Technical Aspects of Regression During Psychoanalysis1

The panel discussed two problems of psychoanalytic treatment: how to handle too little regression, and how to handle too much regression. As noted by a number of participants, in psychoanalytic treatment there is an optimum degree of ego regression to the extent that free association and the development of the transference neurosis can occur, yet with limits set so that the regression is at all times reversible. How to achieve this optimum degree of regression was the chief topic. In general, contributors presented cases or groups of cases illustrating the problems under discussion rather than systematic descriptive or diagnostic classification of patients having these two problems of regression. However, Douglass Orr suggested that too little regression was most frequently met in individuals seeking analysis for didactic reasons while too great regression was most common with borderline or psychotic patients. Although technical recommendations for handling these problems were at times specific, all recommendations could be easily subsumed under the general psychoanalytic principle that "you analyze the problem." The contributions can, for convenience, be grouped according to technical problems concerned with too little regression and those concerned with too much regression.

The phenomenon of too little regression was discussed in particular by Morris Brody and by Emanuel Windholz. Brody confined his comments to a special, though important group of analysands, namely, candidates for psychoanalytic training. He noted three problems in this special treatment situation which interfered with adequate regression by the analysand. These three include: (1) façade of normality behind which a number of candidates feel they must hide; (2) countertransference problems in the analyst in attempting a double role of therapist and teacher; and (3) a special intensification of the oedipal conflict wherein the analyst is like a father encouraging the student to explore th