1The status of fantasy cannot be found within the framework of the opposition reality-illusion (imaginary). The notion of psychical reality introduces a third category, that of structure.

2Freud's theory of seduction (1895–97) is re-examined from the point of view of its pioneering and demonstrative value: it permits the analysis of the dialectic relationship between fantasy productions, the underlying structures, and the reality of the scene. This "reality" is to be sought in an ever more remote or hypothetical past (of the individual or of the species), which is postulated on the horizon of the imaginary, and implied in the very structure of the fantasy.