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PubMed2006

Fantasy and mourning: heterogeneity, alterity, and discontinuity in the pastoral encounter.

In exploring why the topic of fantasy has been absent from current pastoral care articles, the author draws from the work of Peter Homans and Eric Santner to inscribe the social dimensions of fantasy in the pastoral encounter, arguing that fantasy closes us off from radical change, difference, strangeness, and loss (discontinuity, heterogeneity, alterity, and mourning) while, paradoxically, opening us up to these excesses of life. Understanding the unconscious interpsychic role of fantasy makes these ever-widening dilemmas more psychologically transparent and even theologically transformational. Without this perspective, what often remains is a disappointing, unreflective, rationalized fiction of a stranger.

Fantasy↗
PubMed1991

Unconscious fantasies: from the couch to the court.

No single unifying theory exists that explains the plethora of behaviors that bring individuals before the courts on a daily basis. No biological, social, or familial model for criminal behavior is without limitations, or exempt from controversy and criticism. We suggest, however, that it is appropriate, and often necessary, for the psychiatric expert to advance lucid, intelligible, and simplified psychodynamic formulation, either alone or in conjunction with another explanatory model of criminal behavior, to assist the court in its understanding and disposition of a given case. In some cases, apparent criminal behaviors result when unconscious motivating factors, particularly unconscious fantasies, find expression in conscious life. In this article, we consider the etiologic role of unconscious fantasy in certain seemingly inexplicable criminal behaviors. The concept of unconscious fantasy is explained and a detailed case description and formulation are provided in order to illustrate the central role of unconscious fantasy in some of these behaviors. Recommendations are offered for the manner in which psychodynamic formulation should be presented in reports and in courtroom testimony through reference to the author's experience.

Adult↗
PubMed1991

Shame in psychoanalysis: the function of unconscious fantasies.

The conceptualization of shame as an emergent affect in the clinical situation gains clarity by linking it to unconscious fantasies. The author suggests that shame appears when an individual fails in his efforts to obtain from another person, in reality or in imagined scenes, an expected similar affect or a complementary message, or both. A self-evaluation emerges of being undeserving of the desired response. In this respect shame is related to the narcissistic component of any experience or fantasy, be it pre-oedipal, oedipal, or post-oedipal. In cases where there is a pathological predisposition to shame, the predisposition is linked to unconscious fantasies portraying the individual as the desiring and frustrated subject of an unresponded to affective message. After its formation the unconscious fantasy itself, and all its unrepressed derivatives, become a source of shame. A clinical example illustrates these points.

Adult↗
PubMed1988

The psychoanalysis of a patient with ulcerative colitis. The impact of fantasy, affect, and the intensity of drives on the outcome of treatment.

In this paper the clinical case of a patient with ulcerative colitis is described, to illustrate how the vicissitudes of affects and fantasies, and the intensity of drives can set limits to the capacity for change in psychoanalysis. Drive intensity at all zonal levels is discussed. The author describes two unconscious fantasies which fuelled the resistance to progress, because of their inevitable links with traumatic and disavowed affects, and with libidinal and aggressive drives. The first fantasy described is that of the narcissistic impasse, in which the patient could not orchestrate an optimal distance with the object, who always seemed too perilously near or far. The second fantasy, giving rise to the first, is that of the Faustian bargain, according to which the patient repeated an infantile disposition to effect a trade-off with a needed but elusive ideal object, resulting in pathological splitting, a loss of a sense of ownership of the Psyche and the Soma, and eventual somatic vulnerability.

Adult↗
PubMed1985

[Delusion-like fantasies in slowly-progressive schizophrenia in children].

Twenty-five schizophrenic children with the syndrome of delirium-like fantasy-making were examined. The author describes the evolutional course of this syndrome and its connection with transformation of pathological fantasy-making of a neurotic level and shows an intermediate position of deliriumlike fantasies between pathologically intensified fantasy-making and delirium.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

The role of the oedipal fantasy in masturbatory and suicidal phenomena.

The multifaceted syndrome of suicide is viewed as a symptom with a manifest and a latent content. An attempt is made to demonstrate a dynamic reciprocal relationship, in a continuum, among fantasy, masturbation, and suicide. Sadomasochistic phenomena, beating fantasies, and suicidal thoughts and acts are viewed as translations of underlying positive and negative oedipal fantasies. Attention is also paid to how suicidal phenomena are facilitated by immature concepts of death, that is, its perception as a transient and reversible phenomenon, as well as its erotization. Four cases highlighting aspects of these themes are presented and then discussed in terms of how they illustrate the varying vicissitudes and elaborations of the masturbatory and/or oedipal fantasy and act, along separate or simultaneous pathways. In conclusion, there is an exploration of interpretive differences, with special reference to an object relations approach to phenomena, with its emphasis on preoedipal determinants and its attempts to accommodate both the drive/structure and object-relational/structure theoretical orientations.

