The Play Element of Regression in the Psychoanalytic Process

In considering the forms of regression observed in psychoanalytic treatment, first consideration belongs to the formation, evolution, and resolution of the transference neurosis. The mobilization of a therapeutic regression, in which subjective experiences involving core developmental conflicts are re-experienced in the immediacy of the treatment, constitutes the transference neurosis proper. Other aspects of the psychoanalytic process are vulnerable to regressive reactions quite different from the therapeutic regression of the transference neurosis. These other regressions may provide formidable resistances and become uncontrolled.

Efforts to formulate aspects of an analysis other than the transference neurosis have tended to be caught up in controversy. The controversy involves whether such formulations do or do not, should or should not, detract from the crucial import of the transference neurosis as a defining characteristic of an analysis. For some psychoanalysts, an analysis in which a clear-cut transference neurosis does not develop is “only psychotherapy.” For other analysts, including myself, an analysis is defined by criteria of technique and an evolving process, and does not stand or fall on the extent of the transference neurosis (even though the formation of the transference neurosis may be the critical factor in determining