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It can be a real challenge for caregivers to meet with patients whose life stories are often marked by major discontinuities and breakdowns: how can they identify repetition in order to get back into the game? How can we avoid getting tangled up in meaningless and repetitive instances of acting out in order to lead patients towards the elaboration of what animates them? What possible encounter can take place with someone who cannot tell his/her story? Through a clinical study, the author questions and tries to identify the repetition processes as a personal expression of what is still unrecognizable for an individual. She offers an understanding of how what repeats itself is a precious trace of what has been experienced and how we can learn to accept and understand elaboration within institutions in order to offer a containing frame of work.