Adult↗
PubMed1978

A comparison of self-esteem, dogmatism and fantasy in psychiatric inpatient adolescents and their parents with non-hospitalized adolescents and their parents.

Forty in-patient adolescents and 40 non-hospitalized adolescents, comparable in age, sex, education, birth position and socioeconomic level, and their parents were administered the Rokeach Dogmatism Scale, Barksdale Self-Esteem Evaluation Scale, the Singer and Antrobus Imaginal Process Inventory, and the Elms Empathic Fantasy Scale. Distinct differences were found between the in-patient adolescent and his/her parents in aspects of fantasy, empathy, dogmatism, and self-esteem, while the non-hospitalized adolescents were very similar in fantasy with both parents. In addition, both parents of the nonhospitalized adolescents had greater levels of self-esteem with less dogmatism evident in the fathers. The results are discussed in terms of the identification process and modeling, the socialization process with its suppression or reduction of taboo drive manifestations and fantasy as a means of achieving unattainable drives.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Beating fantasies: symbiosis and child battering.

A discussion of "The Psychodynamics of a Beating Fantasy," by Wayne Myers, M. D. Freud's concepts in "A Child is Being Beaten" (1919) require some revision. The fantasy may involve both parents, with the confusion of sexual identity as an additional significant element. Further, there are similarities between the phenomenon of child battering and the dynamics of Dr. Myer's patient. Also, a significant question is that while beating fantasies are probably universal among children, why do only a small number of adults have them occupy a central role in their psychosexual development and fantasy life?

Adult↗
PubMed1995

[Scene and symbol as driving forces. The unconscious fantasy in the transference].

Scene and Symbol as Motive Forces. Unconscious fantasy in transference.--Psychoanalysis regards unconscious fantasy as the motive force in human life. The analytic situation provides a framework for the crystallisation of unconscious fantasies. In the transference process fundamental scenes from childhood are reenacted, organised in terms of symbols and charged with meaning. With reference to a number of actual cases, the author demonstrates that scenically condensed, repressed conflicts thus develop psychic virulence and that in this scenic context the so-called Zeigarnik effect brings the unconscious fantasy to a standstill, allowing it to live on in the memory as an unconcluded action. Conclusion is however a necessary condition for forgetting. Only when this standstill is overcome via transference is psychic growth possible again.

Adult↗
PubMed1995

A silenced Indian: more on the secret fantasy of being an exception.

By means of some aspects of an analysis, the author shows how the fear of being murdered may form part of the secret fantasy of being an exception. This fantasy should offer protection against being helplessly at the mercy of intense feelings which cannot be integrated, and of an intolerable loss of the sense of self, which renders true separation impossible. During the course of development the fantasy gradually assumes its definitive form. One element of this definitive form is that the analysand exists in a state of adulthood as he imagined it as a child. Control and autonomy here seem guaranteed, and dependence, helplessness and ridiculousness have been overcome. For the creation of such a fantasy, the analysand makes 'a great leap forward' at one or more stages of his development. The author indicates how a leap of this kind could be imagined in intrapsychic terms.

Adult↗
PubMed1995

Sexual fantasy.

This article reviews the research literature on sexual fantasy, a central aspect of human sexual behavior. Topics include (a) gender similarities and differences in the incidence, frequency, and content of sexual fantasies and how they relate to sociocultural and sociobiological theories of sexual behavior; (b) the association between frequency or content of sexual fantasies and variables such as age, sexual adjustment and satisfaction, guilt, sexual orientation, personality, and sexual experience; and (c) "deviant" sexual fantasies (i.e., what they are, whether they play a role in the commission of sexual crimes, and whether they can be modified). The article ends with a summary of major findings and suggestions for future research.

Black or African American↗
PubMed1977

Training disadvantaged preschoolers on various fantasy activities: effects on cognitive functioning and impulse control.

Preschool children were trained in 1 of 3 different types of fantasy activities over a school year. The effects of this training were evaluated over a variety of tasks measuring cognitive development and impulse control. The same basic experiment was replicated over 3 different years. Results indicated that physical enactment of fantasy experiences (viz., acting fairy tales or enacting previous experiences) had a sizable effect on many of these variables; while simply listening and discussing was often no more effective than the control condition that merely cut, pasted, etc. Evidence suggested that fantasy play remoter from reality was more facilitative for development than more realistically oriented fantasy play.

Child, Preschool↗
PubMed1997

Developmental considerations in female latency. A discussion of kidnapping fantasies in nine-year-old girls.

