From Improvisation to Play to the Psychedelic: Discussion of Laura D’Angelo’s “The Loaded Chamber”

Abstract

Laura D’Angelo’s “The Loaded Chamber” provides her beautiful illustrations of “improvisational role play” and “generative enactment,” among other concepts. Her paper serves as a wonderful platform for me to discuss and illustrate the evolution of my work relative to the idea of psychoanalytic play. Having written extensively on the topic of improvisation in close to 50 publications over the last two decades, I have reached the conclusion that while the idea of improvisation in psychoanalytic treatment is necessary, it is not sufficient. Discussing D’Angelo’s compelling clinical work with her patient Andrew corresponds closely with my discussion of this evolution.

Keywords:

• drama
• field theory
• improvisation
• metapsychology
• narrative
• psychedelic
• psychoanalytic play

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ Doing so turns out to be the greatest antidote to the constraint that shame imposes on the therapeutic field. It is also powerfully therapeutic to the crippling aspect of shame in both parties’ lives.

² Haber (2023) notes that Wittgenstein’s “language games” are “built into our nature.” They become modified as “densely contextualized forms of life, our infinitely varied ‘games’ or means of coexistence, and the linguistic organization of lived human values, meaning systems, and communities.” Psychoanalytic play involves playing “within layered systems of tradition, habit, ideas, biases and so on.” This understanding of play entails playing with more predictable patterns of these learned systems, thereby changing them into something else.

³ The effect of “loosening” from psychoanalytic play relates the matter of “dosing” of the psychedelic when used in conjunction with psychotherapy. Guss (2022) relates this to an experience of “egolysis” (Fischman, 2019), in which moderate doses of a psychedelic soften defenses (e.g. a form of DMN predictors) compared to higher doses which may lead to complete dissolution of the ego− something not of interest in psychedelic psychotherapy.

⁴ Following Johnstone’s (1992) seminal teaching of improvisation, D’Angelo notes that “‘status’ is something we do, not something we are … every inflection and movement implies a status,” meaning that no human interaction is devoid of at least the prospect of experiences of being “one-up” or “one-down”

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Philip Ringstrom

Philip Ringstrom, PhD, PsyD, is a Senior Training and Supervising Analyst and Faculty Member at the Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis, in Los Angeles, California. He is a founding member of the Board of Directors of IARPP, He has published over 60 articles, chapters, and reviews. His book A Relational Psychoanalytic Approach to Conjoint Therapy (Routledge 2014) won the Goethe Award for best book in psychoanalysis for 2014. His current work involves a new book titled: Psychoanalytic Play: Dramatization, Narration, and Improvisation in Field Theory and Metapsychology.