The omnipotent self, a study in self-deception and self-cure

by Paul Bousfield

In children, the difficulty of distinguishing between phantasy and reality is quite normally much more accentuated than in adults. And since they start in a world of phantasy and their training is to lead them to a world of reality, it is obvious that the halfway stages will be obscured by a strange mixture of the two. All children go through the stage in which phantasy and reality are by no means clearly differentiated, and most young children succeed, day by day, in fulfilling impossible wishes in phantasies in a manner which a properly developed adult can never do.

A little boy desires to possess a pony; if this be impossible his imagination gives life to a rocking-horse, and failing that he may tie a piece of string to a chair, and with great pleasure and much emotion urge on his fiery untamed steed across mountain and desert. He fulfils his wishes immediately by means of a phantasy, which, for the time being, successfully replaces reality. If this child grows up normally, this possibility of phantastic fulfilment should gradually disappear. How many adults, for instance, could take a bath-tub into their dining-room, sit in it, and with the aid of a vivid imagination thoroughly enjoy a pleasant sail at sea? We trust no one, at any rate of our readers, for they would be of that type which has no perspective, and they would most certainly fail in their vocation as practical men and women. Yet remnants of phantasy thinking remain with everyone, and in a moderate degree, so far as we know, such remnants do but little harm if they are present in small measure only, and kept in water-tight compartments.

Adult phantasy thinking very largely consists in what is known as identification, which may be either conscious or unconscious. Of this, we shall have more to say shortly. At the moment let us trace out what should happen to the normal child as it grows older. Education and environment should be gradually convincing the child of the unreality of its phantastic thoughts and of its early world, should be inducing it to think in terms of facts and to adjust himself to these facts, instead of attempting the impossible task of adjusting these facts to suit his own phantastic conceptions of them. The method of thought which he should develop in order thus to fit himself to meet the world adequately has been conveniently termed “directive thinking.” Directive thinking is controlled thought based upon facts seen in their true perspective, and with a purpose in view which is both definite and possible. It is the very opposite of phantasy thinking, which is generally indefinite, based upon a lack of perspective, and attempts continually to obtain the fulfilment of wishes impossible of fulfilment.

In directive thinking, the purpose in view must be purposive to the thinker, a change to be produced in the world, either in its happiness, its morals, its commercial prosperity or in other forms of progress or even of deterioration; or the purpose may be to effect changes in the individual’s own happiness or prosperity, or it may be directed towards a mental change in the thinker himself with no immediate idea of changes in his external surroundings.

Thus a man may wish to improve his own character by eradicating a bad habit. He may do this by thinking carefully about it, by analysing the causes of the habit, by giving himself auto-suggestion in opposition to the habit. All this, even if the habit may not in the end be eradicated must be classed as directive thinking. Directive thinking is thus obviously, controlled thinking requiring an effort of attention and concentration as opposed to phantasy thinking which knows but little control save that of desire, and little effort or concentration.

In all the business of everyday life, directive thinking must be employed; whether we are merely using our minds to decide the most trivial problem, such as the best way of eradicating weeds from the garden, or whether we are deciding upon a policy to be pursued in some great commercial or political enterprise. Every time we use our brains in directive thinking we are establishing a habit which gradually gives us power to produce changes in our environment and in the world in general. Every time we indulge in phantasy thinking we encourage the habit of living in a world of our own ideas, and we are destroying the habit which enables us to create in reality.

The two forms of thinking may, of course, overlap considerably. The novelist or playwright, for instance, is very largely a phantasy thinker. He may feel the emotions of the various phantasy characters which he evolves, but in order to arrange the words and sentences, and furthermore in having an idea to portray or in drawing attention to evils which he thinks should be remedied, he is using considerable energy in directive thought. So that it becomes obvious that directive thought need not merely apply to the things of the immediate present nor even the near future, and in trying to draw distinction between the two, one is often confronted with a superficial criticism, that certain ideas must pertain to phantasy thinking, because they can never come to pass. That, however, is quite incorrect. The possibility that an idea may come to fruition in two or three hundred years time, and that the thoughts which have been given to the idea must assist its growth and ripening, is sufficient to constitute these thoughts as directive.

We must now look at the second important element in the child’s early education, which would follow logically upon the first one that it should be made to face the facts around it; and that is, that in its games and occupations it should be encouraged, as far as possible, to take lines of directive thought, and not obtain its pleasures through phantasies only.

Thus, it would be much better to give him bricks to play with, so that he may use directive thought in designing and building a house, than to give him a ready-made toy, such as an engine wherewith he will merely carry out the phantasy of being a driver or a passenger and of travelling wheresoever he wishes. A toy wheel-barrow which he can take into the garden and fill with real stones and earth is far better than a doll which he will merely imagine to be something to be brought up like himself, which he will endow with phantastic life and feelings which are quite unreal. In fact, as far as possible, the child’s games and occupations should involve his doing something, rather than merely imagining something. Of course, imagination and phantasy will come into its games, and are bound to do so, but as much directive thought as possible should be added.