Regression (psychology)

Regression (German: Regression), according to psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, is a defense mechanism leading to the temporary or long-term reversion of the ego to an earlier stage of development rather than handling unacceptable impulses in a more [adaptive] way. The defense mechanism of regression, in psychoanalytic theory, occurs when an individual's personality reverts to an earlier stage of development, adopting more childish mannerisms. Psychiatrist Joel Gold suggests that careful use of "ARISE" (Adaptive Regression in the service of the Ego) can sometimes yield creative benefits. To the extent that one is handling thoughts and impulses less like an adult, ARISE involves play, appreciation and primitive pleasures, and imagination.

Freud saw development, fixation, and regression as centrally formative elements in the creation of a neurosis. Arguing that 'the libidinal function goes through a lengthy development', he assumed that 'a development of this kind involves two dangers - first, of inhibition, and secondly, of regression '. Inhibitions produced fixations; and the 'stronger the fixations on its path of development, the more readily will the function evade external difficulties by regressing to the fixations'.

Neurosis for Freud was thus the product of a flight from an unsatisfactory reality 'along the path of involution, of regression, of a return to earlier phases of sexual life, phases from which at one time satisfaction was not withheld. This regression appears to be a twofold one: a temporal one, in so far as the libido, the erotic needs, hark back to stages of development that are earlier in time, and a formal one, in that the original and primitive methods of psychic expression are employed in manifesting those needs'.

Behaviors associated with regression can vary greatly depending upon which stage the person is fixated at: An individual fixated at the oral stage might begin eating or smoking excessively, or might become very verbally aggressive. A fixation at the anal stage might result in excessive tidiness or messiness. Freud recognised that 'it is possible for several fixations to be left behind in the course of development, and each of these may allow an irruption of the libido that has been pushed off - beginning, perhaps, with the later acquired fixations, and going on, as the lifestyle develops, to the original ones'.

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