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The fact that behind a patient's pathological symptoms and fearful fantasies can be found the memories of experiences which have actually occurred, was an integral part of the theory Freud adhered to until his change in approach with regard to trauma (1895). Freud's move towards a theory that emphasized the importance of intrapsychic factors rather than interactive ones is generally seen as the event which allowed psychoanalysis to define its own specific object of study, namely the intrapsychic world, based on unconscious processes, and relatively independent from the extrapsychic world, based instead on facts which “actually happen”.
Today, nearly a century after that historic turning-point, it seems time to reflect once again upon the degree of freedom enjoyed by the intrapsychic world when compared to real experience. By now, the existence of an intrapsychic reality is no longer called into question. Instead, discussion centres on the links between intrapsychic experience and the other areas of the more general system of biological