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PubMed2001

Knowledge and authority: the godfather fantasy.

Three strategies are tentatively proposed by which human beings try to assuage the need for transcendence: (1) seizing the godhead; (2) submission to God; and (3) the godfather fantasy, whereby an attempt is made to clothe a mere mortal in the cloak of godly power. These strategies are connected to our innate, often conflicted, tendencies to obedience and rebellion, later elaborated into submission to authority or resistance to or cooptation of authority. These psychic tendencies are illustrated in Dostoevsky's "The Legend of the Grand Inquisitor" and in Mario Puzo's The Godfather, both brilliant demonstrations of social hierarchical control. The almost universal pull to obedience is demonstrated in the research of Stanley Milgram on obedience in hierarchical situations and theorized by Freud in his formulation of "the thirst for obedience" as a product of infantile life. It is proposed that the function of the group mind, in the form of ideology, is to counter anxieties generated throughout life, not only the remnants of childhood anxiety but also fears of death and oblivion. That a person's will to power can get out of hand and lead to disaster hardly needs saying; yet the will to submission, when connected to a shared ideology, can lead to results no less devastating. More people are killed in the name of an ideological cause run amok than are destroyed by virtue of thwarted passion, personal vendettas, criminality, or greed.

Fantasy↗
PubMed1990

Unconscious fantasy: introduction.

Freudian psychoanalysis has long been a depth psychology with devotion to the idea that unconscious fantasies dictate behavior. That concept is traced from its origins to the present to expose its various forms as ego psychology has emerged.

Defense Mechanisms↗
PubMed1992

A case of premenstrual distress: bisexual determinants of a woman's fantasy of damage to her genital.

Case material is used to illustrate specific clinical application of the concept of primary femininity. Some contemporary contributions to the psychoanalytic theory of female psychosexual development are presented as complementary with, rather than contradictory to, more familiar, longstanding formulations that emphasize phallic strivings in women. In the clinical example reported, a fantasy of genital damage underlay a woman's premenstrual distress. Aspirations and concerns related to both aspects of her fundamental bisexuality participated in symptom formation and had to be investigated in order to achieve symptom relief. As the analytic work unfolded, it could be seen that the patient's awareness of her feminine aims served to keep her masculine aims out of awareness, and vice versa.

Adult↗
PubMed1990

Incest, incestuous fantasy & indecency. A clinical catchment area study of normal-weight bulimic women.

This systematic study of 112 consecutive referrals of normal-weight bulimic women from a circumscribed urban catchment area found that eight patients (7%) reported sexual abuse involving physical contact. Four (3.6%) of these described incest, but only in two cases (1.8%) did the incest occur in childhood. Just over 5% of the sample reported unlawful sexual intercourse in childhood or gross indecency. Eighteen additional patients reported incestuous fantasies and two of these were partly acted out. The study indicates that incest and sexual abuse reported by bulimics is usually in those multi-impulsive patients who also abuse alcohol or drugs as well as food. The reported prevalences of incest and indecency in normal-weight bulimic women are only slightly higher than figures derived from general population surveys.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2005

Federico Garcia Lorca's Yerma: the use of a vitalizing fantasy self-object to survive trauma.

Federico Garcia Lorca, one of the 20th century's greatest playwrights, wrote his masterpiece, Yerma, shortly after feeling betrayed and abandoned by his closest friend Salvador Dali. At the same time, he also wrote a poem entitled "When I was Ten" that captured the pain and loneliness he experienced when his family moved from the country, where he was happy and surrounded by loving and admiring friends and family, to the city, where he was lonely and ridiculed in school for his effeminate manner. This temporal association suggests that Lorca was struggling with the same painful affects in adulthood as he had as a child and that he was employing the same coping mechanism he had developed early in his life, that of creating a fantasy that served as a secondary self-object to repair self-fragmentation caused by a rupture in a crucial primary self-object relationship. Through the creation of a play in which different characters give expression to the wide range of conflicting emotions that resulted from the self-object rupture and the ensuing self-fragmentation, the playwright found a narrative that could contain them all and provide reparative self-cohesion.

Famous Persons↗
PubMed1977

Novelty-seeking, fantasy, and sensitization in chronic insomniacs.

