Winnicott’s Squiggle Game: A Study of Playfulness and Desire

Abstract

Winnicott’s Squiggle Game is a game of free pictorial associations that enable the child and the therapist to create meaning out of seemingly random drawings. It is a game with no rules in which children find themselves expressing ideas and sharing associations that are often surprising to them. Winnicott pays close attention to how themes unfold in the course of the game and what the symbolic representations of each drawing can be. And he is highly attentive to the children’s history, how they communicate their internal states, and the manner in which they engage in the game and respond to his presence. For Winnicott, the goal of the game is not to reach a diagnosis about a child, but to create a space in which a child feels free to express themselves and to derive meaning from their own squiggles.