Tag: creativity

parenting, play and mental health, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Decision-Making in a Pandemic

Wendy Winograd

Decision-making in the time of COVID can be, for many of us, overwhelming. Things we never had to consider before are now areas of concern. Should we go to a Broadway play or museum? Should we attend a sporting event indoors? Should we go to that concert, where people will sit shoulder to shoulder, even though it is outside? When it comes to children too young to be vaccinated, the calculus becomes even more complicated. It is clear that children need contact outside the family. In infancy and early childhood, they benefit greatly from contact with grandparents aunts, uncles, cousins. … Continue reading Decision-Making in a Pandemic

parenting, play and mental health, play spaces, play therapy, UncategorizedLeave a comment

5 Things to Do Under Quarantine

Wendy Winograd

As a result of the quarantine, new studies are starting to come out showing that being online all day can affect your health, make you anxious, give you headaches, affect your vision, and affect your sleep. Long before we were sheltering in place, Melissa Pandika in “The Unexpected Effects of all that Screen Time,” reported on symptoms shown by children, tweens, teens and adults as a result of too much screen time.  Although the internet can allow for community building and connection, Pandika, quoting Delaney Ruston, a physician and documentary filmmaker who produced Screenagers, warns that social development can be … Continue reading 5 Things to Do Under Quarantine

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Is there such a thing as too much play?

Wendy Winograd

The debate about how much play is enough  is one carried out in the popular press, where experts and non-experts alike weigh in. Writing for the New York Times Magazine, Melanie Thernstrom reflects on the question from a personal point of view when her daughter is invited to the home of a friend from preschool, whose father has made a project out of being a free range, non-helicopter parent. Continue reading “Is there such a thing as too much play?”

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Two Winnicottian Podcasts

Wendy Winograd

Two podcasts featuring Winnicott  offer listeners very different ways of thinking about human engagement with ideas, each other, the outside world and ourselves. Each asks Winnicottian questions about how an individual identity is constructed in relation to human and non-human objects and about how human thought and creativity emerges. Continue reading “Two Winnicottian Podcasts”

parenting, play and mental health1 Comment

Play, Identity, & Mental Health

Wendy Winograd

Can we become who we are without play or is play is essential for the formation and development of human identity?  I am particularly interested in how play opens up a space for creativity, a space in which we can potentially transform our identities.  If we create ourselves, and play nurtures creativity, how might our identities emerge from a self-directed engagement with play? Continue reading “Play, Identity, & Mental Health”

play and mental health2 Comments

Welcome!

Wendy Winograd

D. W. Winnicott, whose work I will profile in this blog, theorized that play, which exists in a transitional space between reality and fantasy, promotes growth and facilitates creativity, making it fundamental to the development of human culture. A psychoanalyst and pediatrician, Winnicott wrote about the development of identity in the context of relationships and stressed the importance of a facilitating environment for the growth of a healthy child. Continue reading “Welcome!”