Four cases (one analyzed) are adduced in support and illustration of the theory, previously proposed by several authors, that the repetition compulsion, although it seemingly may be operating in disregard of the pleasure principle, can be employed by the ego for its own dynamic and economic ends, within the pleasure principle. Conflict is displaced to an associated and more 'tolerable' idea, which then becomes the content of the repetition. The substituted idea is chosen in various ways. In one case, where there was Oedipal failure in consequence of

anxiety, there was fixation of impulse upon a trauma; in a second, where there was guilt in consequence of Oedipal success, there was regression to anality; in a third, where there was guilt over sibling aggression, guilt was displaced to loss of approval on other grounds, during the childhood of a hated sister. It is suggested that the displaced, repetitive pattern can be abolished only by abolition of the original conflict; by abolition, that is, of its latent rather than its manifest content.