[Aggression, inanimate objects and fantasy of invulnerability].
Some highly aggressive children prefer to symbolize and express their inner experiences by toys, which represent "things" and not living creatures. The special function of this preference represents a defense structure of deanimation after traumatization. It implicates the phantasy, that inanimated objects are not part of the vivid dialogue and can "survive" every attack. Thus in the transferential relationship the deanimation can slowly be reanimated by borrowing the undestroyable aspects of a thing in combination with the suffering feelings of the therapist.
Göbel
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D000374:Aggression / Q000523:psychology*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003674:Defense Mechanisms; D005201:Fantasy; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008016:Life Change Events; D008297:Male; D009769:Object Attachment; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D010553:Personality Development; D011574:Psychoanalytic Theory; D011575:Psychoanalytic Therapy