You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
“When children are playing alone on the green,
In comes the playmate that never was seen.”
Robert Louis Stevenson
“The Unseen Playmate,” 1923
Numerous references have been made outside of the psychoanalytic and psychological literatures to imaginary companions of childhood, yet this phenomenon has been the subject of only sporadic and fragmented investigation. Although theoretical, empirical, and clinical explorations have all been attempted, the writings are scarce and lack clear direction. One of the principal difficulties with the literature in this area is the lack of a consistent definition of the term “imaginary companion.” With the exception of Svendsen,1 none of the papers cited here offer a definition of this fantasy, but all seem to refer to the same phenomenon. Primarily a childhood fantasy, imaginary companions are conceived of as human and occasionally animal playmates with whom the child plays and/or converses as if the playmate were alive, but who have no apparent basis in reality.
The currently available theoretical conceptualizations regarding imaginary companions have stemmed primarily from observational data and psychoanalytic case histories. Both adults and children have been studied, offering both anamestic and current case material, and most of the theoretical writings reflect a classical psychoanalytic approach. The issues given most attention fall into three areas: impulse control, superego development, and the establishment of defenses against narcissistic injury.
Nagera2 offers the most comprehensive theoretical review in this area. He addresses issues common to the majority of theoretical papers on imaginary friends, reviews the literature, and illustrates his points with case examples. Nagera speaks of imaginary companions as superego auxiliaries