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This paper approaches certain aspects of the Theresa of Lisieux’s fantasy during her preadolescence and puberty. It reveals psychic conflicts marked by death and violence, as well as by the strength of the oedipal affects and an impossible sexuality. It tries to show that while the psychic reality of “little Theresa” is far removed from the sweetened image we usually make of it, it nonetheless reveals the quality of the work of life instincts and the strength of a remarkable process of maturation which was able to gradually transform a pathological and deadly psychic organization into a life-oriented dynamic.