Discussion of Peter L. Giovacchini's Article, Regressed States, Timelessness, and Ego Synthesis

Dr. Giovacchini discusses the state of ego regression and some aspects of its quality seen during analysis, especially of the socalled borderline patient, with particular reference to regression in the senses of time and identity. His main thesis concerns the therapeutic potential of the regressed ego state, “out of which,” in favorable cases, “structuralization” proceeds. His paper allows for discussion of at least five different topics—the constructive potential of ego regression during analysis, the sense of time, the sense of identity, the role of verbalization, specifically in promoting structuralization during analysis, and the extent to which inferences about infantile development may justifiably be made from observations of the regressed state in adults.

Central though they are to this thesis, I shall not discuss the sense of time (other than to remark that variations in this are not

specific to “analytic time”—time flies or drags for everyone in happy or miserable situations) nor the matter of identity (other than to remark that Dr. Giovacchini's defining it as “the person's view of himself at any particular moment” seems an interesting and potentially fruitful formulation). I shall instead limit my contribution to some ideas concerning the other three topics.

I start from the question as to how far understanding of the regressive state during analysis can be extrapolated to apply to our picture of the infantile state. Dr. Giovacchini is at pains to stress that the state of analytic ego regression “is far from identical with a preverbal neonatal ego”; but the fact that he also states that the two “approximate” and that some patients may “partially recapitulate a state preceding formation of the sense of being” indicates the importance to his thinking of those aspects of the regressive state during analysis which can be regarded as identical with that patient's infantile experiences, as well as those which are different. Dr. Giovacchini ascribes the differe