Play as Practice
Play has an immense transformative power to be a powerful social tool. It is central to how we learn, navigate social cues, and test boundaries.1
Children understand themselves first through interactions with their caregivers. They try something random and learn based on what happens in response. This continues throughout adulthood, but expands beyond the parent-child relationship to include other social relationships and environmental factors, too.2 This is how we learn, grow, and adapt to the world around us.
In adulthood, we play differently, and — unfortunately — less.3 Life gets in the way, and we stop playing, which in turn leads to slower growth.4, 5
Play Theory. ‘Play’ plays an essential role in the origin and development of human culture within our continued search for meaning. But let me be specific, ‘play’ must satisfy the following criteria: 6
It must occur in its own time and space, separate from ordinary life and bound by agreed-upon rules.
It must be voluntary.
It must be both physical and expressive.
Playing is a shockingly good way to maintain good health — which is as much about the body as it is about the mind. 7 Through play, people befriend their bodily sensations while overcoming challenges.8,9
In a world often constrained by rigid social dynamics, play offers a rehearsal space for life itself — for testing, challenging, and ultimately strengthening our ability to navigate its complexities.
Even though ‘play rules’ and ‘life rules’ are necessarily distinct from each other, problem solving, encountering, and overcoming challenges — even in a play environment — can lead to increased adaptability and resilience.10
Press enter or click to view image in full size
A close friend of mine once shared a story that illustrates this point well. Alex undertook a challenging study abroad program. When he arrived in a country he had never visited before, he was shocked. Outside his research, he felt disconnected in an unfamiliar country. This feeling only began to dissipate the night he went to an underground club playing techno music.
In techno’s long-form play, Alex found an unexpected parallel to academic life. Each track, evolving and layering over time, mirrored the complexities of research — methodical, anticipatory, and enriching. Dancing to these elongated sets, he began to see a new way to understand and connect with the surrounding culture.
Techno became a bridge to the community. The club, with its diverse mix of visitors, transformed from a mere escape to a place of belonging. The music paved the way for friendships and deeper cultural immersion.
Alex’s academic work flourished as this new confidence seeped into his scholarly endeavors. Presentations, discussions, and collaborations became increasingly exciting and enriching, approached now from a place of openness and rhythm.
As his year abroad progressed, it became clear that techno was a parallel education. The experience of blending into the city’s rhythm led to flourishing both in personal growth and academic success.
Press enter or click to view image in full size
Therapy. Alex’s experience is not uncommon. Play is something that has been studied well, and it’s various forms have been employed in ad hoc and organized ways to help people overcome challenges.
While not typically thought of as ‘play’ therapies, I believe that Dance, Theater, Creative Arts, Internal Family Systems (IFS), and Pesso-Boyden System Psychomotor (PBSP) therapies are each a manifestation of ‘play as practice’.
In all of these practices, participants move their bodies, role-play, construct narratives, and express themselves creatively — rewiring their responses to real-world challenges while relieving tensions that have built up in their bodies.
Temporary immersion in an environment with an alternate set of rules, such as that of a concert hall, a theater, a studio, or — as in Alex’s case — even a club, offers perspective that can be used to renegotiate the act of living.
Theater therapy, for instance, is well respected due to its adoption by the U.S. military.11 War veterans are cast in plays like Sophocles’ Ajax, a Greek tragedy about a warrior who commits wartime atrocities in a rage, later realizes his error, and — consumed by shame — takes his own life.12
Veterans who have participated in Ajax have reported that these productions helped them to work through feelings of shame, failure, and grief related to their own combat experiences, even if they are not the protagonist of the play.13
Performing requires ascribing to different rules, i.e. Who is allowed to speak and what can they say? Who can emerge onto the stage, and at what time? It is a test of courage and fairness within the bounds of a space that is completely distinct from ordinary life. Participation is voluntary, and involves somatic movement and creative expression within the framework of these agreed upon rules. In other words, it satisfies all of the criteria for productive play.
Dance, Creative and Expressive Arts therapies use the act of creation as a pathway to emotional clarity and regulation, offering a non-verbal alternative to spoken expression. While loose and sometimes meant to be broken, dance, painting, drawing, and sculpture are all similarly governed by rules — such as those of physics, or of expectation.
Creative expression through art has provided self-reported therapeutic benefits for many — both within and outside of the clinical environment. Some of the most renowned artists of our time — Yayoi Kusama, Chuck Close, Alvin Ailey, and Jean-Michel Basquiat, for instance, have spoken to and demonstrated its therapeutic benefits.
