The author reports on working psychotherapeutically with refugees who are ‘victims’, or rather ‘survivors’, of torture. He argues for the importance of understanding their experience of loss and also considers the problem of the recovery of painful memories by suggesting that these patients are trapped by the need to remember what they only wish to forget. As illustration he presents clinical material on patients suffering from anxiety states, sleeplessness and terrifying nightmares resulting from imprisonment and torture, and focuses on the specific aspects of transference and countertransference that emerged in their therapy.