The question of trauma and that of revenants are discussed in relation to a clinical vignette. The patient, who was in treatment during adolescence in the context of a traumatic loss that hindered the work of mourning at the heart of the process of adolescence, returned to treatment as a young adult. The recognition and elaboration of hatred – in terms of its differentiating function –, which was the driving force behind the link between the first and second treatments, allowed the unsymbolized traumatic elements to find their place in subjective historicity, paving the way for representation and what would was probably the ‘cold core’ of childhood trauma.