Spero offers a thorough discussion of the contributions of many writers to understanding the nature and formation of screen memories, a discussion that cannot be usefully summarized in a brief abstract. Spero supports the use of a new term, portal detail, to designate a variant of the screen memory in which "distorted details" of an early memory recalled in analysis lead to a later memory which contains "record of the attempted emergence into consciousness of the source [early] memory in its full traumatic force." Such a portal detail has a screening function; it may be a symbol or a part-object. All this is greatly clarified by two striking case examples.