Do Imaginary Companions Die? An Exploratory Study

Abstract

Adults in this exploratory study usually recalled that their childhood imaginary companions faded away or were dismissed as other options for social interaction became more appealing. However, eight participants reported that their IC had died. Analysis of these deaths offers a glimpse of the child's talent for transitional thought processes that navigate between the emerging constraints of logic and the continuing appeal of fantasy. It is suggested that young children are testing the limits and possibilities of what it means to be "real" at the same time they are trying to puzzle out "alive" and "dead."

The Death System According to Robert Kastenbaum

“…"-which was especially meaningful to me as an older adult who shares an imaginary friend with our granddaughter (Kastenbaum & Fox, 2007); and…”

“…• his very early focus on adolescents (a neglected era in thanatological studies until the mid-1980s) in "Time and Death in Adolescence," in Herman Feifel's edited book, The Meaning of Death (Kastenbaum, 1959); • his lasting concerns for the field of gerontology, as illustrated by his early chapter on "Death and Bereavement in Later Life" in Austin Kutscher's edited book entitled Death and Bereavement (Kastenbaum, 1969); • his enduring interest in issues related to children as shown in "The Kingdom Where Nobody Dies," in Saturday Review (Kastenbaum, 1972b); • three articles each bearing the common primary title of "Toward Standards of Care for the Terminally Ill" published in Omega, Journal of Death and Dying in 1975and 1976(Kastenbaum, 1975a, 1975b, 1976); • his ironically-titled article, "We Covered Death Today," published in the inaugural issue of Death Education (Kastenbaum, 1977b), that challenged educators to reflect on what they were actually doing in this field; • his enduring interests in lifespan development perspectives, as reflected in his chapter on "Death and Development through the Lifespan" in Feifel's second edited book, New Meanings of Death (Kastenbaum, 1977a); • his ongoing interests in end-of-life care as seen in "Cookies Baking, Coffee Brewing: Toward a Contextual Theory of Dying" (1995) co-authored with Sharon Thuell (Kastenbaum & Thuell, 1995); • a 1999 article he co-authored with Ken Doka and me on "Dying and Its Interpreters: A Review of Selected Literature and Some Comments on the State of the Field" (Corr, Doka, & Kastenbaum, 1999); • his delightful 2007 article, co-authored with Lynn Fox, entitled "Do Imaginary Companions Die? "-which was especially meaningful to me as an older adult who shares an imaginary friend with our granddaughter (Kastenbaum & Fox, 2007); and…”

A Review of Imaginary Companions and Their Implications for Development

“…Later, Piaget conceptualized ICs as an "external" opportunity for children to learn and organize incoming information and viewed communication between children and their ICs as a remnant of self-talk that would eventually emerge as social speech (Piaget, 1962). Much of this early theoretical work formed the basis of later IC research (e.g., Bouldin et al, 2002;Davis et al, 2013;Hoff, 2004;Kastenbaum & Fox, 2008;Manosevitz et al, 1973).…”