 |
This article is published in the book: "Psych 101 - What you didn't learn in nursing school." by Kathi Stringer Paperback: 320 pages ISBN-13: 978-0615193137 Order |
Regression
Written by Kathi Stringer
Revision A - June 5, 2001
What is regression?
Regression is the return to an earlier developmental phase. Regression is also a defense mechanism. Winnicott (early 1950s) “Regression is from genital to pregenital erotic experience of fantasy, or it is to fixation points belonging to the life of infancy in which pregenital fantasy is naturally dominant…typically, regression of this kind is from independence to dependence.”
What types of regression are there?
I will be discussing regression in child alters and regression as a life style. In the therapeutic environment I will be emphasizing on two types of regression, which are benign and malignant regression.
What is a Child Alter?
A child alter is the same as an inner child except for one major difference. An Alter is not integrated with the host and will not respond when ‘called’ back. For instance, if an adult is playing with a child, it could be said that inner child of the adult is also playing. But when the responsibility of the adult is summoned, the inner child will return and the adult can assume its role. However, a child alter may not return and continue to play. It is then an issue of communication. Some alters and the host are not aware of each other and in some cases and the host may lose track of time. Some dissociated persons may have alters that speak and help each other with communication or a co-opt system.
What causes regression or fixation?
It may be for a couple of different reasons. A person may regress when yielding to stress and return to an earlier level that provided satisfaction. Or a person may become fixated from trauma. For instance, an alter may be 2 ½ years old and its developmental phase arrested until integration can take place. Sometimes this is done through corrective parenting or “reenactment.”
What is reenactment?
Reenactment is the conscious or unconscious wish to re-experience the trauma in hopes for a better outcome. This is commonly done in the therapist’s office using psychodynamic therapy. “This compulsion to repeat earlier trauma in present relationships (the therapist) is presumably based on an attempt to master the trauma through repetition with the hope of a better outcome, or, through a role reversal, to turn an enduring sense of passive defeat into active victory” (Hedges 2000 – p.33, Terrifying Transferences). In order to recreate the trauma through regression in the office milieu, a therapist may use an interpretation tool called “transference.”
What is transference?
Transference is the notions, conflicts and emotional investments that belong to a person from the there-and-then (past) and transferred to the therapist in the here-and-now. In all cases transference is a distortion. These feelings that are now attributed to the therapist are in some cases examined and interpreted for meaning.
What do you mean by “transferred” to the therapist? How is this done exactly?
It is usually an unconscious reaction in the therapeutic relationship. Note the following vignette I will cover transference, regression and reenactment:
A 46-year-old patient that had a child alter that had a traumatic past with the mental health system was becoming increasing uncomfortable with her current therapist because of some of the material being uncovered (fear of intimacy, disclosure and criticism) in therapy. She was unable to link what was making her uncomfortable and suddenly announced that she was ‘untreatable’ thereby unconsciously avoiding the difficult subject matter in the present therapeutic relationship.
Transference in this example works this way: The patient unconsciously ‘transferred’ her notions and emotional investments from past failures of therapy and hospitalizations onto the current therapeutic environment to avoid delicate subject matter with her therapist. By labeling herself as ‘untreatable’, she attempted to dismiss the work in progress and sabotage the treatment in the here-and-now since prior treatment was traumatic and rejecting for her from the there-and-then. There is also a certain element of control in that the patient can sabotage the therapeutic alliance rather then wait for the expected impending doom based on past failures. In others words, “I’ll dump you (transference from the past) before you dump me (as what happened in the past).”
An astute therapist would grasp the impending dynamics and offer an interpretation as intervention. Notice that in this case we have a patient who had impulsed into regression – into the failures from the past. It could be said that patient used transference as a vehicle and regressed in an unconscious attempt to reenact, hoping for a better outcome.
How would a therapist use interpretation in your last vignette?
In a continuation of the last vignette the therapist ascribes to Sandor Ferenczi’s stance regarding treatability as Seinfeld (1993) elaborates, “He protested against the idea of the untreatable patient and believed that any patient who asked for help should receive it, regardless of the severity of pathology. He asserted that if a patient was untreatable, it was because the analyst or analysis had not yet devised the necessary knowledge or effective means of intervention.” In other words it was the method and not the patient that was inadequate.
Patient: “I don’t seem to be improving and it bothers me that I am using up so much of the community resources. I’m just not treatable. Other people come in here and use the services and get better, but me, I feel like I am chasing my tail.”
