Introduction: Fantasy and the child's fear of infanticide -- Part I -- Childhood -- "I don't like to think of myself as a giraffe": the fantasy of a three-year-old girl -- Mighty mouse: the birth and death of a defensive fantasy -- Four children who insisted they belonged to the opposite sex -- "I didn't come out of my mother's stomach": a fantasy that took three years to evolve -- The fantasy of "a dog that didn't deserve to be a child" -- The inhibition of fantasy and the predisposition to kill -- The inhibition of fantasy: a case of infantile autism -- Part II -- The later years -- A worthless child and a noble parent -- The need for a distorted parental image -- The unconscious fantasy of an abandoned child -- A girl's obsession with marrying her father -- The persistence of childhood fantasies in an adult -- The dear, the fantasy, and the hope of being loved -- Toward a mature society
