Yes, that may sound a bit frivolous in a time of evidence-based practice, almost non-committal. But in reality, it isn’t.
We have known for a long time that psychological suffering is not a straightforward condition. It doesn’t follow a step-by-step plan. People become stuck in patterns, stories, expectations, and roles. Not because they want to, but because that is the nature of psychological suffering itself. And unfortunately, the system they live and are treated in often mirrors this rigidity.
Diagnosis, protocol, guideline, measure, adjust, and measure again. This approach can help—sometimes significantly—but it rarely gets people moving.

This is where play in mental healthcare can offer something the system is currently missing.

The process is more important than the outcome

What people often need are small shifts. No dramatic breakthroughs, but subtle changes. Moments when something unexpected happens—something that interrupts daily patterns.
Play does exactly that.
During play, the process matters more than the outcome. You don’t know exactly what will happen. You improvise, react, take on roles and let them go. You laugh, collide, lose something, and discover something new.
This isn’t interference—it’s movement.

A playful approach creates space for emergence: the process of something coming into being. Complex patterns arise from simple interactions. New meaning is not planned—it emerges through shared experience.
And that is exactly what is missing in much of today’s mental healthcare. Everything is structured, controlled, and safe—but often lacking imagination.
People may still recover, but the real question is:
can we afford not to include play in mental healthcare?

Exploring together, without a plan

A playful approach works because it is non-linear and complex. It allows confusion, uncertainty, and exploration.
We don’t always need to explain psychological suffering—we need to experience new meaning.
And that happens best together.
Not behind screens. Not through isolated tasks with goals and scores. But in real-time interaction—with bodies, presence, spontaneity, humour, misunderstanding, and sometimes even conflict.
This is where genuine connection emerges. And connection cannot be scripted.

Play can take many forms:

board games

improvisational music

painting without a plan

theatre and role-play

movement or exercise

interaction with animals, such as dogs or horses

creative expression in any form

Art, too, is play. You create without knowing what will emerge—and suddenly, something shifts.
During these moments, time can disappear. People briefly step out of the tunnel of diagnosis and symptoms. Not because those things don’t matter, but because something equally real is happening.
A moment of presence.
A moment of connection.
A moment where no one needs to be fixed.

What it means—and what it doesn’t

This is not a plea to abolish mental healthcare.
It is a plea for more options.
Play should become a valid and recognized element within mental healthcare—alongside talking, measuring, and treating. Not as a trick. Not as a rigid intervention with predefined outcomes.
But as a space where something new can emerge.
Play also shifts our perspective. It moves us away from seeing psychological suffering as a defect that must be fixed, and back toward living, relating, and creating meaning together.
Change often begins in places no one can fully control.

Final thought
If we take psychological suffering seriously, we must dare to play.
Together.
Without guarantees.
Without fixed outcomes.
Not as a luxury—but as a necessity for movement.