A function of fantasy in the borderline child.

Abstract

Borderline children have made a partial commitment to the independent reality of the external world, but their integration with external reality is markedly incomplete. The Borderline Study Group, working with a patient group of eight children, focuses on the commitment to the narcissistic world of the pleasure ego, as expressed in the childrens' fantasies. The notion that borderline conditions reflect an incomplete transition from the pleasure to the reality ego suggests important directions for study.

Recognizing and Treating Uncommon Behavioral and Emotional Disorders in Children and Adolescents Who Have Been Severely Maltreated: Borderline Personality Disorder

“…As noted above, the central characteristics of children with borderline personality disorder are marked impulsivity and instability of relationships, affects, and self-image (APA, 2001;Kernberg, Weiner, & Bardenstein, 2000). At the core of the child who is experiencing borderline problems are chronic feelings of emptiness, worthlessness, and lack of control (Chethik & Fast, 1970). Unstable relationships are often characterized by rapid swings between withdrawal from others and clinging to others (Kernberg et al, 2000).…”

“…This pattern can be very confusing to adults and peers who may avoid or reject the child, which can result in increased fears of abandonment and extreme attempts to regain the favor of the others and to get close to them again. To avoid feelings of abandonment, some children construct a fantasy world and demand that others behave in ways that support their illusions (Chethik & Fast, 1970).…”

Marijuana abuse, transitional experience, and the borderline adolescent

“…Furthermore, they often seem to prefer this unrealistic world view over a realistic one. Others (Chethik & Fast, 1970;Fast, 1975;Leichtman & Shapiro, 1980) have also commented on the tendency of borderline individuals to "superimpose fantasies upon reality in ways others may not notice, may tolerate, or may even share..." (Leichtman & Shapiro, 1980, p. 349).…”

Multiple identities in borderline personality organization

“…Secondly, likening them to play, fantasy or ego-ideals seems inappropriate from a developmental point of view. In a previous paper (Fast, 1970) the suggestion is made that it is in the course of the infant's transition out of narcissism that primitive, relatively unorganized self-representations become differentiated and organized into those which can be acted on currently, those which must be consigned to memory, those which are potentially real and may contribute to the ego ideal, and those which can never be realized and must be relegated to play and fantasy. Borderline individuals, it is suggested there, have not completed that differentiation and organization.…”

“…It seems useful, in conclusion, to say a few words about differences as well, differences which contribute at one end of the continuum to the experience of this personality pattern as richly rewarding, and at the other, to severe impairment in functioning.? Where strong feelings of optimism, unusual intensity and vividness of experience and an exhilarating sense of unlimited potential infuse ordinary functioning its effects can be largely gratifying, but when optimism becomes preponderantly unrealistic, the libidinization of experience an almost frantic denial of underlying pain, and * At the time of writing a recent paper (Chethik & Fast, 1970), I too saw the identity elaborations as fantasy or play. I am finding the present formulation useful in further clarifying material in that discussion.…”