The psychoanalytic concept of après-coup: theoretical and clinical aspects - The psychoanalytic concept of après-coup is discussed in detail. Aprèscoup is the French expression for the Freudian term Nachträglichkeit, which was translated in English (in Strachey’s Standard Edition) as deferred action, and in Italian as posteriorità. This important concept refers to the retrospective attribution of meaning in the sense of looking back, a posteriori, as a moment of reorganization of one’s personal history in light of later events. The paper is divided in two parts: in the first part, the theoretical aspects of après-coup are examined in their complexity, while in the second part its clinical implications are discussed, also with some clinical examples. The French psychoanalytic approach of Jacques Lacan, who worked on the concept of après-coup, is also considered. [KEY WORDS: après-coup, Nachträglichkeit, deferred action, psychoanalytic theory, Jacques Lacan]