Child Fantasies

For awhile I was rather disturbed by my client’s imaginations and fantasies. For several sessions he described with fine details how he drove his car from point to point, how he engaged his gears and where he parked his car. It started a couple of months ago when at one session he raved non stop about receiving driving lessons from a coach whom his uncle got for him. As the weeks went by his enthusiasm for driving raged as he shared with me how he controlled the wheels and outraced even his uncle.

He is a primary 3 boy abandoned by his mother and was physically abused by his step father when he was a toddler. At first I suspected that his wild fantasies might have arisen from visiting the arcades and playing with car racing games. However when his stories became more vivid I imagined that his uncle might have brought him to some simulation driving centres. I then called his guardian the grandmother. She laughed and told me that his uncle sometimes let him sit in the driver seat and did explain to him the way to drive a car. She told me that he is similarly obsessed talking about his driving skills at home. I suspect that the child gets a sense of control and security from his fantasies of mastering a car; and I allowed him air time with me about his car driving antics.

On my visit to New York I bought ( for a steal ) from “The Strand” (A huge bookstore buying and selling new and used books) Melanie Klein’s The Psycho-analysis of Children. Klein discussed how children find relief from internal and instinctive anxiety by projecting onto external objects. In very small children it is through play where the child is able to master the anxiety through control of the toy. So for example, a major anxiety in early childhood is missing someone who is longed for, the mother in most circumstances. Hence you find that small girls love to play with dolls as they are able to assure themselves of the presence of a loving mother when they nurse and care for their own doll. During the latency stage (between school going age and puberty), obsessive activities may take over as a source of projection. For instance a boy’s obsession to beat his rivals in games is the masculine way to deal with internal anxieties. Achievement in their games or sports is a mastery over their internal anxieties. “The small child’s play activities, by bridging the gulf between fantasy and reality, help it to master its fears of internal and external dangers”.

I believe my client’s obsession and fantasy with cars is his modus operandi to help him gain mastery over his anxiety of losing his mother. More than that I can now understand him better, how much he longs for her and how helpless he must be feeling about the whole situation.