Therapist: “If you look at where you were a couple of months ago, you have improved.”
Patient: “Yes, to a point. But I’ve been diagnosed as borderline personality disorder. I’ve read material that when a client isn’t working, or able to maintain a relationship, both which involve complex people skills, that the chances are they are untreatable…. that is according to Joel Paris who writes for the APA.”
Therapist: “But you have been able to work in the past and we have patients here that have made use of our services longer then you have. The services are here, and we are here for as long as it takes. I see that you are making progress and the other therapist on the treatment team sees that you are as well.”
Patient: Long pause… “I don’t know. I’ve been at this for so long and this writer Dr. Paris; he ascribes my symptoms as being untreatable. I don’t think I should come back and just accept the situation as it is.”
Interpretation
Therapist: “Do you suppose by any chance there is something deeper going on here? Perhaps you are unconsciously reenacting past failures with other mental health professionals? Now that we are making progress, it frightens you, that perhaps there are issues of trust and now you what to run. You fear that I will fail you like you’ve been failed before. It is hard work and there is bound to be instances that scare you, but we can and will work through them. Do you suppose this could be going on?”
Patient: I don’t know, it could be. I know you are right, but it’s so hard. I need to think about it…okay, I will keep trying and come again.”
Hedges (2000, p. 202) “…which helped me to see that she was successful in recreating her irritated mother with me, and that she was setting me up to reject her….I interpreted her terror in connecting with me and feelings of being abandoned, as well her attempts to irritate me enough so that I would leave her. She took in the interpretation and calmed.”
When should an interpretation be done and how?
Usually it would be prudent for a therapist to establish a strong therapeutic alliance and a good enough holding environment before attempting an interpretation since it could be seen as a criticism of the patient. In supportive therapy positive transferences are used to help institute the ideal therapist-parent. In other words, if the therapist reminds the patient of a person or object the patient idealizes, then a therapist may use that distorted transference to help build the therapeutic alliance for patient compliance.
Once the therapeutic alliance is adequately intact the therapist may gently offer an interpretation. Seinfeld (1993 – p. 113) quotes Margaret Little on wording interventions, “Winnicott often spoke tentatively or speculatively. Interpretations were offerings that the patient was free to accept or reject. Winnicott would say, “I think perhaps…” or “I wonder if…” or “It seems to me as if…” rather then make an authoritative statement.”
How is an interpretation therapeutic?
In our last vignette the therapist drew a parallel of past treatment failures into the present. In doing so the therapist was able to arrest early termination of therapy by the hopeless, frighten patient. In this instance, interpretation was therapeutic in that it prevented early dropout in treatment.
What do you mean by “holding environment?”
The holding environment is a term coined by D. Winnicott to describe the maternal and parental functions of the therapist. Social workers can especially relate to this term since their task mostly consists of empathically holding the patient through means of appointments with doctors, living arrangements, therapeutic support and problem solving.
Winnicott did not project the term to mean actual ‘holding’ which is all together impracticable with contemporary treatment due to liable risks and distortion. Applegate & Bonovitz (1995) “Winnicott primarily employed the idea of holding figuratively.” Although it has been found that Winnicott did hold a patient’s hand in particular sessions to calm the patient and give a sense of his being there. Lawrence Hedges comforted his patients in much the same manner (Hedges 2000 – p. 195, Terrifying Transferences) “Her regressions initially took the from of an angry teen, a helpless child, and then a terrified infant. I sat next to her to help her stay present. Eventually, her regressions become so complete that only touch would help ground her.” However, Winnicott principally viewed the therapist’s attention, support, interpretations, validations and empathy in the therapeutic milieu as “holding” to reassure the patient that he was indeed present in an atmosphere of protection and trust, hence the term “holding environment.”
Could regression be a masque for repressed wishes?
Dr. Hedges (Hedges 2000 – p. 215, Terrifying Transferences) repeats a story that his friend Hedda Bolgar shares with him after she read In Search of the Lost Mother of Infancy.
Hedda told a story of how years ago there was a woman who was wanting this type of contact or touch, and Hedda sensed that it was somehow very important for her. The woman was being seen in some sort of facility. Finally the woman was able to say, “I just want to sit on your lap and nurse.” Hedda brought her a nursing bottle and milk and gave it to the nurse to warm (the nurse then thought Hedda was crazy!). As per the request, Hedda held her and let her nurse on the bottle. The woman was very happy. I believe this happened just once. The next day, she didn’t need to be held, but still wanted to suck on the bottle. The following day, she said, “There is still something else that I want, but I don’t know what it is.” Hedda said, “I think you want me to promise that I will never leave you.” That’s what’s behind so much of the yearning, that’s what we all want. I had never heard that said so clearly and cleanly. In that instance, by giving her what she thought she wanted, the woman was able to express what she really wanted – never to be abandoned.