13 chronic primary insomniacs and a matched group of normal sleepers were studied in terms of their level of novelty-seeking, ability to fantasize, and cognitive rumination. All-night electroencephalographic patterns confirmed insomniac-control sleep differences. Chronic insomniacs differed from normal sleepers on a measure of cognitive activity as a defense pattern (Byrne's Repression-Sensitization Scale) but did not differ on measures of need for cognitive stimulation (Pearson's Internal and External Cognition Scales), ability to fantasize (Betts' imagery task), or preference for fantasy (Pearson's Internal and External Sensation Scales).

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1982

Toward a psychophysiology of waking fantasy: EEG studies.

EEG investigations into the psychophysiology of waking fantasy have yielded interesting but inconclusive results. The most promising lines of research are reviewed with particular reference to the methodological complexities involved. Studies of alpha blocking, alpha states, theta states, and cerebral asymmetries are described. Comparisons are drawn between these lines of investigation and the methods of experimental dream research.

Alpha Rhythm↗
PubMed1991

Relationship of the children's form of the Rosenzweig Picture-Frustration Study to children's behavior, gender, and fantasies.

To examine the validity of the Children's Form of the Picture-Frustration (P-F) Study, the instrument was administered to 245 children in Grades 1 through 6. Children were also administered the Make A Picture Story (MAPS) and the Response Hierarchy Measure. Teachers rated children's aggression on the Conners Teacher Rating Scale. Hostile responses on the P-F Study were related to self-reported verbal and physical aggression in conflict situations but were unrelated to teachers' ratings of aggressive behavior. Hostile responses were exhibited more often by boys than girls. Responses on the measure were related to children's fantasy patterns. Results supported the validity of the P-F Study as a measure of children's thought content in response to frustration.

Aggression↗
PubMed1995

Did Freud misinterpret reported memories of sexual abuse as fantasies?

While serious questions have arisen concerning the validity of Freud's seduction theory of neurosis, a related issue concerns the extent to which Freud, following the abandonment of the seduction theory, may have misinterpreted real memories of sexual abuse as imaginary. Certain theoretical statements by Freud as well as his advice to Jung concerning a 6-yr.-old patient who had accused her foster-father of sexual abuse indicate that he may have been significantly biased toward interpreting certain types of incest allegations as fantasies. Increased awareness of Freud's biases, both in his early tendency to pressure patients into believing that they were victims of abuse and in his later tendency to regard certain types of incest allegations as unreal, may contribute to a more objective approach to the diagnosis and treatment of sexual abuse in the future.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Comparative studies of the induction of erectile response to film and fantasy in diabetic men with and without neuropathy.

The present study deals with the diabetic neuropathies prevailing in men. In this investigation 100 insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM) and 314 non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM) patients with and without an objective evidence of neuropathy, having an age span in between 15 and 60 years and a duration of diabetes distributed over 1-33 years, were included along with their age-matched nondiabetic controls. The diabetic subjects were evaluated for the induction of erectile responses. Investigation of induction of erectile responses to erotic stimulation by film and fantasy revealed striking results in diabetic patients with established neuropathy. Both IDDM and NIDDM patients with neuropathy exhibited a highly significant decrease (P < .0005) in penile diameter and length, penile arterial pulse amplitude, both systolic and diastolic blood pressures, and heart rate compared to controls of the same age group. However, both IDDM and NIDDM patients without neuropathy showed a nonsignificant difference in the above-mentioned parameters compared to control subjects. A nonsignificant association of induction of erectile responses to erotic stimulations among IDDM and NIDDM patients with and without neuropathy was also observed, suggesting that impotence and altered erectile responses are likely to be associated with an increased frequency to autonomic neuropathy in these patients irrespective of their type of diabetes.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1976

Imaginary companions, fantasy twins, mirror dreams and depersonalization.

Illustrative case material is presented to demonstrate genetic linkages between the presence of imaginary companions or fantasy twins and extensive mirror play in childhood and early adolescence, and the appearance of mirror dreams and depersonalization in later adolescence and adulthood. The defensive splitting of the self-representations observable in these phenomena is viewed as a means of warding off castration anxiety and anxiety about object loss, anxieties which arise because of conflicts primarily centering on intense aggressive drive derivative wishes. Formulations about depersonalization are discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed1975

On the association of sex and violence in the fantasy production of college students.