This paper explores a specific type of fantasy frequently reported by latency-age girls in both research and treatment situations. Findings from a developmental study of nine-year-old girls are discussed. Five of the eight subjects spontaneously reported kidnapping fantasies in conjunction with discussions about sleep. The fantasies of the research subjects are detailed along with those of a latency-age girl in treatment, where similar material appeared, to illustrate how their common elements typify female development during this stage of life and contrast with Freud's idea of instinctual quiescence. It is proposed that the fantasy in its various versions is a compromise formation with diagnostic and therapeutic significance that reflects a range of developmental conflicts and the interplay of several factors: maternal identifications, a theme of self-punishment and talion revenge, fears of male aggression disconnected from feelings about actual fathers, and conflictual wishes for a libidinal tie to fathers.

Child↗
PubMedDate not supplied

"I got some swords and you're dead!": violent fantasy, antisocial behavior, friendship, and moral sensibility in young children.

Relations between an early interest in violent fantasy and children's social understanding, antisocial and emotional behavior, and interactions with friends were investigated in 40 "hard-to-manage" preschoolers and 40 control children matched for gender, age, and school and ethnic background. Children were filmed alone in a room with a friend, and tested on a battery of cognitive tests, including false-belief, executive function, and emotion understanding tasks. Teachers reported on their friendship quality. At age 6 years, the children's understanding of the emotional consequences of antisocial and prosocial actions was studied. The hard-to-manage group showed higher rates of violent fantasy; across both groups combined, violent fantasy was related to poor executive control and language ability, frequent antisocial behavior, displays of anger and refusal to help a friend, poor communication and coordination of play, more conflict with a friend, and less empathic moral sensibility 2 years later. The usefulness of a focus on the content of children's pretend play-in particular, violent fantasy-as a window on children's preoccupations is considered.

Age Factors↗
PubMed2004

The analyst's fantasy of the ideal patient.

Using detailed clinical vignettes, the author illustrates how the analyst's fantasy of the ideal patient can be used to advance an analysis at the same time as it fuels mutual resistances. The author suggests that all analysts carry with them a fantasy of the ideal patient that varies from analyst to analyst and from school to school. Such fantasies are often related to images of an ideal free-associative process. They are for the most part descriptively unconscious, becoming conscious only when prompted by the clinical moment. As such, they are part of a countertransference, broadly defined, that is responsive to both the analyst's and the patient's conflictual life.

Adult↗
PubMed1979

An empirical investigation of experimentally induced masturbatory fantasies.

The nature and correlates of experimentally induced masturbatory fantasies were studied. Subjects were requested to construct a story using the film of either a male or a female masturbating to orgasm as the eliciting stimulus. Results indicated that there are many sex differences in masturbatory fantasies which are most likely a consequence of the differential ability of men and women to form a positive projective identification with the same-sex protagonist in a film of masturbation as well as a function of the variations in the process by which men and women assimilate masturbation into a larger set of social meanings. The findings also attest to the ability of sex guilt and negative attitudes toward masturbation to account for the variability in masturbatory fantasies in a theoretically consistent and reliable manner.

Attitude↗
PubMed1995

Fantasy proneness, DSM-III-R axis I psychopathology, and dissociation.

Two thirds of the fantasy-prone college students (16 of total N = 24) who scored in the upper 4% of the population on the Inventory of Childhood Memories and Imaginings (ICMI; S.C. Wilson & T. X. Wilson, 1981) and who were administered a diagnostic interview met the criteria for either a past or present Axis I diagnosis according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (3rd ed., rev.; American Psychiatric Association, 1987), compared with 31% of medium fantasy-prone students (8 of total N = 26) who scored within 1/2 a standard deviation of the mean on the ICMI. Fantasizers also reported a higher frequency of past diagnosis of major depression (50%) than nonfantasizers (12%) and more dissociative experiences and symptoms, as indexed by a structured interview. Contrary to certain estimates of the frequency of dissociative disorders in the general population, none of the participants in the study received an actual dissociative disorder diagnosis. For certain individuals, fantasy proneness can be associated with significant psychopathology.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1992

Interpretive sets, expectancy, fantasy proneness, and dissociation as predictors of hypnotic response.

College students with no prior experience of hypnosis were assessed for fantasy proneness and dissociation. In a totally separate context, they were subsequently tested for their interpretations of hypnotic suggestions, hypnotic response expectancies, and hypnotizability. Contrary to Spanos and Gorassini's (1984) hypothesis, strategic enactment of suggested responses was rarely reported, and its endorsement was not correlated with hypnotic responsiveness. Suggestibility was significantly predicted by fantasy proneness and response expectancy, but not by dissociation. A path analysis suggested that the relation between fantasy proneness and hypnotizability was partially mediated by expectancy.

Adult↗