Imaginary friend

For other uses, see Imaginary friend (disambiguation).

Template:Globalize/US Imaginary friends, also known as "imaginary companions", are pretend characters often created by children. Imaginary friends often function as tutelaries (or perform a tutelary function) when they are engaged by the child in play activity. Imaginary friends may exist for the child into adolescence and sometimes adulthood. Imaginary friends often have elaborate personalities and behaviors. Although they may seem very real to their creators, studies have shown that children do have an understanding that their imaginary friends are not real.

According to several theories of psychology, an understanding of a child's conversations with their imaginary friends can reveal a lot about the anxieties and fears of that child as well as the child's aspirations and perception of the world. Some children report that their "imaginary friends" manifest themselves physically and are indistinguishable from real people, while others say that they see their friends only in their heads.

Purposes

It has been theorized that children with imaginary companions may develop language skills and retain knowledge faster than children without them, which may be because these children get more linguistic practice while carrying out "conversations" with their imaginary friends than their peers get.

Kutner (n.d.) holds that:

Imaginary companions are an integral part of many children's lives. They provide comfort in times of stress, companionship when they're lonely, someone to boss around when they feel powerless, and someone to blame for the broken lamp in the living room. Most important, an imaginary companion is a tool young children use to help them make sense of the adult world.

Taylor, Carlson & Gerow (c2001: p. 190) hold that:

...despite some results suggesting that children with imaginary companions might be superior in intelligence, it is not true that all intelligent children create them.

A long-time popular misconception is that most children dismiss or forget the imaginary friend once they begin school and acquire real friends. According to one study, by the age of seven, sixty-five percent of children report that they have had an imaginary companion at some point in their lives. Some psychologists have suggested that children simply retain but stop speaking about imaginary friends, due to adult expectations and peer pressure. Children have reported creating or maintaining imaginary friends as pre-teens or teenagers, and very few adults report having imaginary friends. This may, however, signal a serious psychological disorder.

Fictional depictions

Film

In the 1950 film, Harvey, the character Elwood P. Dowd, played by James Stewart, has an imaginary giant rabbit friend known as Harvey.

In the 1991 movie Drop Dead Fred, the lead character develops an imaginary friend in order to cope with the psychological abuse that she had received from her mother. Writing about this imaginary friend, Carl J. Schroeder wrote,

The imaginary friend is cavortingly rude for a reason; he served to push the girlchild to do mischief for attention and as a cry for help. Now grown up, the woman has forgotten and is about to lose her soul, so events call for some kind of literal return of her demon to force the exposure of her pain. This psychic crisis is poignantly realistic even if the plot device is less so, thus offering validation to all the bad girls who felt so alone in their right choices to rebel (rebellion is expected in boys). The creature who is visible only to the woman is like a poltergeist energy of her repressed self, a problematic ego container into which her powers of assertion and creativity were poured and stored. The movie's resolution is startlingly beautiful, as she goes into a meditative dreamworld to find and hold the little girl who was abandoned by everyone but Fred, and now, having accepted the adult's response-ability to embrace all parts of self (thus becoming more of her Soul) she must bid a final bittersweet goodbye to her old trickster friend.

The film 1996 Bogus, starring Whoopi Goldberg, also deals with the issue of imaginary friends.

The 1999 Disney film Don't Look Under the Bed is about a girl whose imaginary friend turned into a Bogeyman.

The 2006 Australian film Opal Dream is based on a book about a young girl with two imaginary friends, Pobby and Dingan.

In the 1980 psychological horror film "The Shining", Danny has an imaginary friend named Tony who "lives in his mouth". Other characters may also have other imaginary friends, which are manifested as ghosts.

The 2005 horror / psychological thriller film Hide and Seek, focuses on a young girl with a murderous imaginary friend.