This paper investigates whether there is an association between sexual imagery and violent imagery in stories produced in response to ambiguous Thematic Apperception Test stimuli. In addition, two commonsense assumptions about sex and violence are examined: (a) do men have more sexual imagery than women? and (b) assuming men are more aggressive than women, do they produce fantasies with more violent themes? Thematic Apperception Test protocols administered to 80 college students as part of a study conducted at Syracuse University in the late 1950s were examined using two scoring systems--one for sexual imagery and one for violent imagery. An association between sex and violence was found for men only. The conventional wisdom that all men ever think about is sex was undermined by the finding that men and women do not differ in the production of sexual imagery. In terms of production of violent imagery, men and women also do not differ. The fact that females are less aggressive than men is overt behavior may be a function of social and cultural forces which operate differentially on men and women.

Association↗
PubMedDate not supplied

[Dangerous comics--only a fantasy?].

Both superhero comics and fairy tales are equally popular with children: they create fantasy worlds full of violence and dangers which the hero must overcome. The question is raised whether the criticism of prevailing violence and a lack of realism can be rejected not only when considering fairy tales but also in the case of comics. The comparison of the two genres leads to the following results: Comics with their regressive pull and their independent superhuman heroes represent the archaic world of narcissism unconscious, unwilling to develop and conservative. Violence serves to maintain the original state or regain a harmonious "paradise". However, the rich world of symbols is also the creative source of our existence to which we keep returning--whether in dreams or in other fields of imagination. As works of literature, fairy tales seem to be more progressive and concerned with solutions. In the main, they support the development of the self. Violence is used to overthrow the old order and usher in the new. The aggression results in overcoming the unconscious. The image of the fairy tale hero corresponds to the child's view of the world. He does not seek narcissistic solitude and greatness but the companionship of prince or princess. A progressive and optimistic view of the future as well as a more conservative and retrospective tendency are part of human nature. For children, however, problems of development take precedence. Thus superhero comics are only dangerous for severely disturbed children, but fairy tales are certainly more beneficial.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1991

Pain, aggression, fantasy, and concepts of sadomasochism.

Traumatized infants and children may exhibit syndromes of aggressive, pain-seeking, and self-destructive behavior resembling the so-called sadomasochism seen in adults. Three hypotheses are offered to account for the repetition of sadomasochistic phenomena in childhood and later character disorders: 1) pain and painful affects are sources of aggression; 2) the need to control aggression plays an important role in the development of psychic structure; 3) child abuse and trauma impair the ability to use fantasy for the mastery of impulses. Difficulty in expression and control of aggression are central issues in character disorders.

Aggression↗
PubMed1987

Rescue fantasies.

The concept of "rescue fantasy" is examined as it has evolved since Freud introduced it in 1910. Originally designating the wish in certain men to rescue "fallen women," the term has more recently come to refer primarily to the therapist's conscious or unconscious aims with regard to his patient, particularly in the context of child analysis or therapy. The varying drive elements and defensive operations at work in this compromise formation are discussed, and some recent sociocultural influences and analogues are suggested.

Adoption↗
PubMed1986

Non-verbal behaviour and body organ fantasies. Their relation to body image formation and symptomatology.

A deliberate analytic approach to various non-verbal manifestations may in some cases be a point of departure for exploring idiosyncratic representations of body organs and body image. Relevant clinical material is presented to illustrate how such representations may be developed. Further, I have attempted to suggest how the roots of body image formation reflect early levels of concept formation influenced by primary process and derived from an amalgamation of what has been called enactive and imagic modes of thinking (McLaughlin, 1984). The enactive mode comprises a combination of affective processes entwined with proprioceptive, visceral, motoric and sensory feeling. The imagic mode refers to visual, auditory, tactile and gustatory impressions (Horowitz, 1983). The pre-oedipal and oedipal determinants of an analysand's symptomatology and of his body image pathology are examined. Moreover, the pre-oedipal antecedents of his Oedipus and castration complex are illuminated. The psychic and somatic implications of his particular 'testicularization' of his body and of his body image fantasies are discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed1986

The active and passive fantasy of rape as a specific determinant in a case of acrophobia.

Acrophobia is generally understood as a defensive reaction against the wish to lose control of sexual impulses, but the precise nature of some of the fantasies involved has not been extensively elaborated. Associations, memories, and the analysis of a re-enactment in the treatment of a young woman demonstrated that the wish to rape and be raped were specific determinants of her severe acrophobia. The case presented also illustrates that in a true hysterical phobia genital dynamics predominate, albeit coloured and influenced in part by important pre-oedipal determinants.

Adult↗