A personal fable, in child psychology, refers to the impression that adolescents experience that signify personal uniqueness and indestructibility. For teenagers to maintain a world of perfect uniqueness and indestructibility they may create these fictitious worlds in which they thrive. Imagine a girl who has trouble finding a boyfriend or even getting a date. She may overreact to this sense of rejection and distress by creating a personal fable of a boy 2000 miles away that is madly in love with her.
It is important to understand the personal fable concept when working with teenagers in any capacity. Most adolescents exist under the preconceived notion they cannot die, be hurt, or lose. Whether they express this feeling is irrelevant. Most harbor it. Furthermore, the adolescent does not conceive this as lying but as creating a truth that is just not existing yet or is temporal. In the terms of most parents: it is a phase. It will pass. However, it is important to note how dangerous it can be when a child lives convinced that they are invincible coupled with constructing their own reality.