The ability to socialize and maintain positive contacts beyond the merely familiar, establishing links with the people around us and sharing situations, moments and positive experiences with them is fundamental to our complete development.

Friendships are going to be very important throughout life, but having someone with similar characteristics to your own with whom to share and experience is especially relevant during childhood and adolescence. And in many cases, some children come to make friends that don’t really exist in the real world but are very important to them: we are talking about imaginary friends . It is about this concept that we are going to talk throughout this article.

What is an imaginary friend?

An imaginary friend is an invisible character that does not exist in reality and is considered real or partially real by a child with whom he plays and interacts frequently and directly, and who is named and recognized in front of other people. The interaction and consideration of the existence of this being by the child may have a variable duration. Although we have talked about non-existent beings, sometimes the imaginary friend is an object or element to which the child gives the ability to be alive or interact, like a doll.

The creation and maintenance of imaginary friends usually occurs in young children , between two and eight years old. The friend in question usually has a protective or playful function, being its presence typical of situations in which the child is playing or feels afraid. The character in question can be a child like him or her, or animated beings with animal characteristics or even fantastic ones. Generally, the friend begins to be forgotten or disappear when the child begins to have a more fluid and positive contact with children and make friends, although it may take some time to disappear.

Explanations for this phenomenon in childhood

The creation of imaginary friends by children has been researched with great interest throughout history, and there are different approaches to it. Initially there was the idea that it was and was valued as the expression of some clinical problem, although research has shown that with exceptions this is not the case.

Initially , imaginary friends were considered to be the expression of affective problems linked to deficiencies such as lack of affection on the part of the parents, loneliness or lack of people of the same maturity level, or as a mechanism for compensating for what the children considered to be their weaknesses. Although in some cases this may be the case, especially in children who have been abandoned or who have suffered some trauma, it has been observed that this phenomenon can appear in any type of context.

Authors such as Jean Piaget, known for his studies on child development and the phases of acquisition of different mental abilities and capacities from a cognitive perspective, interpreted the presence of imaginary friends as an elaboration of the child as an attempt to explain reality that he or she was not capable of understanding, having difficulty in separating the real from the imaginary at the typical age of appearance of this phenomenon (between 3-6 years). However, children are capable of separating reality from fiction at these ages , often knowing that their imaginary friends are not perceptible to anyone else or even that they are the product of fantasy.

Another more recent theory values that imaginary friends are simulations of real beings that children use to practice real interaction situations and that serve to improve their understanding of the theory of mind (assuming and understanding that others have opinions, thoughts and perspectives different from one’s own).

Is it something pathological?

Although it does not happen in every child, the presence of imaginary friends is generally accepted as something normal that will pass in time. However, many parents show great concern when it happens to their children due to the possibility of witnessing some kind of mental disorder or pathology.

This concern makes some sense, since the truth is that the concept of imaginary friends supposes the existence of some characteristics that could resemble those of a hallucination or a delusion (the existence of a being that does not exist beyond the subject’s own mind, which is maintained in time, is perceived and considered real).

However, in the vast majority of cases it is not a pathological event but a normative one , being extremely frequent (although there is no consensus, some studies indicate that even about half of the children could have them) and that it usually occurs in a stage of life in which magical thinking is very active and in which there is great creativity.

In addition, the friend in question may have a role in child development : alleviating needs for companionship, projecting his ideal self or his own self-image, practicing for real interactions, rehearsing his theory of mind and the capacity to understand the other, or releasing anxiety by generating a fictional world in which he can abstract from various problems.

In fact, some studies even seem to indicate that the generation of imaginary friends (as long as it does not become the expression of affective deficiencies or generate an active distancing from real contact with others) far from being pathological may even allow the development of different skills, improving their future social competence, apathy, abstraction and creativity.

What to do?

Many parents may wonder how to act in the presence of imaginary friends in their children , a normal and legitimate concern. But as a rule, having imaginary friends is not something that requires treatment.

It is not advisable to punish, deny or ignore the existence of the imaginary friend, although the type of friend or personality he or she has should be valued. Neither should we try to force the child to do activities that take up too much of his or her time to avoid the existence of this friend. It may also be useful to try to encourage (without making it a forced and insistent practice that generates anxiety in the child) the approach to situations where the child can interact with other children.

The subject must be treated with respect. It should be taken into account that it may be a projection of our child’s fears or even a way of connecting with the world and communicating with you , so it may be relevant to hear at what moments it appears and the opinions that the child says his friend has about the world.

Less common aspects that can generate a response and should not be allowed is the fact that the imaginary friend is used as a justification or scapegoat for one’s own acts of aversion.

It can also be more worrying if it is observed that the child prefers to relate to his invisible friend than to the rest of the world and this leads to isolation , or that the friend’s personality is extremely violent or destructive. Although there are cases in which imaginary friends are maintained until adolescence, this is not very common and it should be appreciated that the child may be having some kind of problem.

Bibliographic references:

  • Benavides Delgado, J. (2007). The Creation of Imaginary Friends in Children: A Clinical Problem? Psychological Thesis [online] Available at: http://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=139012670006.
  • Taylor, M. (1999). Imaginary companions and the children who create them. Oxford: Oxford.