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Everyday play activities as therapeutic and pedagogical encounters

This paper focuses on the idea of play activities as everyday therapeutic and pedagogical encounters. Drawing on the Greek therapeia meaning attendance, I argue that play activities between human beings provide opportunities to attend to or stretch towards each other, to create intersubjective, relational spaces and possibilities that contribute to health, well-being and development. Similarly, playful pedagogy is defined here in relation to the continental European model of social pedagogy, which embodies co-construction, dialogue and mutual understanding between teachers-as-learners and learners-as-teachers. Because the field of play scholarship is eclectic (and not always in agreement) I draw on contrasting theoretical perspectives to explore the nature and characteristics of play, and to support the idea of play activities as therapeutic encounters. However, I avoid the common trap of extolling the romantic, often precious, and uncritical view that all play is positive. Drawing on the work of Sutton-Smith (1997), I argue that dark play or cruel play also involves attendance and stretching towards, sometimes with anti-social purposes and damaging consequences. The discussion draws on contemporary issues about the changing nature of play in young people's lives in the context of social and technological change. I use observations and narratives of play to illustrate contrasting theoretical perspectives, focusing on the importance of co-construction, inter-subjectivity and intimacy in play activities.