Chess as a way of improving object relationships in narcissistic teenagers

Adolescent Psychiatry, 2000 by Gaines, Larry, Berkovitz, Irving, Kohn, Ben

As with many interesting discoveries, the realization that chess can be used to improve object relationships with narcissistic adolescents came about serendipitously. The principal author' was counseling a 17-yearold boy of Russian/Armenian descent using traditional talk therapy. An exploration of the boy's family relationships revealed his perception of his mother and father as controlling and domineering-"they're from the Old World," as he described it. His heritage led to a discussion of Kasparov and other chess masters he could idealize (he took pride in his cultural identification). Sharing an interest in chess led to a "challenge" match, which was observed by the boy's fellow alternative education students. Chess became an immediate catalyst to students seeking a relationship with me, and the use of the game served as a method and metaphor for working with the narcissistic issues affecting their interpersonal and school relationships.

Literature Review

It is surprising that there is a paucity of articles in the psychoanalytic and psychological literature dealing with the use of chess in psychotherapeutic treatment.

Shapiro (1993) wrote, "There is virtually no game that children like to play ... which can't be adopted to some therapeutic purpose" (p. i). Avedon and Sutton-Smith (1971) broke game play down into its psychological and sociological aspects; according to these authors, the psychological aspect of games is how they give expression to and relieve anxiety derived from antecedent psychic states. The sociological qualities of games allow for competition, teamwork, and character training. Games provide the opportunity to use fantasy to work through psychic issues, and to develop the competence to handle real-life situations. To this end, Schaefer et al., in their books on play therapy (Schaefer and O'Connor, 1983; Schaefer and Reid, 1986), have devoted many chapters to the use of games in clinical (and educational) therapy.

Among the various descriptions of game play in therapy (Nickerson and O'Laughlin, 1983), several were relevant to this study of narcissistic adolescents found in an alternative education high school program. First, games may entice children into a therapeutic alliance. Resistance to therapeutic interventions was a major hurdle to overcome with the narcissistic adolescents in this study. On the one hand, we have Gardner's (1986) warnings that board games can become a means of resistance to therapeutic work on the part of the client and/or therapist; on the other hand, we have Loomis's (1957) description of how playing checkers can be used to successfully handle children's resistances. An important question for this chapter is how a chess game might modify the narcissistic defenses in these students and permit a therapeutic relationship to take place. In a discussion on guidelines for therapists' selection of games, Matorin and McNamara (1996) stated that the games must be appropriate in terms of the age and developmental level of the client. We believe, for the students to be described here, that chess served their developmental, cultural, and intrapsychic needs.

Second, games serve as a diagnostic and assessment tool (Nickerson and O'Laughlin 1983; Frey, 1986). For the adolescents in our study, we believe that chess did help identify their style of relating and interacting with others. Most important is Nickerson and O'Laughlin's (1983) idea that "games... create a safe and permissive climate in which a person can experiment with new behaviors" (p. 177). The game of chess seemed to serve as an arena in which students could try out more adaptive styles of play behavior. As their interpersonal competence grew, they applied those skills (learned in the game) to the classroom or their interpersonal lives. A review of the literature on the psychoanalytic study of games found two articles (Jones, 1931; Reider, 1959) specifically dealing with the dynamics of chess. In "Chess, Oedipus, and the Mater Dolorosa," Reider (1959) explored historically and psychologically how chess evokes the classical oedipal struggle of father murder (checkmating the king) and the defenses against it. Chess provides, clinically, for the inhibition and sublimation of aggression. It is an outlet for competition, a means to overcome life's obstacles, a means to gain mastery over one's impulses.

The queen (mother) holds a position of great power and importance in the game of chess. Through chess, one can explore the player's libidinal dynamics in the mother-son relationship and the queen's part in the conquest of the king. Reider (1959) concluded that the game of chess brings forth, "with a full measure of affect, the passions and mysteries of the unconscious" in its revelations about the family romance.

Jones (1931) wrote about chess in a paper called "The Problem of Paul Morphy." As well as describing the career of this chess genius of the 19th century, Jones offered some opinions about the unconscious motives of the players: "not the mere love of pugnacity characteristic of all competitive games, but the grimmer one of father-murder" (p. 3). "The mathematical quality of the game gives it a peculiarly anal-- sadistic nature... well adapted to gratify both the homosexual and the antagonistic aspects of the son-father contest" (p. 4). Jones described chess as "the wish to overcome the father in an acceptable way" (p. 11). These dynamics could certainly be relevant to the students here-vanquishing the father-psychologist.