Difference between revisions of "Regression"

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regression (rÈgression)                  Freud introduced the concept of regression in                          longing for a protective father (Freud, 1927c: SE XXI, 22-4), and described
 
  
−
The Interpretation of Dreams in order to explain the visual nature of dreams.                              religion as 'a universal obsessional neurosis' (Freud, 1907b: SE IX, 126-7).
 
  
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Basing himself on a topographical model in which the psyche is conceived of                                  Lacan too considers himself      an atheist, having renounced the Catholic
+
[[regression]] ([[French]]: ''[[régression]]'')                 
  
−
  as  a series of distinct systems, Freud argued that during sleep progressive                                  religion of his parents (Lacan's brother, however, spent most of his life as a
+
The psychic reversion to childhood desires.
  
−
  access to motor activity is blocked, thus forcing thoughts to travel regressively                          Benedictine monk). Like Freud he opposes religion to science, and aligns
+
When normally functioning desire meets with powerful external obstacles, which prevent satisfaction of those desires, the subject sometimes regresses to an earlier phase in normal psychosexual development.
  
−
through these systems towards the system of perception (Freud, 1900a: SE V,                               psychoanalysis with the latter (S11, 265). Distinguishing religion from
+
"Regression," as a term, is closely connected to the term, fixation; the stronger one's fixations on earlier sexual objects (eg. the mouth, the anus), the more likely that, when a subject is confronted with obstacles to heterosexual satisfaction, that subject will respond by way of regression to an earlier phase.  
  
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538-55). He later added a passage to this section distinguishing between this                                  magic, science and psychoanalysis on the basis of their different relations to
+
Example: a normally functioning woman is dumped by her boyfriend and starts over-eating (thus regressing to the oral phase).  
  
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topographical kind of regression and what he called temporal regression                                       truth as cause, Lacan presents religion as a denial of the truth as cause of the
+
Regression can result either in neurosis (if accompanied by repression) or in perversion: "A regression of the libido without repression would never produce a neurosis but would lead to a perversion" (Introductory Lectures 16.344).
  
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(when the subject reverts to previous phases of development) and formal                                      subject (Ec, 872), and argues that the function of sacrificial rites is to seduce
+
In our example, the neurotic begins over-eating; the pervert gives up men and becomes a lesbian (a sexual identity that Freud saw as perversion, though many have since critiqued him on this point).
  
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regression (the       use of modes of expression which        are less complex than                          God, to arouse his desire (Sl l, 113). He states that the true formula of atheism
+
==Sigmund Freud==
 +
[[Freud]] introduced the concept of [[regressio]]n in longing for a protective [[father]],<ref>Freud, 1927c: SE XXI, 22-4</ref> and described [[The Interpretation of Dreams]] in order to explain the [[visual]] nature of dreams.
  
−
others) (Freud, 1900a: SE V, 548 [passage added in 1914]).                                                            is not God is dead but God is unconscious (Sll, 59) and echoes Freud's
+
Basing himself on a [[topographical]] model in which the psyche is conceived of as  a series of distinct systems, [[Freud]] argued that during sleep [[progress]]ive access to motor activity is blocked, thus forcing thoughts to travel regressively through these systems towards the system of perception.<ref>Freud, 1900a: SE V, 538-55</ref>
  
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      Lacan argues that the concept of regression has been            one of the most                          remarks about similarities between religious practices and obsessional neuro-
+
He later added a passage to this section distinguishing between this [[topographical]] kind of [[regression]] and what he called [[temporal]] [[regression]] (when the subject reverts to previous phases of development) and [[formal]] [[regression]].<ref>Freud, 1900a: SE V, 548</ref>                           
  
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misunderstood concepts in psychoanalytic theory. In particular, he criticises                                sis (S7, 130).
+
==Jacques Lacan==
 +
[[Lacan]] argues that the concept of [[regression]] has been one of the most misunderstood concepts in [[psychoanalytic theory]].  
  
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the 'magical' view of regression, according to which regression is seen as a                                         Beyond these remarks on the concept of religion, Lacan's discourse abounds
+
In particular, he criticises the 'magical' view of [[regression]], according to which [[regression]] is seen as a real phenomenon, in which [[adults]] "actually regress, return to the state of a small child, and start wailing."
  
