Chasseguet-Smirgel discusses a clinical example of the reconstruction of an incident from the oedipal phase of one of her patients. The patient remained without any recall of the incident. The author uses this construction without recollection to discuss the general status of constructions, suggesting that the restoration of the missing piece of the puzzle occupies a necessary place in the total psychical organization of the patient as it is actualized in the transference. She argues that we may thus place in parentheses the question of the historical reality of the reconstructed event when we view the reconstruction as a part of the analytic process itself. She also suggests that the lack of recall on the part of the patient, who nonetheless accepts the reconstructed event with a sense of conviction, may be explained if we realize that one is, in effect, confronting the ego not so much with lost memories as with a part of itself from which it was separated and to which it now has access.