Do "flashbacks" represent obsessional imagery?

We describe three patients, all meeting DSM-III-R criteria for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), whose vivid, intrusive obsessional images had been diagnosed by previous treatment personnel as "flashbacks" of repressed childhood trauma. All three patients had been urged to engage in psychotherapy to "uncover" their putative repressed memories. However, serotonin reuptake antagonists produced prompt remission of the images and the associated obsessional and compulsive symptoms in all cases. It may be that in some patients, so-called flashbacks instead represent the very common obsessional images of OCD.