Kusama’s art, characterized by repetitive polka dots and mirrored rooms, is a reflection of her mind. Creating art has been a way for her to process her thoughts and find a sense of peace and order. Her immersive and repetitive patterns are a means of expressing her inner world.14
Renowned for his large-scale, photo-based portraits, Chuck Close has faced several physical challenges, including a catastrophic spinal artery collapse that left him paralyzed. Art became an essential part of his recovery as he adapted to his physical limitations. Close modified his painting techniques to work within the constraints of his condition, using a brush strapped to his wrist. Painting helped him re-learn how to operate his body, despite his disability.15
For each of these artists, and for their patrons, art has been more than a profession or a creative pursuit; it has been a vital therapeutic tool for dealing with challenges of all types.
Internal Family Systems (IFS), and Pesso-Boyden System Psychomotor (PBSP) are more obscure therapies. They both take place in a defined space, involve creative expression and somatic movement, ask participants to ascribe to different rules and to practice confronting challenges encountered in real life.
The Goal of IFS therapy is to restore balance and harmony within the self through organizing contradictory inner feelings. This involves identifying and understanding the self and all it’s facets -addressing the complex interplay of emotional, psychological, and spiritual factors within an individual.
It is adaptable to a wide range of psychological issues, and particularly effective because it allows individuals to safely confront and process painful memories, thereby reducing their impact.17
Press enter or click to view image in full size
PBSP similarly involves empathizing — this time with others. It empowers reshaping personal narratives through role-play by combining elements of body-based and talk therapies to address psychological and emotional issues that manifest physically.18
It asks individuals to take agency over their healing by actively changing internal narratives and belief systems. This leads to lasting psychological change, catharsis, and emotional release.19
As play does, IFS and PBSP take place in distinct psychological frameworks outside the reach of typical traditions, rules, and behaviors.
Press enter or click to view image in full size
Games. While therapies harness play for healing, games push play into new territories of growth and challenge. Game theory is a framework for understanding the decision-making processes in situations of competition and cooperation. It has applications in various fields, and is used to analyze a wide range of real-world scenarios.
It provides a structured way to consider strategic interactions, where the outcome for any player depends critically on the actions of others, and on the framework of the game. It assumes that ‘players’ will be strategic to maximize their rewards, that games can be cooperative, non-cooperative, zero-sum, or non-zero sum.
When these principles are applied to game design, they present complex challenges and moral dilemmas that closely parallel difficult challenges encountered in real life.
One well known example of Game Theory is the Prisoner’s Dilemma,20 where players must choose between cooperation for mutual benefit or competition for potential personal gain. Another is the Tragedy of the Commons, 21 where players must decide between personal gain and the sustainable use of shared resources.
Sometimes rewards are zero-sum (one player’s gain is another’s loss), and sometimes they are positive-sum (benefiting all players). It might be obvious how each of these game types may have an impact on player motivation and investment. The perception of risk and reward scenarios can lead to vastly different outcomes.
As in real life, sometimes players don’t have all of the information they need to solve a problem at the outset of their journey. Poker, for example, thrives on imperfect information, while chess is a game of perfect information. This is one of many factors that can determine a game’s difficulty.
If a game is too difficult, it may alienate new or casual players; if it’s too easy, it may not offer enough challenge for experienced players. In game theory, equilibrium is a state that offers an optimal challenge for the majority of its players.
Press enter or click to view image in full size
In narrative based games, each choice has an impact on how the game unfolds. Decision paths need to be rewarding and meaningful to maintain player engagement. Every choice involves strategic decision-making and optimization, central tenets of game theory that reflect the complex interplay between play and challenges encountered in daily life.
I can speak to the real-life value of encountering these dilemmas in games first hand. I enjoy playing open world role playing games (RPGs), such as Divinity Original Sin 2 and Baldur’s Gate 3, and I feel that my perspective on decision-making and ethics has been positively impacted by the rich narrative and complex moral challenges that I have encountered in these virtual worlds.
One particular instance in Baldur’s Gate 3 stood out to me. I was faced with a choice that tested my principles: to help a group of desperate villagers by risking my character’s life or to take the safer path, ensuring my character’s survival but leaving the villagers to their fate.
I thought about this scenario later because it made me reflect on a situation at work where I felt that I had to choose between speaking out against an unfair policy, potentially risking my professional standing, or staying silent to avoid personal repercussions. Just like in Baldur’s Gate 3, I was torn between the safer option and the moral one.
The game had, in an unexpected way, prepared me for the moment when I decided to speak up. Drawing from the courage I had mustered in the game, I took the risk because it felt right.
My decisions in the game served as a simulator for life’s tough choices — demonstrating how sometimes the riskier path can be more fulfilling, both in-game and in life.
I’m not fucking around. I believe that play may just be the most useful tool in our collective arsenal for growth.
The transformative power of play lies in its paradox: by stepping outside of ordinary life into spaces with different rules, we become better equipped to navigate reality itself. When we recognize this, we open new possibilities for design across all domains — from physical spaces to digital products.
Incorporating play principles — bounded experimentation, creative expression, and meaningful challenge — can reshape how people learn, heal, and solve complex problems. The evidence is clear: play isn’t just an escape from reality — it’s how we get better at it.
