… the analyst is prepared to wait till the patient becomes able to present environmental factors in terms which allow of their interpretation as projections … Sometimes the analyst needs to wait a very long time.— D. W. Winnicott

CERTAIN PATIENTS RECOUNT OR RECONSTRUCT in analysis traumatic events which have occurred in their childhood. The question has sometimes been raised as to whether we treat this type of material differently from other analytic associations furnished by the patient. And if so what are the differences? Ever since Freud's discovery that the traumatic sexual seductions of his hysterical patients revealed themselves to be fantasies based on infantile sexual wishes, analysts have been wary of mistaking fantasy for reality. Nevertheless there are many "real" events which leave a traumatic scar upon our patients—such as the early death of a father, having a psychotic mother or a childhood handicapped by illness. When these events are within conscious recall they inevitably present us with specific