Home > International Dictionary of Psychoanalysis > Regression

The Latin equivalent of regression means "return" or "withdrawal"; it also signifies a retreat or a return to a less-evolved state. There is no very precise psychoanalytic definition of the concept of regression. It is useful to introducs the idea of temporality. It could be said to represent an articulation between the atemporality of the unconscious, the primary processes, and the temporality of the secondary processes. Some analysts assign this notion a metaphoric value; it retains the connotations of a journey through time and the changes that will be necessary in psychoanalytic treatment.

Sigmund Freud introduced the notion of regression in The Interpretation of Dreams (1900a). The concept was necessary for his description of the psychic apparatus in terms of a topographical model, represented by an instrument whose component parts are agencies or systems with a spatial orientation. Excitation traverses the system in a determined temporal order, going from the sensory end to the motor end. In hallucinatory dreams, excitation follows a retrograde pathway. Dreams have a regressive character due to the shutdown of the motor system; the trajectory goes in the reverse direction, toward perception and hallucinatory visual representation. This regression is a psychological particularity of the dream process, but dreams do not have a monopoly on it. In the section of the last chapter of The Interpretation of Dreams titled "Regression," Freud wrote that "in all probability this regression, wherever it may occur, is an effect of a resistance opposing the progress of a thought into consciousness along the normal path. . . . It is to be further remarked that regression plays a no less important part in the theory of the formation of neurotic symptoms than it does in that of dreams" (pp. 547-548). In this last chapter Freud already distinguished between three types of regression: topographical regression, in the sense of the psychic system; temporal regression, in the case of a return to earlier psychic formations; and formal regression, where primitive modes of expression and representation replace the usual ones. He also noted: "All these three kinds of regression are, however, one at bottom and occur together as a rule; for what is older in time is more primitive in form and in psychical topography lies nearer to the perceptual end" (p. 548). This basic unity is central to his metapsychological use of the concept.

In Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905d) Freud implicitly invoked the idea of fixation, which is inseparable from regression. In "A Metapsychological Supplement to the Theory of Dreams" (1916-17f [1915]), he underscored the distinction between "temporal or developmental regression" (of the ego and the libido) and topographical regression, and the fact that "[t]he two do not necessarily always coincide" (p. 227). Then, in the twenty-second of the Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis (1916-17a [1915-17]), he distinguished two types of regression affecting the libido: a return to the earliest objects marked by the libido, which are of an incestuous nature, and a return of the entire sexual organization to earlier stages. Libidinal regression is only an effect of temporal regression, with a reactivation of old libidinal structures preserved by fixation. At that point he asserted that regression was a "purely descriptive" concept, adding: "we cannot tell where we should localize it in the mental apparatus" (pp. 342-343). In making this assertion, he retrenched from his earlier position and denied regression its metaphysical status, which it would regain only after 1920 with the second theory of the instincts. It then becomes constitutive of the death instinct and can threaten to destroy psychic structures, but also becomes a mechanism that can be used by the ego.

According to Marilia Aisenstein's article "Des régressions impossibles?" (Impossible regressions?), "Freud's reticence around the notion of regression in 1917 was linked to its relation to the first theory of the instincts and the first topography. He had difficulty in situating and formulating regression not only in topographical terms, but above all in terms of the libido and the instincts of the ego.... It then became necessary to separate regression from disorganization, as the latter was envisioned by Pierre Marty and the psychosomaticians of the Paris School.... If the retrograde movement is not stopped by regressive systems involving fixations, the end result can be a process of somatization." Regression is indispensable to the work of psychoanalytic treatment; it implies the notion of change and is part of the healing process, according to Donald W. Winnicott (1958). Regression is a form of defense and remains in the service of the ego. From the analyst's point of view, formal regression provides another way of listening.

MARTINE MYQUEL

See also: Acute psychoses; Amphimixia/amphimixis; Benign/malignant regression; Choice of neurosis; Defense mechanisms; Disorganization; Dream; Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense, The; Face-to-face situation; Fixation; Imago; Libidinal development; Libido; Maternal; "Metapsychological Supplement to the Theory of Dreams"; "Mourning and Melancholia"; Narcissistic withdrawal; Ontogenesis; Paranoia; Psychic causality; Psychic temporality; Psychoses, chronic and delusional; Psychosomatic; Psychotic transference; Representability; Sadomasochism; Self (true/false); Sleep/wakefulness; Stage (or phase); Suicide; Thalassa: A Theory of Genitality; Time; Wish, hallucinatory satisfaction of a.