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It is by now commonplace to state that new discoveries and ideas do not grow out of ordered, logical trains of thought. Because of established conventions of presentation, however, scientific papers may deceive their readers in this respect. New thoughts often appear as unexpected offshoots, perhaps at moments when the innovator has started to work with something else; and they are often encrusted with emotional associations, much as the surfacing diver appears streaked with seaweed. In his writings on the psychology of creation, Kris (1950, 1952) coined the term “regression in the service of the ego” to account for these plunges. Since the ego concept is meant to summarize and integrate the defensive and adaptive functions of the subject, “regression in the service of the ego” denotes playing with primitive forms of thinking, with primary-process modes of functioning, while at the same time retaining contact with reality. The regression does not serve as flight from reality but as a means of enriching it with new perspectives. While schizophrenic regression is permanent, or at least protracted, creative regression is temporary
In his book The Emerging Goddess, Albert Rothenberg (1979) detaches himself from the Kris tradition. I shall return