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[[Real]] phenomenon, in which adults 'actually regress, return to the state of a                                    in metaphors drawn from Christian theology. The most obvious example is
+
In this sense of the term, "[[regression]] does exist."<ref>{{S2}} p.103</ref>
  
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small child, and start wailing'. In this sense of the term, 'regression does not                                 surely the phrase the NAME-OF-THE-FATHER, which Lacan adopts to denote a
+
In place of this misconception, [[Lacan]] argues that [[regression]] must be understood first and foremost in a [[topographical]] sense, which is the way [[Freud]] understood the term when he introduced it in 1900, and not in a [[temporal]] sense.
  
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exist' (S2, 103). In place of this misconception, Lacan argues that regression                               fundamental signifier whose foreclosure leads to [[Psychosis]]. However, this is
+
In other words, "there is [[regression]] on the plane of [[signification and not on the plane of [[reality]]."<ref>{{S2}} p.103</ref>
  
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  must be understood first and foremost in a topographical sense, which is the                               far from the only example. Thus the changes wrought by the [[Symbolic]] are
+
Thus [[regression]] is to be understood "not in the [[instinct]]ual sense, nor in the sense of the resurgence of something anterior," but in the sense of "the reduction of the [[symbolic]] to the [[imaginary]]."<ref>{{S4}} p.242</ref>
  
 +
===Temporal Regression===
 +
Insofar as [[regression]] can be said to have a [[temporal]] sense, it does not involve the [[subject]] "going back in [[time]]," but rather a rearticulation of certain [[demand]]s:
  
 +
"[[Regression]] shows nothing other than a [[return]] to the present of [[signifier]]s used in [[demand]]s for which there is a prescription."<ref>{{E}} p.255</ref>
  
 +
[[Regression]] to the [[oral stage]], for example, is to be understood in terms of the articulation of oral [[demand]]s (the [[demand]] to be fed, evident in the [[demand]] for the [[analyst]] to supply [[interpretation]]s).
  
 +
When understood in this sense, [[Lacan]] reaffirms the importance of [[regression]] in [[psychoanalytic treatment]], arguing that [[regression]] to the [[anal stage]], for example, is so important that no [[analysis]] which has not encoutnered this can be called completed.<ref>{{S8}} p.242</ref>
  
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described in creationist rather than evolutionary terms, although paradoxically
+
==More==
 +
The Latin equivalent of regression means "return" or "withdrawal"; it also signifies a retreat or a return to a less-evolved state.
 +
There is no very precise psychoanalytic definition of the concept of regression.
  
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Lacan argues that this creationism is actually the only perspective that 'allows
+
It is useful to introducs the idea of temporality.
  
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one to glimpse the possibility of the radical elimination of God' (S7, 213). In
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It could be said to represent an articulation between the atemporality of the unconscious, the primary processes, and the temporality of the secondary processes.  
  
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the seminar of 1972-3 he uses the term 'God' as a metaphor for the [[big Other]],
+
Some analysts assign this notion a metaphoric value; it retains the connotations of a journey through time and the changes that will be necessary in psychoanalytic treatment.
  
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and compares feminine jouissance to the ecstasy experienced by Christian
+
Sigmund Freud introduced the notion of regression in The Interpretation of Dreams (1900a).
  
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mystics such as St Teresa of Avila (S20, 70-1).
+
The concept was necessary for his description of the psychic apparatus in terms of a topographical model, represented by an instrument whose component parts are agencies or systems with a spatial orientation.  
  
 +
Excitation traverses the system in a determined temporal order, going from the sensory end to the motor end.
  
−
== def ==
+
In hallucinatory dreams, excitation follows a retrograde pathway.  
−
The psychic reversion to childhood desires. When normally functioning desire meets with powerful external obstacles, which prevent satisfaction of those desires, the subject sometimes regresses to an earlier phase in normal psychosexual development."Regression," as a term, is closely connected to the term, fixation; the stronger one's fixations on earlier sexual objects (eg. the mouth, the anus), the more likely that, when a subject is confronted with obstacles to heterosexual satisfaction, that subject will respond by way of regression to an earlier phase. Example: a normally functioning woman is dumped by her boyfriend and starts over-eating (thus regressing to the oral phase). Regression can result either in neurosis (if accompanied by repression) or in perversion: "A regression of the libido without repression would never produce a neurosis but would lead to a perversion" (Introductory Lectures 16.344). In our example, the neurotic begins over-eating; the pervert gives up men and becomes a lesbian (a sexual identity that Freud saw as perversion, though many have since critiqued him on this point).
 