Television

On the popular children's show, Sesame Street, Snuffleupagus was originally portrayed as Big Bird's imaginary friend. However, the Children's Television Workshop ended this in light of high-profile stories on paedophilia and sexual abuse of children that had aired on shows such as 60 Minutes and 20/20 in the mid-1980s. CTW feared the Snuffy plot would scare children into believing that they could not tell "fantastic" stories to parents or other responsible adults without being dismissed as a liar or ridiculed, even if these stories were true. The show then revealed Snuffy as being real, requiring a rewrite of several plot-lines and scenes.

In an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation entitled "Imaginary Friend", a young girl called Clara is visited by an imaginary friend known as Isabella, who is later revealed to be an alien.

The Cartoon Network show, Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends takes a different view on them, where when a child makes an imaginary friend in their head, they become living, breathing beings. Like imaginary friends in the real world, they are often created to help a child overcome anxieties, fear, and loneliness. However, like imaginary friends in the real world, they often 'grow out' of their imaginary friends once they're old enough, and abandon them out into the streets, or in the case of the show, are put into a foster home so they might be adopted by another child. It is shown that imaginary friends don't seem to have a set 'lifespan', as an imaginary friend that was made by a child still looks the same by the time that child is an old person.

Friends: In the episode "The One with the Embryos," it is mentioned that Joey had an imaginary childhood friend called Maurice who was a space cowboy (a laugh line alluding to the lyrics of the song The Joker).

In Arthur, D.W. has an imaginary friend named Nadine who "disappears" whenever someone else walks in the room or "looks at her".

Little House on the Prairie featured Carrie creating an imaginary friend named Alyssa in the episode "The Godsister."

Fiction

Author P.S. Gifford has used the imaginary friend as a voice to tell his fiction in a planned series of books. Two have been published to date. The first is The Curious Accounts of the Imaginary Friend, and the second is The Further Accounts of the Imaginary Friend.

Comics

Calvin and Hobbes is an example (although disputed by Calvin and his creator, the latter of whom has the final say) of an imaginary friend (the tiger Hobbes) and his interactions with a young boy, Calvin.

See also

• Fictional universe
• Crib talk
• Jesus Christ

Further reading

• The Holy Bible
• Dierker, L. C., Davis, K. F., & Sanders, B. (1995). 'The imaginary companion phenomenon: An analysis of personality correlates and developmental antecedents.' Dissociation: The Official Journal of the International Society for the Study of Multiple Personality and Dissociation, 8, 220-228.
• Gleason, T. (2002). 'Social provisions of real and imaginary relationships in early childhood.' Developmental Psychology, 38, 979-992.
• Gleason, T., Sebanc, A., & Hartup, W. (2000). 'Imaginary companions of preschool children.' Developmental Psychology, 36, 419-428.
• Hall, E. (1982). 'The fearful child's hidden talents [Interview with Jerome Kagan].' Psychology Today, 16 (July), 50-59.
• Hurlock, E., & Burstein, M. (1932). 'The imaginary playmate: A questionnaire study.' Journal of Genetic Psychology, 41, 380-392.
• Manosevitz, M., Fling, S., & Prentice, N. (1977). 'Imaginary companions in young children: Relationships with intelligence, creativity and waiting ability.' Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 18, 73-78.
• Manosevitz, M., Prentice, N., & Wilson, F. (1973). 'Individual and family correlates of imaginary companions in preschool children.' Developmental Psychology, 8, 72-79.
• Mauro, J. (1991). 'The friend that only I can see: A longitudinal investigation of children's imaginary companions' (Doctoral dissertation, University of Oregon, Eugene, 1991). Dissertation Abstracts International, 52, 4995.
• Meyer, J., & Tuber, S. (1989). 'Intrapsychic and behavioral correlates of the phenomenon of imaginary companions in young children.' Psychoanalytic Psychology, 6(2), 151-168.
• Nagera, H. (1969). 'The imaginary companion: Its significance for ego development and conflict solution.' Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 24, 165-195.
• Partington, J., & Grant, C. (1984). 'Imaginary playmates and other useful fantasies.' In P. Smith (Ed.), Play in animals and humans (pp. 217-240). New York: Basil Blackwell.
• Imaginary Friends with Dr Evan Kidd podcast interview with Dr Evan Kidd of La Trobe University