Two Principles of Reparative Regression: Self-Traumatization and Self-Provocation*

Clinical concern with regression has been accelerating in all schools of analytic theory. Balint7 has reviewed Freud's promptings and perplexities in this area. The recent renewal of interest in the theory of anxiety (Waelder, Rangell) and in the dynamics of trauma (Furst et al.) has advanced the recognition of potentially positive functions in some regressive experiences (Frosch et al. and Lindon et al.). Earlier publications by Ferenczi and Balint on the therapeutic uses of regression may now be re-examined with the rich equipment of more than three decades of both ego psychology and object-relations theory.

This report will attempt to develop and formulate some suggestions of theory and technique for two principles of constructive regression within character analysis, self-traumatization and self-provocation. An extended case example will illustrate the principles and procedures to be developed. I propose to view both principles as expressions of the discriminatory function of the ego (Hacker), with self-traumatization as a successful masochistic acting out, and with self-provocation as a successful repetition compulsion. Both types of success will be considered as manifestations of an even more basic principle of regression, that of reparation; the reparation of object relations by self-traumatization, and the reparation of narcissistic resources by self-provocation.