ABSTRACT
Romantic ideation has properties that differentiate it from other forms of thought. The characteristics of romantic ideation are perhaps best observed in the adult who is romantically in love. As J. M. Barrie expressed in his novels and plays, the child regards as living and conscious, a large number of objects that adults view as inert. Romantic ideation develops during the period between two and eight years when the child uses representational thought while in the egocentric cognitive state. Such systems contribute to romantic ideation, but the major roots of romantic ideation are found in the realism, animism, and artificialism that dominate the child’s first way of knowing the world. Beginning in that darkened bedroom with a child’s perception and wish for love and a depressed mother’s wish for a lost boy, and a lost girlhood, Barrie excluded from consciousness the first images he had of himself. Spontaneously, Barrie invented the script, pausing to photograph the boys or jot down ideas.
