Body in play: Disorganization and transformation through the co-creation of intersubjective flow

In a first session, a 9-year-old girl turns her back to her analyst and draws a picture of a child alone—“She’s waiting for some magic.” As the child’s inner world unfolds, the play becomes organized around the body, while the field soaks in the trailing edges of humiliation, rage, fear, and alienation. Yet through moments of meeting and the gradual development of relational safety, the scene also emerges as a co-created leading edge—a transitional space through which child and analyst engage in a mutual yet asymmetrical (re)organization and integration of physiological, somatic, affective, and relational registers. This article traces the developing complexity of the play scene and its shifts in meanings and functions over the course of the treatment. Further, the author illustrates and reflects on the potential for transformation of disorganized self-with-other experience through the co-creation of intersubjective flow—imagined as the “magic” the child hoped would be found, repaired, shared, and catalyzed right from the start.