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Play and Mental Health

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The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Critical Perspectives on Mental Health

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Definition

Consistent with a strength orientation to mental health as socially and culturally situated practice, play is defined here as a social practice rooted in activities of everyday life. As such, play is neither a panacea nor an innocuous activity, but a collaborative practice that produces spontaneous, open-ended, enjoyable pretense controlled by players for their own purposes. This definition grounds agentic approaches to play that respect children’s desires and needs in the moment, rather than aiming for an eventual learning outcome or deferred developmental benefit. Socially, play provides a way to test relationships, build friendship bonds, try on wished-for identities, and stretch ways of belonging in cultural worlds. Children at play learn how to collaborate and negotiate to maintain a shared narrative and imaginary context. This development of cooperative abilities has substantive impact on mental health. The imagined scenarios of dramatic play create shared spaces for...

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA

    Karen Wohlwend, Jennifer Parker Monger & Yanlin Chen

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  1. Karen Wohlwend
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  2. Jennifer Parker Monger
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  3. Yanlin Chen
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Correspondence to Karen Wohlwend .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Counseling & Educational Psychology, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA

    Jessica Nina Lester

  2. The Greenwood Institute, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK

    Michelle O'Reilly

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  1. Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, USA

    Tran Templeton

  2. Rhode Island College, Providence, RI, USA

    Victoria Restler

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Wohlwend, K., Parker Monger, J., Chen, Y. (2022). Play and Mental Health. In: Lester, J.N., O'Reilly, M. (eds) The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Critical Perspectives on Mental Health. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12852-4_94-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12852-4_94-1

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