As we have seen in this vignette regression may indeed be acting out for a repressed wish.
What is the difference between a benign and malignant regression?
The following explanations are aimed toward the professional’s treatment milieu.
In a benign “therapeutic regression the patient seeks recognition” Seinfeld (1993) In other words he seeks to restructure his internal mechanisms for a psychic rebirth before the defective development took place, Seinfeld (1993, p.94) “But from this regression the patient emerged much improved.”
A malignant regression takes the form of pleasure and gratification, rather then seeking internal structure change. It has the appearance of neediness while severely taxing the recourses of the therapist without making progress. A malignant regression takes on the illusion of satisfying preoedipal wishes of cuddling and tactile closeness when in reality a manifestation of gratification for genital libidinal strivings. Seinfeld (1993 – Interpreting and holding) recants Balint (1968) “…the patient never has enough of his own needs met. As soon as a need or wish is satisfied, it is replaced by a new wish or craving, equally urgent. The regression in such cases resulted in an addictive state that was difficult to handle and often proved, as predicted by Freud, intractable.”
What is a transitional object?
A transitional object is the love article of a child or adult that symbolizes some source of security. It could be in the form of a teddy bear, blanket, baby bottle, pacifier or diaper much like the baby blanket that the character Linus clung too in the comic strip “Peanuts.” It belongs to the child and is unchanging and dependable. Usually the transitional object is soft and cuddly with a pleasant smell that signifies mother or primary caretaker. Wright (1991b) explains that during the process of symbol formation, the space between infant and mother is filled by a transitional object that has the feel of the mother herself.
As an infant becomes more aware of his budding new world around him, his awareness that mother is unavailable at times is more acute. The transitional object symbolizes mother and bridges the gap between dependence and independence and vacillates the transition. As the child begins to actively play, he assigns roles to play items and his ability to freely resign those roles to various objects moves in the direction of independence. Jan Abram (1997, p. 4) states “Winnicott’s discovery of transitional phenomena emerged from his appreciation of how the baby separated from mother and developed a sense of self. For Winnicott the capacity to use the transitional space represented the ultimate in human development and signified the ability to “live creatively” and “feel real.” And “Winnicott saw the transitional object as the baby’s real first true creative act, a bridge between the worlds of fantasy and reality" (Grolnick and Barkin 1978). Through repeated episodes of mother’s absence, the child is able to tolerate longer periods of separations yielding to the transitional object. The transitional object is special in that it sets itself aside from other inanimate objects. While holding the object the infant differentiates between self and mother. David Levin (1985, p. 102) “Here, from among myriad enticing and intriguing objects, a special, transitional object is found, one which will ultimately bridge the gap between self and other.” The object soothes the child while the child is establishing independence during this ‘gap’, and realizes mother will ultimately return.
A transitional object for an adult may take the form of a medication prescribed by a doctor. The patient may feel more connected to the doctor taking the pills visualizing the doctor in a desired caretaker role. Winnicott (1959) “…it is true that the transitional object and the transitional phenomena are at the very basis of symbolism.” It may even be a doll or other such object given to a patient by a therapist the help establish a presence when the therapist is unavailable. The patient may cling to the object until a crisis passes or to feel a sense of comfort. Seinfeld (1993) “The therapist performing the holding function tries to provide the feel of mothering while maintaining for the patient the distinction that the therapist is not the actual parent.”
What is the difference between a transitional object and a fetish?
The difference between a transitional object and a fetish is that the love for a fetish is driven by sexual gratification or genital libidinal contentment but a transitional object helps satisfy an inner longing or emptiness. It is possible the object may serve both and create an internal unresolved conflict since the unusual sexual attraction is viewed as taboo. One may seek to disavow the taboo while clinging to the security of the transitional object. This may cause the individual to purge the objects while feeling a deep since of loss and confusion.
What is regression as a life style?
This case exemplifies how regression and transitional objects can merge into a life style.
