ABSTRACT
Donald W. Winnicott’s theory of regression came to the fore in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Withdrawal or the withdrawn state is a type of regression that cannot be processed without the analyst acknowledging and meeting the patient’s need to be held. Regression to dependence, which is relevant to all patient groups, is to be distinguished from the “regressed” patient. Simply speaking, regression means a going back to a former stage of development. In analytic work, the patient’s regression to dependence is usually associated with re-visiting very early non-verbal experiences, which may often be linked with psychotic mechanisms. The regression of a patient is an organized return to early dependence or double dependence. Regression has a healing quality, since early experience can be corrected in a regression and there is a true restfulness in the experience and acknowledgement of dependence.
