Is Fiction the Only way to Understand Nonfiction?

 This does not directly pertain to "Demon Haunted World", but it is pertinent to what I think we as a class are trying to reach in our understanding of what nonfiction is.  In my research for the paper that is upcoming, dealing with children's literature and imagination and their relationship, I came across a quote from Brunno Bettelheim's "The Uses of Enchantment"-"He can achieve... understanding, and with it the ability to cope, not through rational comprehension of the nature and content of his unconscious, but by becoming familiar with it through spinning out daydreams-ruminating, rearranging, and fantasizing about suitable story elements in response to unconscious pressures.  BY DOING THIS, THE CHILD FITS UNCONSCIOUS CONTENT INTO CONSCIOUS FANTASIES, WHICH THEN INABLE HIM TO DEAL WITH THAT CONTENT.  Suggesting that we exist in a world of "nonfiction" but we then teach our children through "fiction" to create a "reality" that then allows them to deal with the "facts" of life.  Perhaps the only way to understand nonfiction is through fiction? Ideas?