Reclaiming play and leisure: toward a humanist psychoanalytic critique of adulthood and the work ethic

Abstract

Adulthood is often associated with hard work, in contrast to childhood and later life, which are associated with play and leisure. We argue that the norms that frame adulthood narrowly in hard work, instead of including play and leisure, hinder eudaimonia. Winnicott famously deemed the ability to play not just a constituent criterion of mental health (with a lack being indicative of illness) but an essential need of living. Fromm deemed the connected realisation of authentic relatedness, productive work, creativity, and spontaneity as the road to fulfilment of psychic needs; when thwarted, these needs manifest in various neurotic tendencies. We take their ideas to examine the capacity of bureaucratically standardised work and workplaces to facilitate the worker’s flourishing. In some organisations, post-Fordist approaches of management have been used to navigate the tension between autonomous functioning and managerial control to create an environment conducive for creativity. While the new corporate trend is an important step forward, the change is thus far too circumscribed, and the dominant emphasis on “productivity” sours and hinders its benefits. Eudaimonia is best realized when it is treated as important in its own right, not just for enhancing worker output. Both Fromm and Winnicott wanted us to not stop at understanding what it means to be mentally healthy but rather grasp what it means to be truly and humanly alive.