The authors develop the concepts of integration and sealing-over, which refer to a patient's style of coping with stressful events, conflicting ideas, and disturbing affects during acute psychosis. The two processes, in some ways overlapping and in other ways rather opposite, are discussed in metapsychological and dynamic terms, with the operating principles viewed in terms of ego function. Sealing-over describes a process by which psychotic experiences and symptoms are isolated from nonpsychotic mental events and then made unavailable by both conscious suppression and by repression. Integration refers to a process in which a continuity is recognized between thoughts and feelings experienced during psychosis and those of prepsychotic and post-psychotic mental life. Although integration would appear to be preferable to most psychoanalysts, sealing-over may have advantages for some patients. Clinical examples are given to illustrate both types of adaptation.