The role of fantasy in adaptation: A study of homeless children.
Item
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Title
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The role of fantasy in adaptation: A study of homeless children.
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Identifier
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AAI9130311
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identifier
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9130311
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Creator
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Donahue, Paul Joseph.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Steven Tuber
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Date
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1991
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Psychology, Clinical | Psychology, Developmental
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Abstract
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The present study was intended to test the hypothesis that children with more structured and well-developed fantasies would better withstand the stress of being homeless, and would have more mature cognitive structures and more adaptive internal representations and interpersonal skills than their peers who lived in the same "welfare" hotel in New York City. It was based on the belief that their capacity for fantasy would provide these children with a means of interpreting the chaotic and often dangerous environment in which they live, and would allow them to respond to the crises and stressors that they face on a daily basis. It was also premised on the notion that the children with more developed fantasies would be better equipped to look with hope to the future, and would be able to envision more possibilities for themselves as adults.;These hypotheses were based on recent psychoanalytic and cognitive theories on the role of symbolic play and fantasy in development. A review of the literature on coping with stress and trauma had revealed that these advances had been largely ignored in discussions of resilience in childhood, in part because of the historical emphasis in academic psychology on logical reasoning and rational discourse.;Forty-Six children from the largest family shelter in New York City were tested for the study. Children were placed in high and low fantasy groups based on their movement scores on the Rorschach Test and their total creativity score on the Torrance Circles Task. As predicted, the high fantasy children scored consistently higher on measures of cognition and object relations. They were not rated higher on scales of their behavioral functioning and level of aspiration. In a surprising finding, it was determined that the high fantasy children had spent a significantly longer period of time at the hotel in which they currently resided.;Additional analyses revealed that children who had been homeless for an extended period had less adaptive object relations and less developed cognitive skills. Yet high fantasy children in this group still scored in the higher ranges on the cognitive tests, and they were apparently able to remain focused and organized in the face of this ongoing trauma. However their object representations did suffer, as their images of relationships were much less adaptive than those of the high fantasy children who had been homeless for only a short period of time.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
