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In essence, Rolla defines his concepts of 'psychosis' and 'neurosis' in quantitative terms. Any person at a given moment in life faces difficulties that may threaten his established identity feelings, his ego organization, and the behavioral reactions to the milieu in which he lives. Different people will regress to different types of behavior that were utilized adaptively in previous situations before the ego was fully organized and shaped to control the demands of life. This regression includes not only the defense mechanisms but all other ego functions, autonomous or not, as described by Hartmann. The observer may see this behavior as inadequate, or as using elements not appropriate to the particular time of observation. For the patient, however, his behavior signifies some kind of waiting period in which he will retreat from contact with what we now call external reality. He is going through a period in which he is in more lively contact with his own internal psychic reality and in which the object representations allow him to reorganize his ego structure and function because of their meaning to his personality in a previous stage of his life. Internal love objects also represent a constellation that operates on the basis of processes predominantly in the area of memory. Hence, they relate not only to the present moment but are object constellations that belong to previous fantasies.
Rolla considers this phenomenon as 'regressive' because the person is operating according to fantasies that were appropriate in previous times. This type of regression, therefore, is a way by which the ego is provided with a sure basis of becoming secure, thus gaining the impetus for being reorganized. The regression is considered as the primary 'defense phenomenon' in the face of difficult current situations, and is usually accompanied by other defensive elements including projection, introjection, and utilization of more complex means to communicate the patient's confused