Regression

1. Etymology

Regression names the backward movement of libido to an earlier mode of adaptation, often with infantile fantasies and wishes. Compare progression. Related: depression; individuation; rebirth.

2. Plain summary

When forward adaptation stalls, energy falls back—into memory, mother-imago, inferior function waiting in the wings. Causally it looks like fixation; finally it can be the psyche’s way of retrieving associations needed for a new advance (sexual system into spiritual, for example). Sharp: regression as adaptation to the inner world from the vital need of individuation; looking back outward into depression instead of into its depths is the trap.

Samuels contrasts Jung with Freud’s largely negative view: from 1912 Jung insisted on therapeutic, regenerating aspects of periods of regression (without denying harm in prolonged unproductive regression). Creative regression within the work; incestuous fantasy as contact with grounds of being that must eventually be lived onward. Heroic myth: expose oneself to the maternal abyss and not be permanently swallowed.

Examples (exhaustive house list for this Index lemma — common regression motifs named across Jung’s essays and standard Jungian lexica; not a claim that Jung’s CW contains only these):
backward libido movement; infantile fantasies; vs progression; adaptation to inner world; depression as portal or trap; inferior function activated; causal mother-fixation vs final memory associations; hero / maternal abyss; regeneration prior to advance; creative regression in analysis; kinship with rebirth / death–rebirth.

3. Academic elucidation

In analytical psychology regression is the energic back-step—complementary to progression—read both causally and finally. Lexica (Sharp; Samuels pp. 129–130) supply paraphrase Do not invent loci. Engage Freud at his best; note contemporary psychoanalytic revisions (Kris, Balint, Winnicott) as Samuels does without importing them as Jung’s voice.

4. Lexicon

Sharp (1991)

Regression. The backward movement of libido to an earlier mode of adaptation, often accompanied by infantile fantasies and wishes. (See also depression; compare progression.) … Regression … as an adaptation to the conditions of the inner world, springs from the vital need to satisfy the demands of individuation. … From the final point of view, therefore, regression is as necessary in the developmental process as is progression.

(Sharp, 1991) — cites CW 8 ¶75, ¶65, ¶¶43f; CW 5 ¶625; CW 7 ¶261.

Samuels, Shorter & Plaut (1986) — regression pp. 129–130

regression Jung’s attitude towards regression differed markedly from Freud’s… From 1912 onwards, Jung insisted on the therapeutic and personality enhancing aspects of periods of regression (without denying the harmful nature of prolonged and unproductive regression)… Regression may be seen as a period of regeneration, or retrenchment prior to subsequent advance.

(Samuels, Shorter, & Plaut, 1986/2013, pp. 129–130)

5. CW concordance — sample, not exhaustive

Regression, on the other hand, as an adaptation to the conditions of the inner world, springs from the vital need to satisfy the demands of individuation. Man is not a machine in the sense that he can consistently maintain the same output of work. He can meet the demands of outer necessity in an ideal way only if he is also adapted to his own inner world…
(Jung, 1928/1969, CW 8, p. 60, ¶75) Dual progression untouched.

If we remember that the stoppage of libido was due to the failure of the conscious attitude, we can now understand what valuable seeds lie in the unconscious contents activated by regression. They contain the elements of that other function which was excluded by the conscious attitude…
(Jung, 1928/1969, CW 8, p. 55, ¶65)

According to the concept of finality, causes are understood as means to an end. A simple example is the process of regression. Regarded causally, regression is determined, say, by a “mother fixation.” But from the final standpoint the libido regresses to the imago of the mother in order to find there the memory associations by means of which further development can take place…
(Jung, 1928/1969, CW 8, p. 40, ¶¶43–44)

…looking back for something that used to be outside, instead of looking inside, into the depths of the depressive state. This looking back leads to regression and is the first step along that path. Regression is also an involuntary introversion… Depression should therefore be regarded as an unconscious compensation…
(Jung, 1912/1967, CW 5, p. 646, ¶625) Dual depression DEPR-1 untouched.

…there lie at the root of the regressive longing, which Freud conceives as “infantile fixation” or the “incest wish,” a specific value and a specific need which are made explicit in myths. It is precisely the strongest and best among men, the heroes, who give way to their regressive longing and purposely expose themselves to the danger of being devoured by the monster of the maternal abyss. But if a man is a hero… he did not let the monster devour him, but subdued it…
(Jung, 1928/1966, CW 7, p. 233, ¶261)

See also: progression; depression; libido; individuation; rebirth; regressive-restoration-of-the-persona; persona; religious-attitude.

References

Jung, C. G. (1966). The relations between the ego and the unconscious. In H. Read, M. Fordham, G. Adler, & W. McGuire (Eds.), The collected works of C. G. Jung (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.) (2nd ed., Vol. 7, p. 233, ¶261). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1928)

Jung, C. G. (1967). Symbols of transformation. In H. Read, M. Fordham, G. Adler, & W. McGuire (Eds.), The collected works of C. G. Jung (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.) (2nd ed., Vol. 5, p. 646, ¶625). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1912)

Jung, C. G. (1969). On psychic energy. In H. Read, M. Fordham, G. Adler, & W. McGuire (Eds.), The collected works of C. G. Jung (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.) (2nd ed., Vol. 8, pp. 40, 55, 60, ¶¶43–44, ¶65, ¶75). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1928)

Samuels, A., Shorter, B., & Plaut, F. (1986). A critical dictionary of Jungian analysis. Routledge.

Sharp, D. (1991). Jung lexicon: A primer of terms & concepts. Inner City Books.