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. Cooper illuminates this process of finding within both patient and analyst. He 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.

Steven H. Cooper is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, and the Columbia Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research, where he is also Clinical Professor of Psychiatry. He has authored five books and coedited two others. He is in practice in New York City.