This child patient engaged in diverse enactments throughout treatment. Identifying the unconscious conflicts underlying these was complicated due to the preverbal nature of the material and the overlay of multiple traumas that influenced the language and content of her communications. Her impulsivity appeared associated with constitutional preferences for intense motoric forms of discharge. In the transference, she revealed concerns about physical survival and the capacity to breathe. Two dominant conflicts were revealed through her activity: ambivalence about dependency and ambivalence about damaging impulses. Through activity. she also defended against psychic disintegration, sought an experience of bodily containment, and partially satisfied annihilistic urges. Comments about using countertranference when bombarded by dreadful enactments are included.