Transference-Countertransference (2010), Exploring the Analyst’s Relationship to the Depressive Position (2016), and Playing and Becoming in Psychoanalysis was published this year. He is in private practice in New York.

Steven H. Cooper, Ph.D.
New York, NY
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