defenses aren't to be sneezed at... often the initial phases of therapy (which can last like four years or whatever) are about building trust and about... building defenses. use of fantasy can be a healthy defence. so long as it really isn't interfearing with your life to the extent that you aren't doing things that you need to do fantasy is a pretty healthy defence really.

i have fantasies of my therapist holding me and rocking me. i guess that in my fantasy i'm really quite small. 6 months old or something like that... i fantasise about it... and sometimes i feel this really painful longing for something that never can be. but at the same time i find the fantasy strangely comforting... kind of painful but good at the same time. weird... its a way of dealing, i guess. i feel faintly comforted that he is there... in my fantasy, i mean. feel kinda merged and safe. i don't feel so alone. i think i keep thinking about it because i need to feel the feelings. it would be so much more painful if i really properly remembered the longings that i felt when i was a child... the fantasy helps make the feeling manageable. a kind of lesser version of it that i can cope with.

coping is good.

a kind of self-soothing, i guess.

i've actually heard from somewhere... that a 'diminished fantasy life' can lead to problems. that... healthy people have a diverse fantasy life and they use that as a coping strategy. maybe the problem isnt' that you fantasise too much... maybe the problem (insofar as their is one) is that you are stuck on a particular kind of experience that you need to process... such that you keep thinking it over and over... it will change eventually. i guess the repetition of it is your mind showing you that you need to figure it out. once you have... and have processed it some... it should pass (or have less grip) yeah.