ABSTRACT
Historically, regression has been considered a disruptive pathological state representative of a psyche that is disintegrated, disordered, and in need of reparative work. Put the pieces back together again (often pharmaceutically) according to the medical model of health and disease and the linear assumptions on which it rests. Classical psychoanalytic thought, while recognizing the defensive and reparative nature of certain aspects of regressive states (Fenichel, 1945; Freud, 1955), did not consider them, holistically, as adaptive evolutionary processes that occur throughout the life span. To view regression within an evolutionary perspective is to acknowledge its inherent creative potential for the development of new psychic structure. It also substantiates the clinical work that self-psychologists and analyst—following the lead of D. W. Winnicott in particular—are doing, especially with severely regressed patients.
