You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
This is a superb and highly condensed summary of the role of regression in child development. After stating that 'temporal regression happens in regard to aim-directed impulses, object representations, and fantasy content; [and] topographical and formal regression in the ego functions, the secondary thought processes, and the reality principle', Miss Freud reviews drive and libidinal regressions and reminds us of the importance of considering all three forms of sexual regression, i.e., of object, aim, and method of discharge, as well as the 'scope and significance of the regressive movement…'. She then makes a vital distinction: drives regress to points of drive-fixation, but 'we have to guard against the almost automatic mistake to view the regressive processes on the side of the ego and superego in corresponding terms. While the former are determined … by the stubborn adhesion of the drives to all objects and positions which have ever yielded satisfaction, no characteristics of this kind play a part in ego regression… There is one distinguishing characteristic of ego regressions to be noted, irrespective of the various causative factors … the retrograde moves on the ego scale do not lead back to previously established fixation points. Instead, they retrace the way, step by step, along the line which had been pursued during the forward course. This is borne out by the clinical finding that in ego regression it is invariably the most recent achievement which is lost first.'
After outlining the normal uses of regression in development the author says: 'It happens just as often … that regressions, once embarked on, become permanent; the drive-energies then remain deflected from their age-adequate aims, and ego or superego functions remain impaired, so that … regression … becomes a pathogenic agent'. She knows of no criteria for clinically appraising whether 'the dangerous step from temporary to permanent regression has been taken already or whether spontaneous