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A review of the literature on the theme of imaginary companions reveals a continuum in the phenomenon, going from the virtual transitional object of the child playing to the manifestation of a pathological structuring where the imaginary companion becomes confused with the persecutor, invested in a hallucinatory fashion. The goal of the present research is to attempt to identify a critical approach to enrich interpretation of this plural phenomenon. The conceptions associated with the double, or doppelgänger, by Rank, Freud and Nathan are enlisted here. Deriving from the original repression, the theme of the psychic double can be seen to be a representation of the limits to the ego. This assumption continues on the lines of research by Sigmund and Anna Freud on the defensive value of the imaginary companion, while works by Nagera, Benson and Pryor insist on the role of narcissistic reinforcement and those of Amado and Costes situate this symptom in a pathological condition of the transitional space.