  
 +
Dreams have a regressive character due to the shutdown of the motor system; the trajectory goes in the reverse direction, toward perception and hallucinatory visual representation.
  
 +
This regression is a psychological particularity of the dream process, but dreams do not have a monopoly on it.
 +
 +
In the section of the last chapter of The Interpretation of Dreams titled "Regression," Freud wrote that "in all probability this regression, wherever it may occur, is an effect of a resistance opposing the progress of a thought into consciousness along the normal path.
 +
 +
It is to be further remarked that regression plays a no less important part in the theory of the formation of neurotic symptoms than it does in that of dreams" (pp. 547-548).
 +
 +
In this last chapter Freud already distinguished between three types of regression: topographical regression, in the sense of the psychic system; temporal regression, in the case of a return to earlier psychic formations; and formal regression, where primitive modes of expression and representation replace the usual ones.
 +
 +
He also noted: "All these three kinds of regression are, however, one at bottom and occur together as a rule; for what is older in time is more primitive in form and in psychical topography lies nearer to the perceptual end" (p. 548).
 +
 +
This basic unity is central to his metapsychological use of the concept.
 +
 +
In Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905d) Freud implicitly invoked the idea of fixation, which is inseparable from regression.
 +
 +
In "A Metapsychological Supplement to the Theory of Dreams" (1916-17f [1915]), he underscored the distinction between "temporal or developmental regression" (of the ego and the libido) and topographical regression, and the fact that "[t]he two do not necessarily always coincide" (p. 227).
 +
 +
Then, in the twenty-second of the Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis (1916-17a [1915-17]), he distinguished two types of regression affecting the libido: a return to the earliest objects marked by the libido, which are of an incestuous nature, and a return of the entire sexual organization to earlier stages.
 +
 +
Libidinal regression is only an effect of temporal regression, with a reactivation of old libidinal structures preserved by fixation.
 +
 +
At that point he asserted that regression was a "purely descriptive" concept, adding: "we cannot tell where we should localize it in the mental apparatus" (pp. 342-343).
 +
 +
In making this assertion, he retrenched from his earlier position and denied regression its metaphysical status, which it would regain only after 1920 with the second theory of the instincts.
 +
 +
It then becomes constitutive of the death instinct and can threaten to destroy psychic structures, but also becomes a mechanism that can be used by the ego.
 +
 +
According to Marilia Aisenstein's article "Des régressions impossibles?" (Impossible regressions?), "Freud's reticence around the notion of regression in 1917 was linked to its relation to the first theory of the instincts and the first topography.
 +
 +
He had difficulty in situating and formulating regression not only in topographical terms, but above all in terms of the libido and the instincts of the ego..
 +
 +
 +
It then became necessary to separate regression from disorganization, as the latter was envisioned by Pierre Marty and the psychosomaticians of the Paris School..
 +
 +
If the retrograde movement is not stopped by regressive systems involving fixations, the end result can be a process of somatization."
 +
 +
Regression is indispensable to the work of psychoanalytic treatment; it implies the notion of change and is part of the healing process, according to Donald W.
 +
 +
Winnicott (1958).
 +
 +
Regression is a form of defense and remains in the service of the ego.
 +
 +
From the analyst's point of view, formal regression provides another way of listening.
 +
 +
==See Also==
 +
* [[Defense mechanisms]]
 +
* [[Dream]]
 +
* [[The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense]]
 +
* [[Fixation]]
 +
* [[Imago]]
 +
* [[Libidinal development]]
 +
* [[Libido]]
 +
* [[Maternal]]
 +
* [[Mourning and Melancholia]]
 +
* [[Narcissistic withdrawal]]
 +
* [[Paranoia]]
 +
* [[Psychic causality]]
 +
* [[Psychic temporality]]
 +
* [[Psychoses]]
 +
* [[Transference]]
 +
* [[Representability]]
 +
* [[Sadomasochism]]
 +
* [[Self]]
 +
* [[Sleep]]
 +
* [[Stage]]
 +
* [[Suicide]]
 +
* [[Time]]
 +
* [[Wish]]
  
 
== References ==
 
== References ==
 
<references/>
 
<references/>
 +
* Freud, Sigmund. (1900a). The interpretation of dreams. Parts I and II. SE, 4-5.
 +
* ——. (1905d). Three essays on the theory of sexuality. SE, 7: 123-243.
 +
* ——. (1916-17a [1915-17]). Introductory lectures on psycho-analysis. Parts I and II. SE, 15-16.
  
