so just FYI this intro can be a little bit emotional when I was a kid growing up and maybe you did some of this stuff too I felt like I caused my mother's terrible feelings or I felt like I caused her drinking I felt like I caused her reactions and caused her heavy burdened life by not being a good enough kid and at a very young age I would think that I would have the power to change her life and make her happy if I was good. It's like a superhero thing and we lived in this chaotic ratty house on the block which I was deeply ashamed of. So another thing I would do is I would often think that the reason that our house was messy or trashy looking or the lawn was messed up was because I wasn't diligent enough to water it or somehow fix the big patches of dead spots or the holes in the ground. And I also thought that if I could make all of that happen then I could be the family hero, which actually is really terrible for kids.
And underneath how I was thinking about the lawn—like if I could just make the lawn better it would change my alcoholic or my messy family system, like it wouldn't be that anymore if the lawn was nice. Another thing I did to give you some insight on how young children developmentally deal with stress is when my mother would drink and drive with us in the car, which was nearly a daily experience for us, my siblings and I would hold on to the passenger side door or armrest and pretend to steer the car to compensate for my mother crossing into other lanes. We'd magically think that the armrest handle on our '83 Buick Skylark was a joystick like in a spaceship and we pretended to have some control, a magical way to have some control to deal with the terror.
If you can't get a visual on what I'm talking about, some of those old car doors would have this armrest handle and you'd hold on to the thing. Anyway, all of those beliefs are examples of magical or superstitious thinking and I'm giving them in context of myself as a child before puberty, which is where our brain changes to think more abstractly. During and after puberty the child is now able to really get that the door handle isn't going to save you, that the lawn isn't going to change, or you don't have the power to change your parents' moods or situations—including your own.
But there's a big "but" here. For childhood trauma survivors, the magical thinking usually carries over into our adulthood and we need to deal with it in our recovery in some way at some point. At the heart of growing up in childhood trauma is really to experience developmental delays of all kinds. Some of us can be rock stars at our job performance or functioning, but we have a very underdeveloped mastery over conflict and intimacy. Some of us can be profoundly emotionally intelligent but have an underdeveloped sense in terms of daily functioning or daily self-care.
When I got to therapy the carryover of my childhood magical thinking was the immature survival ideas that I still had, like "if I don't feel it, it'll go away." I had a big magical thinking fantasy that a ship was going to come in and somehow rescue me—it was going to come into my life at some point, like winning the lottery. I also had magical thinking about that I caused other people's reactions to me, always looking for negative meaning-making about why someone maybe didn't get back to me, thinking it was definitely something I did as opposed to a million other alternatives of why that happened.
What is Magical Thinking? So let's get into a little bit about what is magical thinking. By definition, magical thinking is the belief that one's ideas, thoughts, actions, words, or use of symbols can influence the course of events in the material world—in reality. Just like the car door joystick thing, or the belief that as a 7-year-old I should be a qualified landscaper or a contractor, or the belief that as a 5-year-old I should be able to meet my mother's emotional needs like a therapist would. The belief that my thoughts and actions or words are the only factors in why some of my relationships didn't work.
Magical thinking is a big topic and it covers things like superstition, OCD symptoms, anxiety, catastrophizing, neuroticism, forecasting disaster—like "if I can't stop thinking about this horrific thing, it's definitely going to happen today." For our purposes, for me, the magical thinking as a boy is wrapped up in survival combined with a normal developmental phase of concrete thinking that kids have. For example, a 4-year-old will cognitively accept factually that "if you're good, Santa's really going to bring it this year," where older kids might be like, "it's a little sketch."
Young children are vulnerable to abuse around causation due to that developmental stage. Like if you've ever heard or thought these as a kid: "It's your fault things go wrong." "I can't make Mom and Dad stop fighting." "I'm just not interesting enough to make Mom spend time with me." "You ruined your sister's birthday." Notice how all of those are about explaining events.
There are really good reasons why we get stuck developmentally and carry this causation meaning-making into our adulthood. For example, our inner child pops up when a friend is in distress, and that inner child says, "This wouldn't have happened if we hung out with them last week when they asked us to." Or our inner child says our partner will want to spend more time with us if we are less needy or boring. See how that's around causation meaning-making, concrete thinking, magical thinking.
