ABSTRACT

This chapter begins by explaining the theory that regression is a function of the process. The author calls this explanation of the ego psychologists therapeutic regression, according to which the analytic environment conditions a regressive process, which is a necessary condition for approaching the patient in psychoanalytic treatment. The critique of the ego psychologists' theory of therapeutic regression can be made through a simple question: if interpretation is able to demolish the defences, why is it not also able to modify them? The chapter deals with writers such as Meltzer and Resnik, who interpret separation anxiety from the point of view of the theory of projective identification and what underlies it—a theory of mental space, of the space of the internal world. That masturbation is the remedy most used to overcome solitude and jealousy in the face of the primal scene is something we all learned from the pioneer analysts.