The romantic fantasy and its vicissitudes: A self psychological reconsideration of “hysterical fantasy” and the eroticized transference

Abstract

In this paper, I attempt to investigate the essential function of the romantic fantasy. I clearly differentiate the romantic fantasy from the sexual fantasy, and define the romantic fantasy as an archaic narcissistic fantasy in which a woman patient experiences herself as the only woman to whom a man is attracted and whom a man wishes to protect and support. As long as she believes that this fantasy is realizable, she experiences herself as being in the center of the world and she feels secure, protected, and whole. Based on a psychoanalytic consideration of a Japanese play script, Sotoba Komachi, I hypothesize that the essential function of the romantic fantasy is to deny the fear and pain of aging and death. Through a clinical vignette with a female patient, I prove the validity of my hypothesis and illustrate that a romantic fantasy provides for an individual a basic sense of security and a sense of immortality. I contend that a romantic fantasy functions to neutralize the destructive quality of a sexual fantasy and make it productive. In order to avoid confusion, I focus on romantic fantasies given by female patients, although a male patient can also develop a romantic fantasy.

Keywords:

• Narcissistic fantasy
• self psychology
• central organizing fantasy
• transference love
• sexual fantasy
• sense of immortality

Notes

¹In the “Komachi legend,” Komachi is described as a woman who was in love with many men in her early days, but comes to lose interest in dating men and rejects all their advances (Koga, 2004). Komachi gives Captain Fukakusa a difficult task (visit her a hundred times) in order to repel him. In Japanese fairy tales, it is stereotypical that a young woman rejects the men who ask her out and sets demanding tasks for a man so that he can never give up dating her (see, for example, Princess Kaguya, discussed by Katsuta, 2003)