Tony White

Fantasy or day dreams as a means of thought substitution or thought management.

A great deal, particularly in the psychoanalytic literature has been written about fantasy and it is indeed included in the list of defence mechanisms. However there is also many ‘normal’ types of fantasy as well.

Comment made:

“When I had a more agile body, then I would be athletic like lara croft...As I get older, well tonight I spent the drive home from work enacting out a plane crash. Trying to understand what I would feel, think etc. Whiled away the time. I hate driving; so boring.” (end quote)


Home wrecker!



Here we have a description of two types of fantasies. Firstly the heroic or the megalomaniacal fantasy. This includes heroic fantasies like Lara Croft and other fantasies of great achievement, heroic displays, attaining world peace, great wealth or power and so on. It only becomes a problem when it is over used and thus one gets a Walter Mitty situation where the fantasy is used as a means to compensate for a flagging self esteem. But I think it is safe to say that many have this type of fantasy and it is not indicative of any sort of problem

Also described is the stimulation type fantasy in this instance to deal with boredom. The sexual fantasy would also fit into this type of thought management. One picks a situation that is highly stimulating for them and then fantasises about that as a thought management technique

Another type of fantasy is the masochistic fantasy. I am reminded of one fellow who I treated for a long time who would have very such vivid fantasies. He would fantasise himself being hit, beaten up, stabbed, burned and so on. Very vivid and quite elaborate fantasies which he often had as he was in bed going to sleep. These disturbed him quite a lot as he did not know what they meant. He also felt quite embarrassed about them, however they also gave him a sense of relief and solace and hence he continued to do it. He tended to do it when he was feeling particularly bad about himself and he just felt he deserved it so it is the right thing to fantasy. I tended to view it as a kind of self harm that was all in fantasy. I would also suggest that it is not a particularly good sign and may be indicative of quite significant maladjustment.



Then one can have fantasy on a much more personal level often involving personal relationships. These can be either realistic or imaginary fantasies. About how things are or about how one would wish them to be.

Thought management and one size fits all.

Comment made:
“I debated for a while whether or not to comment on this at all because it makes me feel sad and defeated that 'normal' solutions do not work for me. Not only do they not work, but they were quite destructive. Thought stopping and 'changing the channel' and all of that sort of thing only fed my dissociation and helped me find new ways to keep it propped up a little longer. That fact that therapists were unwittingly helping me to do it also fed my belief that my thoughts and feelings were not okay and were something to be gotten rid of at any cost. . Unfortunately, when the walls finally began to crumble, it was a terrible shock to say the very least. And now that I know what I know, I think all those techniques that were applied to my secret 'habit' of forgetting made it so that full-blown flashbacks were the final recourse of a most desperate unconscious. I really think therapists should try to find out if there is existing trauma and dissociation before they get too carried away with helping people find ways to escape themselves.”(end quote)



This is an interesting comment indeed. One sees thought management and thought substitution mentioned a lot in the literature. It is one of the key parts of a widely accepted approach. I can not recall ever seeing a comment made about the contraindications of thought management. Statements made about how thought management for some can in fact detrimental. Again there is a belief that in counselling one size fits all when it never does. So this is a most pertinent point and when it is contraindicated obviously has to turn to Plan B. That is not hard for me to do as I can simply change to some kind of regressive technique. However those who use the CBT model solely would not tend to do such a thing and thus they may struggle to find a Plan B. An interesting area that needs to be elucidated by defining when thought substitution is contraindicated.

Thought management and going with what the client presents:

Comment made:
“Tony suggested that a good way to deal with your internal critic and to stop harassing yourself is to have a sexual fantasy....I eased back into traffic and felt myself getting very anxious and panicky and starting to want to cry.

But I remembered Tony’s advice to have a sexual fantasy. A-ha, I thought, this is a good time for that. So I started thinking about Brad Pitt, he was the first one to come to mind, but then I realized that I would never let Brad Pitt see me naked, so this wouldn’t work. George Clooney? Same problem. How about someone older? Clint Eastwood? Ugh - he’s sexy, but he’s my father’s age. Adam Sandler would have worked, but he reminds me too much of someone I know in real life. Bruce Willis? Bruce might work, let me think about this. Bruce is older than me, but he has an amazing body and I don’t think he would appreciate my flabby middle aged body especially after he’s had Demi Moore. I’m thinking and thinking, and I got to the train station, but never started the fantasy. My anxiety did go away due to all of this deliberation about who should be in my fantasy. I mean, I wanted my fantasy to be romantic and sexual, not to have a guy be grossed out by me and run away screaming.” (end quote)



A good example about letting people find their own thought management techniques rather than imposing one on them. There was no actual fantasising done and yet the anxiety was avoided due to changing from the usual thoughts. As mentioned this example involved thinking about the construction of the fantasy rather than having the fantasy itself.

If this was in a counselling setting I probably would say nothing and see if the actual fantasy was used next time. Or did the individual again think about the construction of the fantasy rather than having the actual fantasy. It should be noted that the actual person for the fantasy was never selected, they are all ruled out for some reason. So the next time there is still no one for the actual fantasy to occur.

But of course that does not matter. All that matters is this person has discovered a way to avoid anxiety by using thought management. So I would suggest that in the future this person use fantasy construction rather than having the actual fantasy. We know she can make that work.



The other interesting point about this is how the internal critic was used for the fantasy construction. There is quite a lot of Critical Parent ego state used in it. The stated goal is to use fantasy to avoid the internal critic and thus the resultant anxiety. As I keep banging on about, in counselling it is always better to work with the pathology than to fight against it. No one ever wins wars weather they be between nations or between different parts of an individual’s personality.

So my suggestion in counselling would be in the future to use the internal critic (Pathology) in the fantasy construction to avoid the internal critic generating anxiety in the person. Working with the pathology. Both the person’s eros and thanatos are satisfied in the same single act. That is far more likely to be successful than trying to get eros to triumph over thanatos. Lillith never looses a fight in the long run.

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