The Playful Steps Bateson's Ecology of Mind

Bibliographic Data

ID5848355
AuthorsRob Lynch (University of Technology Sydney, corresponding author)
Year1994
Volume17
Issue1
Pages107-123
Publication date1994-01-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueLoisir et Société / Society and Leisure (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0705-3436 • E-ISSN: 1705-0154
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/07053436.1994.10715467
OpenAlexW2006069328
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited9

Gregory Bateson developed his theory of play and fantasy in 1955, a theory notable among other things for its radical epistemological base and focus on context, paradox and contradictory layers of communication. The theory has since become influential and controversial in a variety of circles dealing with play practice, therapy and theory. This paper offers an interpretation of Bateson's work in this area by tracing the development of his interest in theorising play and related phenomena. In developing this historical point of view, an argument is offered that there is a continued focus on play in Bateson's work since his 1930s study of Naven and that the phenomenon of play served to help Bateson in mid-career to address a problem with which he was confronted: the integration of competing and contradictory ideas which he had come to embrace through his work within anthropology, philosophy, therapy, psychiatry and communication theory. A further proposition is developed that the ideas which emerged in his theoretical articulation of the play phenomenon were taken into his later work-particularly Mind and Nature-in an influential way. Play was a creative and influential step in the articulation of Bateson's ecology of mind and nature

Argument (complex analysis · Articulation (sociology · Phenomenon · Proposition · Academic and Historical Perspectives in Psychology · Child Therapy and Development · Psychotherapy Techniques and Applications

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