everything is dramatized, where even the traumatic events are artefacts of the imagination, and in which the few real events are subsequently entirely distorted through phantastic elaboration. We can simply say, that there is not a single case of neurosis, in which the emotional value of the preceding event is not considerably aggravated through the regression of libido, and even where great parts of the infantile development seem to be of extraordinary importance, they only gain this through regression. As is always the case, truth is found in the middle. The previous history has certainly a determining historic value, which is reinforced by the regression. Sometimes the traumatic significance of the previous history comes more into the foreground; sometimes only the regressive meaning. These observations have naturally to be applied to the infantile sexual events too. Obviously there are cases in which brutal sexual accidents justify the shadow thrown on sexuality, and explain thoroughly the later resistance of the individual towards sexuality. Dreadful impressions other than sexual can also sometimes leave behind a permanent feeling of insecurity, which may determine the individual in a hesitating attitude towards reality. Where real events of undoubted traumatic potentiality are wanting—as is generally the case with neurosis—there the mechanism of regression prevails. Of course, you could object that we have no criterion for the potential effect of the trauma or shock, as this is a highly relative conception. It is not quite so; we have in the standard of the average normal a criterion for the potential effect of a shock. Whatever is capable of making a strong and persistent impression upon a normal person must be considered as having a determining influence for neurotics also. But we may not straightway attribute any importance, even in neurosis, to impressions which in a normal case would disappear and be forgotten. In most of the cases where any event has an unexpected traumatic influence, we shall find in all probability a regression, that is to say, a secondary phantastic dramatization. The earlier in childhood an impression is said to have arisen, the more suspicious is its reality. Animals and primitive people have not that readiness in reproducing memories from a single impression which we find among civilized people. Very young children have by no means that impressionability which we find in older children. A certain higher development of the mental faculties is a necessary condition for impressionability. Therefore we may agree that the earlier a patient places some significant event in his childhood, the more likely it will be a phantastic and regressive one. Important impressions are only to be expected from later youth. At any rate, we have generally to attribute to the events of earliest childhood, that is, from the fifth year backwards, but a regressive importance.