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There is a Chinese curse, I am told, to the effect: “May you live through a period of vital change.” This malevolent wish (or perhaps it should be considered a blessing) is very applicable to the psychoanalytic profession today and especially to our topic. Vital changes shake our complacency, challenge the status quo, upset our vested “models”; however, they do offer hope for a new perspective and a potential for reintegration, if we can tolerate the challenge and transition!
Not only are the premises underlying psychoanalytic thinking continually subject to question and reexamination — as well they should be — but among psychoanalytic constructs, the concept of Regression and its ramifications has involved controversy and perplexity throughout most of the history of our field.
First, to examine the word itself: Regression is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary (1971) as
The act of going back; a return or withdrawal, to the place of origin … a previous state or condition … back in thought from one thing to another; from an effect to a cause; relapse, … reversion to a less developed form …
Two opposing implications of this definition seem apparent: First, the undoing of progress and perhaps, a deterioration. Yet