−
[[Category:Lacan]]
+
[[Category:Jacques Lacan]]
 
[[Category:Terms]]
 
[[Category:Terms]]
 +
[[Category:Dictionary]]
 
[[Category:Concepts]]
 
[[Category:Concepts]]
 +
[[Category:Freudian psychology]]
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[[Category:Sigmund Freud]]
 +
[[Category:New]]
 +
[[Category:Help]]
 +
[[Category:Treatment]]
 +
[[Category:Practice]]
 +
[[Category:Imaginary]]
 
[[Category:Psychoanalysis]]
 
[[Category:Psychoanalysis]]

Revision as of 18:00, 26 June 2006


regression (French: régression)

The psychic reversion to childhood desires.

When normally functioning desire meets with powerful external obstacles, which prevent satisfaction of those desires, the subject sometimes regresses to an earlier phase in normal psychosexual development.

"Regression," as a term, is closely connected to the term, fixation; the stronger one's fixations on earlier sexual objects (eg. the mouth, the anus), the more likely that, when a subject is confronted with obstacles to heterosexual satisfaction, that subject will respond by way of regression to an earlier phase.

Example: a normally functioning woman is dumped by her boyfriend and starts over-eating (thus regressing to the oral phase).

Regression can result either in neurosis (if accompanied by repression) or in perversion: "A regression of the libido without repression would never produce a neurosis but would lead to a perversion" (Introductory Lectures 16.344).

In our example, the neurotic begins over-eating; the pervert gives up men and becomes a lesbian (a sexual identity that Freud saw as perversion, though many have since critiqued him on this point).

Sigmund Freud

Freud introduced the concept of regression in longing for a protective father,[1] and described The Interpretation of Dreams in order to explain the visual nature of dreams.

Basing himself on a topographical model in which the psyche is conceived of as a series of distinct systems, Freud argued that during sleep progressive access to motor activity is blocked, thus forcing thoughts to travel regressively through these systems towards the system of perception.[2]

He later added a passage to this section distinguishing between this topographical kind of regression and what he called temporal regression (when the subject reverts to previous phases of development) and formal regression.[3]

Jacques Lacan

Lacan argues that the concept of regression has been one of the most misunderstood concepts in psychoanalytic theory.

In particular, he criticises the 'magical' view of regression, according to which regression is seen as a real phenomenon, in which adults "actually regress, return to the state of a small child, and start wailing."

In this sense of the term, "regression does exist."[4]

In place of this misconception, Lacan argues that regression must be understood first and foremost in a topographical sense, which is the way Freud understood the term when he introduced it in 1900, and not in a temporal sense.

In other words, "there is regression on the plane of [[signification and not on the plane of reality."[5]

Thus regression is to be understood "not in the instinctual sense, nor in the sense of the resurgence of something anterior," but in the sense of "the reduction of the symbolic to the imaginary."[6]

Temporal Regression

Insofar as regression can be said to have a temporal sense, it does not involve the subject "going back in time," but rather a rearticulation of certain demands:

"Regression shows nothing other than a return to the present of signifiers used in demands for which there is a prescription."[7]

Regression to the oral stage, for example, is to be understood in terms of the articulation of oral demands (the demand to be fed, evident in the demand for the analyst to supply interpretations).

When understood in this sense, Lacan reaffirms the importance of regression in psychoanalytic treatment, arguing that regression to the anal stage, for example, is so important that no analysis which has not encoutnered this can be called completed.[8]

More

The Latin equivalent of regression means "return" or "withdrawal"; it also signifies a retreat or a return to a less-evolved state. There is no very precise psychoanalytic definition of the concept of regression.

It is useful to introducs the idea of temporality.

It could be said to represent an articulation between the atemporality of the unconscious, the primary processes, and the temporality of the secondary processes.

Some analysts assign this notion a metaphoric value; it retains the connotations of a journey through time and the changes that will be necessary in psychoanalytic treatment.

Sigmund Freud introduced the notion of regression in The Interpretation of Dreams (1900a).

The concept was necessary for his description of the psychic apparatus in terms of a topographical model, represented by an instrument whose component parts are agencies or systems with a spatial orientation.

