Nurturing games and corporal holding

Abstract

The aim of this study is to highlight the importance of the first mother-baby reactions as a constituent element of the human being, underlying the importance of the first games that are developed from a state of physical and affective proximity between both and that have been called «nurturing games». This are associated to baby care activities (feeding, hygiene, etc.) and generate play experiences that carry the marks of culture and are inscribed in a corporal register and memory. We rescue the place of play as an intermediate space, for creation, for transmission of practices and for the cultural codes of each family. From a trans-cultural viewpoint through the observation of mother-baby interaction, we are able to produce therapeutic devices. Consultation with an adolescent mother and her baby
belonging to a town in Argentina, the maternal origins of which are associated to an indigenous people, the mbyá, enables us to integrate theoretical-clinical contributions.