The authors discuss the criticisms that have been raised by, for example, Jeffrey Masson and Alice Miller, against Freud for his alleged neglect of real traumatic life experiences in childhood in favor of an overvaluation of psychic reality and fantasy. They review Freud's writings to show the continuing emphasis he placed on traumatic events in the life history. However, the theoretical status of real events and the psychic consequences following from them are less well worked out in the theory. The repetition of the trauma in the dreams of those suffering from traumatic neuroses is a central issue yet to be explained. Two modalities for mastering