Susan ponders this for some time as they walk. They're nearly to the lake again by the time she says, "Psychoanalysis would suggest that speaking about it, especially to someone trained in identifying, contextualizing, and counteracting resistances, would ultimately yield benefits such as reducing or altogether neutralizing whatever neurotic anxiety is serving as the foundation of these dreams." It must be a neurotic anxiety, rather than a realistic or a moral anxiety; she can't fathom how dreams of Narnia's ending would come from anything but her id.

Then, ruefully, and with an ironic sort of edge to her voice, she acknowledges, "Intellectualizing this is a defense mechanism and likely a resistance. Ingrid would lecture me. I rather think, though, that if I put all this in a little box and put that box neatly away, and do not look at it or touch it, then surely it should stay there and not bother me again."