The authors examine Freud's Introductory Lectures of 1917 for his views concerning the nature of symptoms and their relationship to dreams and parapraxes. The main theme they develop is that regression is never total and never receives the complete agreement of all psychic structures. A preconscious cathexis, identical in nature to a latent thought, remains aware of the eventualities of the situation and finds expression in the compromise of the symptom. The maintenance of this preconscious cathexis permits the work of analysis to take place by assuring the mobility and accessibility of the narrow and specific transference symptoms. The same preconscious