Phantasies in evacuated children

In view of the many problems that are bound to arise in dealing with “displaced children” in Europe, we thought it might be useful to report the following cases, which illustrate the dangers in accepting accounts, however circumstantial, from children about traumatic situations which had occurred to them. The young child's difficulty in separating fact from phantasy is normally fairly pronounced. Under the impact of traumatic situations, such as personal injury, death or separation from the parents, this tendency to confuse fact and phantasy becomes still more marked.