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The concept of regression is of fundamental importance to the ego processes underlying psychoanalytic activity. Freud's (1900) description of the three types of regression and of their significance as defensive reactions has led to many insights about the nature of the analytic interaction.
Today, some analysts believe that psychoanalytic treatment is effective in cases suffering from characterological problems. The regressive reactions of these patients can be studied in an ego-psychological context; and their potential as a positive integrative factor, as well as their defensive qualities, can be scrutinized.
Alexander (1956) and Winnicott (1955), among others, have considered regression in terms of its constructive potential in psychoanalytic treatment.
Rather than viewing regression in its total context, e.g., as a developmental vicissitude, or as an aspect of creativity (Kris, 1950), I wish to emphasize its role in analysis as well as the quality of the regressed ego state from which structuralization occurs during psychoanalytic treatment.
Various ego functions are highlighted during regression insofar as they lose their previous synthesis. The sense of time has been studied by many analysts (e.g., see Eissler, 1952, and Cohn, 1957) since Freud (1915a) postulated the timelessness of the unconscious. The regression of the time function will be discussed as an intrinsic factor in analytic integration.