The patient was born male and the oldest child in a family of four. He sustained great object and emotional losses during his childhood. His father was a prisoner of war for three years and brought the abuse home with him. The patient’s mother left with the threat on her life when the patient was about 5-years-old and the father secured custody. When depressed, the father would drink, return home and terrorize his children by beating them or threatening them with weapons or torture. Other times his bad temper would flare and he would fly into a rage for no apparent reason and the children lived in constant fear. They were intermittently passed to foster homes or relatives and other times lived on the street without food for weeks at a time. The patient recalls the following incident:
“Duepy, that poor kid. A terrified 2-year-old. We looked on in desperation as dad swung the rubber hose against his tender baby flesh. It was almost impossible to see the color of Duepy’s skin through his swollen green, blue and black body.
Again came the hose splitting the baby’s flesh. We begged him to stop. Dad’s face was red as it usually gets when he becomes worked up and out of control. He warned Duepy that he had better learn and stop forgetting how to put his pants on and now Duepy’s biggest lesson was yet to come. We were instructed to build a bond-fire outside and heat water to a boil. “For what?” I asked. Then came the unthinkable answer. Dad planned to pour the scathing water over Duepy as punishment to motivate him to remember to pull up his pants. When the fire was built, I sneaked Duepy into the bathroom and helped him get his pants on. Duepy was shaking. He was so scared. His little eyes pleading for some intervention. Someone to protect him, to hold him, to love him. I tried the best I could to calm him so he could show Dad what a ‘big boy’ he was without tears. I knew the tears would just make Dad angrier.
Duepy, a brave, beaten little baby pulled it together and showed Dad what a ‘big-boy’ he was by drying his tears and pointed to his pants – all pulled up. He must have been in so much pain with his swollen skin rubbing against those heavy jeans. For now, Duepy had a reprieve.
As many beatings I have received from my Dad, I don’t think none compared to how he beat Duepy day after day with whatever he laid his hands on. I don’t remember seeing a smile on his face, only a look of fright and confusion. Thinking back, I do not remember Duepy’s skin being free from welts or the shades of green and gray.
At times I wonder what ever happened to Duepy, if he survived his developmental years. I wonder what affect the senseless beatings had on his impressionable mind. I wonder if he was able to secure any healthy attachments of trust. I wonder about Duepy, the baby that never was, only a ‘big-boy’. I wonder….
During these traumatic years the patient would curl up nightly in the fetal position and enter into a fantasy that he had ideal parents. He imagined himself to be about 2-and-a-half-years-old, an age still in babyhood and yet able to express the autonomy of a toddler. It was only during these nightly regressions that the patient was able to drown out his core sense of deep emptiness. He sited this nightly ritual was his escape and used the fantasy to emotionally refuel from the harsh reality of the day. He carried his nightly regression with him into his twenties and became a very successful businessperson.
As the transitional objects became more and more a part of his daytime life, the patient became more disturbed over his behavior. He was afraid to share his ‘secret’ with anyone and visited the local libraries for clues to this conduct. He was able of locate two books, The Empty Fortress and Love is Not Enough by author and professor Dr. Bruno Bettelheim. He especially liked the book “The Empty Fortress” since the title seemed to relate to his empty-sense-of-self. He could relate to several of the books passages, particularly about one autistic child named Joey:
The Empty Fortress
When we first met Joey he looked very small and fragile for his nine and a half years…what he so desperately longed for…sitting on his counselor’s lap as she cuddled and fed him…
Regression as Progress: While some autistic children wish only to have another babyhood and infancy of this kind, most want to be reborn altogether…Do these children somehow know that basic trust, on which alone we build satisfying relations to others, it best acquired during the infant’s utter dependency on this mother, through the good mothering he receives? It is hard to believe they can know it, but something inside them must exert a powerful push in this direction, since they all want it so much and go to such lengths to recreate the situation…
…. Only two dangers may be mention. The first is that the child may find the experience so comforting that he wishes never to leave it again. The more so because physiological developments no longer provide the push and support for the steps in personality growth. The chronology of physical and neural maturation is by that age out of gear with the structuring of basic personality and personal relations. Thus the task may seem beyond him and the child settles for being dependently cared for, the rest of his life.
… Then the longing for infantile emotional experience may still induce him to be like a baby but with much of this armor intact… But there is also an entirely different type of regression: that of the adolescent who regresses out of deep inner need, or the regression we try to help our children engage in when the timing is right… Just because it is the most important progress the autistic child can make, the time, place and conditions for a symbolic re-experience of earliest infancy, if not life in the womb, must be his own spontaneous choice. It is essential safeguard against his permanent fixation at this way of experiencing the world… In short, he must have the conviction that his rebirth is self-chosen and self-regulated; that his development as a person from there on will proceed autonomously, with us as helper, not controllers.
