Home EventsThoughts and Findings about Playing and Reality

Events - Event View

This is the "Event Detail" view, showing all available information for this event. If the event has passed, click the "Event Report" icon to read a report and view photos that were uploaded.

Thoughts and Findings about Playing and Reality

calendar_add_on

About this event

Registration will Open September 12, 2025

In this paper, Dr. Caldwell will discuss Winnicott’s growing emphasis on the importance of play and playing over decades as a psychoanalyst of children and adults which culminates in his last book Playing and Reality (1971). Dr. Caldwell concentrates on his later work in elaborating the links between free association and an ease in the relation with the other and with the self. Dr. Caldwell argues that this process registers a significant shift in his approach to the aims of psychoanalysts and to the analytic process. Although Playing and Reality. is among the most popular of psychoanalytic texts the presentation will discuss its considerable challenges and offers us new perspectives on Winnicott’s work.

Print Brochure_Caldwell

Preparatory Readings:

Ann Horne, 2016. Introduction, Volume 8, 1967-1968. The Collected Works of Donald Winnicott. OUP, New York, pages 3-32.

Arne Jemstedt, 2016. Introduction, Volume 9, 1969-1971. The Collected Works of Donald Winnicott. OUP, New York, 3-22

2024. Communicating and Not Communicating with Self and Other. Words, Silence and the Incommunicado Self. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, Special Issue, Bion/Winnicott Conversation, guest edited by Dr. Jani Santamaria.

2024. Approaching the Unconscious through the Psyche-Soma A Winnicottian Perspective. Canadian Journal of Psychoanalysis, Vol 32, 1, 91-110

2022. A discussion of transitional objects and transitional phenomena. 1951-1971. British Journal of Psychotherapy

Learning Objectives:

At the end of this two-hour course, you will be able to:
1. Describe several instances of how playing and reality manifest in clinical practice.
2. Discuss some aspects of Winnicott’s late technique

About the Presenter:

Lesley Caldwell is Honorary Professor in the Psychoanalysis Unit at University College London. She is a psychoanalyst (retired) of the British Psychoanalytic Association and Clinical Associate of the British Psychoanalytic Society . With Helen Taylor Robinson she is Joint General Editor of the Collected Works of Donald Winnicott ( Oxford University Press, 2016)

REGISTRATION:

Click the Register Now button and select the appropriate registration group.
Registration questions: may be directed to Alicia Wein-Senghas at aspsychotherapy@gmail.com.
Payment questions may be directed to Kathy Schlageter at Kathy@KSchlageterpsyd.com.
Conference inquiries may be directed to Georgia DeGangi, Ph.D. at gdegangi@gmail.com.

Fee Schedule:

VAPS Member $50

Non-Member $55

Student $20

SCHOLARSHIP SLOTS:

VAPS has received a local chapters small grant award from Section IV: Local Chapters, a section of Division 39 of the APA that will fund up to twenty scholarship slots for mental health professionals working in high risk settings. Please contact Georgia DeGangi, Ph.D. at gdegangi@gmail.com for an application to be considered for one of these awards.

Cancellation Policy: No refunds after September 20, 2025

Continuing Education Credits:

2 Continuing education credits are available for Psychologists, Social Workers, Psychoanalysts, Analysts, and Licensed Mental Health Counselors for each of the short workshops if attended in their entirety. Upon participant’s completion of the program evaluation for each workshop, a corresponding certificate of completion will be issued.

VAPS and SPPP (Division 39) are committed to accessibility and nondiscrimination in CE activities and will conduct all activities in conformity with the APA’s Ethical Principles for Psychologists. If participants have special needs, reasonable efforts will be made to accommodate them. Please address questions, concerns, and any complaints to Georgia DeGangi, Ph.D. at gdegangi@gmail.com.

Participants are asked to be aware of the need for privacy and confidentiality throughout the program. If program content becomes stressful, participants are encouraged to take breaks as needed and process these feelings during discussion periods. There is no commercial support for either program or any relationship between the CE sponsor, presenting organization, and presenter that could reasonably be considered a conflict of interest.

Participants will be informed of the utility/validity of the content/approach discussed (including the basis for the statements about validity/utility), as well as the limitations of the approach and most common (and severe) risks, if any, associated with the program’s content.

VAPS a local chapter of the Division of Psychoanalysis (39): Society for Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalytic Psychology (SPPP) of the American Psychological Association (APA).

SPPP (Division 39) is approved by the APA to sponsor continuing education (CE) for psychologists. SPPP (Division 39) maintains responsibility for the program and its content.