grateful thief, because I cannot nor will I envision my life without play. My clearly biased sample of play therapists suggests that indeed,


play is as much a part of their life, if not more so, than their play- centered careers. Angela Cavett fondly recalls building a fort out of wooden fence posts as a child and planting flowers in a pasture near her childhood house as a safe place. Now as an adult, she has brought these themes forward in her “healing garden” at work, which is adorned with symbols that “entice the senses” from herbs to wind chimes to bouncing chairs. Dottie Higgins-Klein, now and proudly “almost 70,” recently bought a beach cabin with her husband, and enjoys long walks along the shore, noticing new and interesting shells, bike riding with friends, and watching her dog romp in the surf. Lisa Saldańa shared the similarities between her childhood and adult play, which both center around reading, building, planting, fixing, and imagining. She fondly recalled creating a Star Trek bridge out of shoeboxes and running around San Clemente Canyon with her friends “like a pack of wild animals.” I too see similarities between the ways I play now and the way I played as a child. I lived in a mammoth apartment house with a cavernous and seemingly primeval basement, which lured me down with the promise of treasures, demons, and adventures. I was also a precocious dumpster- diver as a child whose nightly forays offered up wondrous treasures . . . and I was an avid colorer, ball player, and jokester (which was not always appreciated by my elementary school teacher who repeatedly commented on my report cards that “Lawrence does well in his studies but has difficulty with comportment and control” – (I’ll say no more on this count). Today, I rummage through thrift shops and enjoy television with my wife, color on my old Venus Paradise pencil by number sets, decorate, read, write, play with our 7 cats (and our son’s dog - my first grandchild), and joke with friends. Play has been a process for me that has infused in the activities that titillate my curiosity, satisfies my intellectual cravings, and provides me with distance and escape from the daily and often harsh demands of my “groan-up” life.


Playfulness and Mental Health We play therapists fully understand the benefits of a meaningful and intentional playroom interaction, but also appreciate the emotional


challenges inherent in play therapy, particularly with children who have suffered trauma. Gil and Rubin (2005) highlighted the various forms that countertransference might take including therapist anxiety, hopelessness, sadness, resentment, and anger. While they and others offer clinically based suggestions for addressing the emotional toll taken by countertransference, neither they nor others discuss the importance of play in the lives of the therapist outside of the clinical context. Countertransference notwithstanding, play therapists struggle with additional pressures related to clinical practice including demanding schedules, maintaining income levels, and balancing professional and personal demands. Taken together, these pressures suggest that clinicians’ mental and physical health may be continually challenged by these cumulative demands. Fortunately, research has suggested that play in adulthood may very well be linked to mental health. In particular, and in the course of developing their “Older Adult Playfulness Scale,” Yarnal and Qian (2011) observed that adult playfulness is linked to creativity, curiosity, pleasure, humor, spontaneity, fun, and stress relief. Playful adults, they observed, “Approach the world with a measure of creativity and whimsy” (p. 71) and value the qualities of impishness, playful naughtiness, clowning, and even cognitive spontaneity. In the context of play in the service of joy, release,


and mental health, Terry Kottman noted, “I have about a bazillion hobbies including yoga, mosaics, and stained- glass . . . and taking classes in things that have nothing whatsoever to do with my job.” Heloisa Portela shared that “play is very important in my life and mental health” and that when she is not dancing the (grownup) tango, she regularly dances with her young children in her arms. With giddy enthusiasm, Kevin Hull shared a video of himself lying in a field as his drone ascended into the atmosphere and he grew smaller and smaller.


Final Thoughts My guess is that if I were to ask each of you how you play outside the confines of the therapeutic playroom, there would be fascinating parallels between the ways that you relax, create, imagine, and build in adulthood; and the manner in which you did so as a child. I would also speculate that many of you have a very clear sense of what is enjoyable, liberating, spontaneous, and intrinsically motivating in your life, and how these activities are often and lamentably relegated to the back of your long lines of priorities. I believe that play is an indispensable part of the balanced life. The more we dedicate ourselves to healing others, immersing ourselves in their pain, and balancing the competing demands of adult life, whether they be launching


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