The Meta-Contrast Technique (MCT) was used to project, at the concrete perceptual level afforded by the test, two of the dilemmas confronting anxiety-ridden children: the threat against their uncertain sense of identity (revealed as fusion between the threat and the hero in the test) and the insufficiency of their defensive resources (revealed as anxiety "leaking" through the defensive structure reported by them). The subjects were 127 normal and 65 clinical children 4-16 years of age. Among reactions in the test serial subsequent to the "leaking" phase subjects showed regressions to such primitive strategies as direct denial, passive surrender and attempts to reinforce the unreliable strategy or to exchange it for a more sophisticated one. The above subgroups also differed with respect to clinical symptoms. Among children with fusion, the clinically most disturbed subgroup was even unable to mobilize any resemblance of a high-level perceptual defense. (Author)