Regression and Fixation—Considerations Concerning the Development of the Ego1

This paper is in a sense autobiographical since it is a condensed review of material published in many older papers, considered against the background of general developments in psychoanalytic thought. The papers here reviewed, sometimes with minor revisions of interpretation, are some dealing with preoedipal disturbances, with certain aspects of psychopathy, and with perversions, especially fetishism. While the original papers appeared as circumscribed studies arising from work with special clinical problems, it later became apparent that there were interconnections, and certain themes were repeated with varying clarity throughout different papers. Chief among these, although not specifically named, was the manifold interrelation of regression and fixation. In severe preoedipal disturbances due to traumatization from constitutional imbalances of the organism or from acute or long-sustained impact on it of an unfavorable external condition, the force of fixation appeared to play a larger role. There then tends to be an increase in narcissism, distortions in the ego development with marked increase and prematurity of the castration complex and more or less interference with good object relationship. In the most severe cases, an impairment of the full resonance of the oedipal crises follows, since it is too greatly invaded by elements derived from unresolved problems of body narcissism. This is in contrast to the dominance of regression as the main neurotic force in the psychoneuroses, where the failure to meet the emotional demands of the well-developed oedipal relationship institutes a partial backward movement to earlier way stations, minor fixation points, which might not otherwise be clinically manifest.

Other related questions are raised, notably consideration of certain problems of libidinal phase development, of female perversions, and of the origin of primary masochism. These are indicated as areas especially needing further study.