Excitation traverses the system in a determined temporal order, going from the sensory end to the motor end.

In hallucinatory dreams, excitation follows a retrograde pathway.

Dreams have a regressive character due to the shutdown of the motor system; the trajectory goes in the reverse direction, toward perception and hallucinatory visual representation.

This regression is a psychological particularity of the dream process, but dreams do not have a monopoly on it.

In the section of the last chapter of The Interpretation of Dreams titled "Regression," Freud wrote that "in all probability this regression, wherever it may occur, is an effect of a resistance opposing the progress of a thought into consciousness along the normal path.

It is to be further remarked that regression plays a no less important part in the theory of the formation of neurotic symptoms than it does in that of dreams" (pp. 547-548).

In this last chapter Freud already distinguished between three types of regression: topographical regression, in the sense of the psychic system; temporal regression, in the case of a return to earlier psychic formations; and formal regression, where primitive modes of expression and representation replace the usual ones.

He also noted: "All these three kinds of regression are, however, one at bottom and occur together as a rule; for what is older in time is more primitive in form and in psychical topography lies nearer to the perceptual end" (p. 548).

This basic unity is central to his metapsychological use of the concept.

In Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905d) Freud implicitly invoked the idea of fixation, which is inseparable from regression.

In "A Metapsychological Supplement to the Theory of Dreams" (1916-17f [1915]), he underscored the distinction between "temporal or developmental regression" (of the ego and the libido) and topographical regression, and the fact that "[t]he two do not necessarily always coincide" (p. 227).

Then, in the twenty-second of the Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis (1916-17a [1915-17]), he distinguished two types of regression affecting the libido: a return to the earliest objects marked by the libido, which are of an incestuous nature, and a return of the entire sexual organization to earlier stages.

Libidinal regression is only an effect of temporal regression, with a reactivation of old libidinal structures preserved by fixation.

At that point he asserted that regression was a "purely descriptive" concept, adding: "we cannot tell where we should localize it in the mental apparatus" (pp. 342-343).

In making this assertion, he retrenched from his earlier position and denied regression its metaphysical status, which it would regain only after 1920 with the second theory of the instincts.

It then becomes constitutive of the death instinct and can threaten to destroy psychic structures, but also becomes a mechanism that can be used by the ego.

According to Marilia Aisenstein's article "Des régressions impossibles?" (Impossible regressions?), "Freud's reticence around the notion of regression in 1917 was linked to its relation to the first theory of the instincts and the first topography.

He had difficulty in situating and formulating regression not only in topographical terms, but above all in terms of the libido and the instincts of the ego..


It then became necessary to separate regression from disorganization, as the latter was envisioned by Pierre Marty and the psychosomaticians of the Paris School..

If the retrograde movement is not stopped by regressive systems involving fixations, the end result can be a process of somatization."

Regression is indispensable to the work of psychoanalytic treatment; it implies the notion of change and is part of the healing process, according to Donald W.

Winnicott (1958).

Regression is a form of defense and remains in the service of the ego.

From the analyst's point of view, formal regression provides another way of listening.

See Also

References

  1. ↑ Freud, 1927c: SE XXI, 22-4
  2. ↑ Freud, 1900a: SE V, 538-55
  3. ↑ Freud, 1900a: SE V, 548
  4. ↑ Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book II. The Ego in Freud's Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis, 1954-55. Trans. Sylvana Tomaselli. New York: Nortion; Cambridge: Cambridge Unviersity Press, 1988. p.103
  5. ↑ Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book II. The Ego in Freud's Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis, 1954-55. Trans. Sylvana Tomaselli. New York: Nortion; Cambridge: Cambridge Unviersity Press, 1988. p.103
  6. ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Le Séminaire. Livre IV. La relation d'objet, 19566-57. Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Paris: Seuil, 1991. p.242
  7. ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Écrits: A Selection. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Tavistock Publications, 1977. p.255
  8. ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Le Séminaire. Livre VIII. Le transfert, 1960-61. Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Paris: Seuil, 1991. p.242
  • Freud, Sigmund. (1900a). The interpretation of dreams. Parts I and II. SE, 4-5.
  • ——. (1905d). Three essays on the theory of sexuality. SE, 7: 123-243.
  • ——. (1916-17a [1915-17]). Introductory lectures on psycho-analysis. Parts I and II. SE, 15-16.
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