Even if we had had it in us to give Joey the infantile care he longed for, and without reservation, he could not have felt it that way. More likely it would have been one more case of being overpowered by adults… Though more then ready to give babying care under difficult conditions and to mean it, they were not ready to do this with Joey because they cannot meant it if the child does not respond a little humanly… We do not believe that total dependent care does any good unless it is given with this conviction… For this reason we had to wait until Joey was ready himself. But if he was to gather the courage, he had first to believe that good human relations were waiting for him to enjoy…
Joey began to show more infantile behavior. It began with squirting water through the nipple of a baby bottle; he would not go so far as to suck from it yet. A few days later, he put a blanket around his shoulders and cuddled up in it. From now on for many months he was nearly always wrapped in a blankets covered up as he said, like a “papoose.” Still he could only permit cuddling and other infantile care so long as he did not have to recognize them as such… While Joey wanted more and more to start life over, he could not comfortably anticipate another infancy in which he was totally helpless… He liked to put a towel between his legs as if it were a diaper, and to urinate and defecate into that. He called “playing baby.”… Activities once shunned were now attractive if they could be made in to symbols of infantile care… Joey had long allowed his counselors and even Lou, his teacher, to hold him and carry him, had sat in their laps and let them cuddle him… On his own he let us know that now, after nine years (eighteen years old), it was time to leave us, and so he did.
A visit 3 years later:
Joey: There’s a very interesting thing I was thinking of. I can remember the time when Fae and Barbara would feed me at the dinner table. Well, I remember having a much grater feeling of comfort whenever this happened.
Bruno Bettelheim (B.B.): When they fed you?
Joey: Yes
B.B. By hand?
Joey: Yeah
B.B. That was an important experience to you?
Joey: Yes it was.
B.B. Very good. When was this? Right at the beginning?
Joey: It was just a little after that. I think it started just before the anniversary of my first year there. And they also did it with baby food, starting the same time.
B.B. Where did they give you baby food, in session or at the dinner table?
Joey: They gave me the baby food in session and in the dormitory on my bed.
B.B. At night or during the day?
Joey: At night particularly.
B.B. And that made you feel very comfortable?
Joey: Yes, at that time….yeah.
Cont… B.B. So you wanted to start life all over again, is that it?
Joey: Yes, it was a way of starting life anew.
B.B. By then you were ready for that?
Joey: Yes.
B.B. Did you have such fantasies of being born again?
Joey: Yes, I did.
Joey had gone on to study electronics while working a part time job after he left the school headed up by Bruno Bettelheim.
After reading about Joey and several other of the children presented in the book “The Empty Fortress”, the patient decided to contact Bruno Bettelheim. Upon contact the patient found that Dr. Bettelheim was already retired, but he promised to read a letter from the patient after a conversation on the telephone. With great anxiety and relief that patient wrote about his childhood abuse, the nightly regressions, the infantile transitional objects and infantile behavior. Within the month the patient received a response from Dr. Bettelheim. The patient recalled being terrified to open the letter fearing criticism and rejection but found quite the opposite and rather a wonderful empathic letter instead:
January 23, 1978
Dear [Patient]
I am writing you right away since I assume you are waiting for an answer. First let me assure you that your behavior is very understandable, given your life history, although it is true that most ordinary people won’t understand it. Be not afraid about having written me about it. I shall immediately destroy your letter, so that it can not fall into the wrong hands.
As you might know I am now quite old and live here in retirement, no longer able to work. So, unfortunately, I can not help you personally.
If what you do during the night provides you with relief you need, my advise is so continue with it, never mind what other people may think about it. Just keep it to yourself. The relief you give yourself during the night may well be what makes it possible for you to function during the day, and this is most important.
It is to be hoped, and it is reasonable to assume that this will be so, that when you fall in love with a girl who loves you and understands you, this will take care of your problems. Another possibility is that you seek treatment in some psychiatric clinic, but it will have to be one, which is staffed by sensitive and humane persons. Unfortunately I do not know whether such a clinic is available to you where you live. But it might be worth your while to look into it.
The severe emotional deprivations you experienced in childhood makes it practically absolutely necessary that you find something in your life that will compensate you for it. What you are doing is one way to do it. There might be other compensations, which you may be able to find in life. If you do, you will no longer need to do what you are doing.
