ABSTRACT
In the simplest type of wish-fulfilment, such as the hallucinatory gratification in infant mental life posited by S. Freud, a wish directly instigates the process but intention plays no role in the satisfaction of the instigating wish: these are sub-intentional phenomena. Representations or pictures of wished-for states of affairs—wishful phantasy or fond memory—may be generated intentionally, though not yet for the purpose of achieving wish-fulfilment. Wish-fulfilment is itself either intended or is instrumental to another form of self-solicitude that is intended—and, for reasons to be explored, it must be intended unconsciously. The ground-breaking applications of this theory to wish-fulfilment may be found in J. Hopkins and Andy Sims. The simplest forms, hallucinatory wish-fulfilment and most dreaming involve only non-intentional mechanisms operating in primitive mental conditions. Some compensatory daydreams and masturbatory phantasies are obvious examples of this kind, as are, less obviously, some forms of wish-fulfilling symptom and enactment.
