Smith extends Arlow's metaphor of psychic reality as a screen on which external events and fantasy life are simultaneously projected. He reconsiders the concept of reconstruction in two clinical vignettes: in one, the patient's discovery of her creative role in "constructing" the past, proves liberating; in the other, interpretation of the patient's disavowal of her knowledge of the facts of her past experience makes her past accessible to her. Smith emphasizes the complexity of psychic reality, and the need to consider the contributions of external reality, fantasy, and developmental revision to reconstruction in the clinical setting.