Four Examples of Magical Thinking So here are four examples of childhood-based magical thinking. I'll define each one as well as give examples about how it might have originated in childhood and how it manifests in our adult lives. As a side note, magical thinking is really akin to denial, but magical thinking is usually a way to explain the denial that we're not kind of privy to—like in a subconscious way. And we'll look at these from the lens of a child surviving in an unsafe family system, not from a place of harsh judgment about why we might do these things.
Magical Thinking Example #1 Number one is: if I ignore it, it will go away and resolve without action. It's really like blind optimism. This might be the most significant one on the list. When children aren't getting any help with abuse—emotions ranging from neglect to physical abuse—a good strategy is to not get slowed down by feelings about the problem or the problem itself.
Some examples: a child in the middle of a divorce stops feeling the big feelings about it and pretends it's not real, thinking the parents will just work it out. A child with a parent with substance abuse problems thinking that "this time, this birthday, this family event will be the one that the parent is sober for." A neglected child not being prepared for a school assignment and casually thinking that the teacher will help them with their science project at recess the day it's due. Or a child deciding they're fine after a horrific domestic violence situation at home and thinking they're just going to be happy for Mom and Dad.
Denial and repression are really good strategies for kids who aren't getting any help or healthy parenting. But trauma always has a way of biting us in adulthood. Magical thinking in adults looks like ignoring relationship problems and unhappy marriages until it's too late, ignoring abusive family members' patterns, ignoring medical problems thinking they'll just go away, or detaching during stressful events like heated conflicts. All rooted in childhood strategies. Often crossover happens with codependency and dissociation. Magical thinking keeps dysfunctional relationships going—it's one of the main ingredients of trauma-based codependency.
Magical Thinking Example #2 The second one is anxiety-management-based magical thinking. Children have an amazing imagination. Healthy parents can foster imagination but also help children deal with fear from a place of comfort. But in unsafe homes, magical thinking gets reinforced.
Examples: a child hears their parents worrying about a gas leak, with no reassurance, and becomes obsessed with gas leaks. Or they develop rituals like believing a rabbit's foot keychain means their sibling won't get hit that day. Or thinking that making their bed is why Dad didn't leave after threatening divorce. Or they pick up contamination thinking—like believing Aunt Betty ruined the family when she moved in, or that silverware at restaurants will always make you sick.
As adults, this can turn into OCD-like rituals, hypervigilance, safety issues, codependency, superstitious religious or spiritual practices ("if I don't pray today, bad things will happen"), extreme control over environment, or contamination fears in relationships and health.
Magical Thinking Example #3 The third one is Clairvoyance. This one's odd. It's the belief that fears or anxieties coming true mean you can predict the future. Children might see their parent model this ("I knew the dog would get hit by a car today"). Or they become fearful when their own anxieties come true, believing they are clairvoyant.
Adults may grow up with constant anxiety about predicting bad outcomes, making immature or codependent choices, or testing abusive partners ("if they call me back, it confirms my vision this will work out"). It's tied to abusive parents' grandiose, manipulative modeling.
Magical Thinking Example #4 The fourth is rescue-based magical thinking. My mother lived in this—fantasizing her ship would come in, usually in the form of a man with resources. This also looks like believing the lottery or a magical relationship will rescue you. Or geographical cures—"if I move to New York, my life will finally be cool."
Adults can live in perpetual fantasies of rescue—through romance, education, jobs, or housing just "falling into their lap." Or conversely, believing mistakes are forever (bad marriage, poor career, failed education) with no hope of change. Both are magical thinking.
What to Do About All of This? Here are some recommendations: – Notice the ways you might have subtle or big magical thinking and write them down. – Go through the four categories and see how they apply to you, rooted in your childhood. – Call them out with your inner adult—not to stop them immediately, but to recognize them.
Reframe obsessive or magical thinking not as flaws but as childhood survival strategies that no longer serve you. They were there for good reasons, but they don't work now.
Final Thoughts The biggest takeaway: of course you have magical thinking, because in childhood you had no help. Magical thinking was a way to have some power over the nightmare you were in. You brought some magic into it, and that kept you going. Think about it that way instead of blaming yourself.