I am afraid that is all I can say or do. But I certainly understand very well why you are doing what you are doing, and I wish you the very best luck for your future life, and that soon you will find some human being who will make up to you for all you missed, and then you won’t need it any more. So take courage, things, I hope will turn up for you. This wishes you, your
Bruno Bettelheim
Acting on Dr. Bettelheim’s advice, the patient did seek help but was unable to make a connection with a therapist successfully. The patient continued the nightly regressions until his personality split into the “child” that he fantasized about. The child took on a life of its own in the form of a child alter (Dissociative Identity Disorder – DID). This alarmed the patient and he continued to seek treatment. He entered therapy for 3 months and then discontinued treatment since the regressions and the dissociative periods persisted.
In the patient’s late twenties he entered into a program to change his sex hoping for relief. He reasoned that living as a female would be more acceptable to societal norms – that is, that childish behavior would be more acceptable in the female model then the male model. The patient did not disclose his present regression or dissociative episodes to the program director fearing rejection until the present problems were alleviated.
Once the patient entered into the program his regressive and dissociative symptoms began to subside. He attributed this to two reasons: 1.) the stress of the transformation distracted him from the regressions and 2.) his new feminine gender allowed an outlet for his babyish behaviors.
Once the gender reassignment was complete her regressive and dissociative symptoms were held in abeyance for the next eight years. In 1996 her symptoms returned due to severe depression and high levels of anxiety from legal and other problems. She was hospitalized for dissociating for six days in her child alter state. Staff was repulsed by the regressive childlike behavior and tormented her with their cruel statements, inside jokes and punitive measures. This activated post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from childhood abuse and she slumped into a deeper depression and continued her dissociative states. During the next 5 years she cycled through severe depression, ongoing PTSD, Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), DID and Bi-Polar Disorder with over 30 hospitalizations.
As of this writing, June 2001, the patient is currently in intensive therapy with a resourceful treatment team at Kaiser Permanente. She is working on her self-esteem and self-acceptance. Her goal is to integrate with her 2-and-a-half-year-old child alter and accept her childlike ways as a life style, and as she quoted Dr. Bettelheim, “Never mind what other people may think.” Her current M.D. Dr. Witkowski holds the same view and encouraged the patient with this statement, “Who cares what other people think? So what if you are different. You are an individual. Just be yourself and you should be proud of being yourself, and that is what makes you an individualist.” These words from her psychiatrist comforted her as much as Dr. Bettelheim’s letter.
Summary
Even though regression may be viewed as a return to an earlier developmental phase, from the point of this work, it can also be a way of life. Through the use of transitional objects imbued with infantile strivings, an individual may be able to compensate for missing internal components. As Dr. Bettelheim suggested, there may be other compensations as well and once secured, an individual may no longer need the regressive behavior and transitional objects. However, the imprint may be to the degree that the individual may not be able to function without them. In such cases it is imperative to have a certain degree of understanding from family, friends and therapists to block deterioration of self-esteem, which can lead to self-aggressive acts observed in suicidal ideation.
The regressive behavior is harmless in the physical realm and usually the seat of the problem is in the attitudes of others. To withstand the pejorative stance in the community an infantile individual must have a clear sense-of-self and self-reassurance. An unstable personality structure can lead to self-loathing, depression and dissociating. A significant other or family member that wishes to change the individual with emotional pressure and confrontations will discover that it will usually backfire and results in repression leading to destructive forms of acting out. The individual may begin to withdraw affection, repress anger and frustration turning it inward on self or isolate from the ‘badness of society’.
It has been noted that a transitional object is addictive, but it must be differentiated from self-medicating behaviors observed in alcohol and drug use. The object that is assigned meaning which soothes and comforts may be disturbing to a significant other that maintains the relationship should be sufficient without the need for a symbolic object or regressive behavior. Still, the individual’s internal structures are already mapped through years of behavior and wishes and to change the mental organization would be much like trying to assign different connotations to the American Flag. To do either would certainly be met with resistance and distain.
Regression may also take the form of a child alter(s) known as dissociative identity disorder (DID). Some individuals may be able to integrate while others are able to maintain separation in a co-consciousness agreement through therapy.
In the therapeutic environment I have covered two forms of regression. The benign regression denotes reassignment of mental mechanisms and experiences toward a resolved sense-of-self through the therapeutic interplay of transference and projections, while a malignant regression presents itself as chronic neediness that fixates therapy. Once one need is gratified and new and similar need must be urgently met that severely taxes the resources of the therapist without the promise of improvement.