Regression in service of the ego
Late in the 19th Century, a very conservative social observer, Gustav LaBon (1895/2022) proposed that crowds are inherently more primitive than individuals or small groups of people. He writes of the “crowd mind” and has very little good to say about the contagion that is produced by large assemblages. A somewhat less politically biased account was offered during the mid-20th century by Ernst Kris (1953) and his ego psychology colleagues (such as Heintz Hartmann and David Rappaport). Called “regression in the service of the ego” (RITSE), this dynamic should sometimes be called “regression in the dis-service of the ego”—for regression can sometimes be quite counter-productive regarding the adaptive functions that the ego psychologists so strongly admire.
However, in many instances, RITSE operates in a quite positive manner, at both the individual and collective level. For instance, as the individual level, we can point to Carl Jung’s (1963) regression and experience of madness as reported in Memories, Dreams and Reflections, his autobiography, . It all centers on the work done by Carl Jung between 1914 and 1930, following his intense period of self-experimentation from 1913 to 1916 known as his “confrontation with the unconscious.” (Bair, 2003) At his home in Küsnacht, near Zurich, Carl Jung would do his professional work in the morning and then turn a bit “mad” in the afternoon, carving stone sculptures, drawing intricate paintings (often mandalas) and writing down his creative and often quite aberrant thoughts in a notebook that became his Red Book (Jung, 2009).
While it is disturbing to conceive of a noted physician and psychotherapist like Carl Jung seeming to “lose his senses” part of the day, while serving as a guide to “sanity” for patients in the morning, it is also to Jung’s credit that he was able to manage this remarkable transformative process throughout this highly productive period in his life. He was regressing on behalf of the nurturing of his own ego. While Jung identifies this as his confrontation with the unconscious, Kris and his ego psychological colleagues would use the phrase, “regression in the service of the ego” to describe not only Jung’s creative work, but also the remarkable work done by artists, scientists, and spiritual leaders.
RITSE is a concept engaged by ego psychologists to describe a controlled, temporary, and partial relaxation of the mature ego’s critical and realistic functions. This ego-based process allows for access when we are asleep as well as when we are awake to primitive, unstructured, and often highly symbolic unconscious material, such as created by Carl Jung. RITSE is adaptive, unlike pathological regression, where an individual reverts to immature coping mechanisms under stress. RITSE provides “play space” and sanctuaries. The mature ego deliberately deploys this mechanism to retrieve preconscious or unconscious content, typically for constructive purposes such as problem-solving, insight generation, or creative expression. The “service” aspect means the ego initiates the process not as a defense against anxiety, but as an active strategy to overcome intellectual or emotional impasses. The desire to successfully engage this active strategy can be quite contagious when people come together. The group provides protection and collective assurance that members of the group are only going “mad” for a short period of time.
During the 1940s, Ernst Kris (1953) formalized the concept of RITSE, describing it as the means by which preconscious and unconscious material appears in the creator’s consciousness. Kris’ formulation helped shift ego psychology toward a more positive view of regression, linking it to creativity and innovation. In art and music, RITSE can manifest as a return to a childlike perspective. It is simple, fresh, and unencumbered by adult logic yet skillfully integrated into the final product. Within a group setting, the individual is free to engage in the same kind of simple, fresh and unencumbered thoughts and feelings. Supported by the neighborhood effect and perhaps a whiff of pheromones, the group member can regress—and engage in behavior that moves far beyond Le Bon’s “crowd mind.”
To gain a full appreciation of RITSE’s scope, it is important to note that regression occurs in at least three ways. We regress in time, revisiting our childhood and the collective history of our society and culture, possibly through our social unconscious (Hopper and Weinberg, 2019) or our collective unconscious (Jung, 1978). We also regress in our use of form and structure. This is where Ernst Kris’s perspective on RITSE in art comes into play, and where Jung’s Red Book is in full display. Third, there is regression in defensive structure. We deploy increasingly primitive defenses, such as repression and displacement (A. Freud, 2018), once again, not on behalf of coping with stress, but rather on behalf of some adaptive purpose.
