Terry Marks-Tarlow is a clinical and consulting psychologist and psychotherapist and a member of the teaching faculty at the Reiss Davis Child Study Center in Los Angeles. She is the author of "Awakening Clinical Intuition: An Experiential Workbook for Psychotherapists"; "Psyche's Veil: Psychotherapy, Fractals, and…

A clinical psychologist and consulting psychotherapist discusses how elements of play, inherent in the intuition required in analysis, can provide a cornerstone for serious therapeutic work. She argues that many aspects of play--its key roles in human development, individual growth, and personal creativity, among others--can help therapists and…

The author considers combinatory play as an intersection between creativity, play, and neuroaesthetics. She discusses combinatory play as vital to the creative process in art and science, particularly with regard to the incubation of new ideas. She reviews findings from current neurobiological research and outlines the way that the brain activates…

In a review of the methodology of the Bauhaus (Germany's famous art school of the Weimar Republic era) in light of more recent scientific research on creativity and especially in light of the work of László Moholy-Nagy, the author examines the emphasis the school placed on play and positive emotions and concludes that it evinced a highly…

Dada, an art movement that became well known in the late 1910s and early 1920s, challenged traditional notions of art and aesthetics. Dada artists, for example, tossed colored scraps of paper into the air to compose chance-based collages, performed sound poems devoid of semantic value, and modeled a headpiece fashioned of sardine cans. To most art…

The authors contend that many cognitive abilities and affective processes important in creativity also occur in pretend play and that pretend play in childhood affects the development of creativity in adulthood. They discuss a variety of theories and observations that attempt to explain the importance of pretend play to creativity. They argue that…

This article explores the role of play in human interaction with computers in the context of computer programming. The author considers many facets of programming including the literary practice of coding, the abstract design of programs, and more mundane activities such as testing, debugging, and hacking. She discusses how these incorporate the…

The authors consider the analysis of the literature on play research by Lillard and others in the January 2013 "Psychological Bulletin," an analysis that questioned the prevailing assumption of a causal relationship between play and child development, especially in the areas of creativity, reasoning, executive function, and regulation of…

For many centuries and in many cultures, jesters recited tales of heroic exploits, but they did more than simply recount past events--they amused, cajoled, and spun tales that transported listeners to the edge of mysterious, unmapped territories. Through the transformative power of play and the imagination, they reworked what was already…

The author reviews the role of play within psychotherapy. She does not discuss the formal play therapy especially popular for young children, nor play from the Jungian perspective that encourages the use of the sand tray with adults. Instead, she focuses on the informal use of play during psychotherapy as it is orchestrated intuitively. Because…

Though generally accepted as the most playfully entertaining form of popular media or art, animation as play has received little scholarly analysis. The author examines the nature of playfulness in animation and describes play as a critical tool in animation studies. Examining studio character animation from such perspectives as creative…