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The essential point of this presentation can be summarized very briefly. In the analysis of symptoms the specific danger which the ego is warding off must be carefully delineated in relation to the emergent instinctual wish which has been regressively reactivated and which has become the source of conflict. Both the nature of the id impulse and the content of the threat which it signifies are represented at some level of psychic activity in the form of a phantasy. The phantasy represents a specific version of how the ego integrated the demands of all components of the psyche and of reality. The phantasy reflects in its composition the immature state of ego functions and the misconceptions of danger current at the time when the id wish pressed for gratification. In analysing a symptom, therefore, it is essential to be able to place the underlying phantasy in its proper context in the history of the patient. Because a considerable degree of ego development is necessary for the structuring of intrapsychic conflict, the basis of symptom formation in the psychoneuroses is to be found rather late in the period of infantile sexuality.