ABSTRACT
Regression in the service of the ego has become an important criterion for differentiating creative from pathological psychic activity. While controlled regression has not been dissected into its ego components, creativity—one of the few fields in which people may study this special type of ego functioning—has been subdivided into inspiration and elaboration. Kris contends that the inspirational aspect of creativity reflects the primary process mode of emergence of the id material into consciousness. This controlled inundation of the ego would naturally invite a comparison to the uncontrolled primary process flooding of the regressed ego with id derivatives in pathological mental states. Psychoanalytic writings on creative imagination frequently demonstrate that the same id material in varying inspirational content appears and reappears at different times in a creative mind. The alteration from personal enactment to creative enactment can be ascribed to the dissociative function of the ego.
