Thus, we see in the conceptions of Carl Jung the synthesizing of numinous, patterns (fractals), and synchronicity.
Going a Bit Mad: Regression in the Service of the Ego
I also want to gently introduce Carl Jung’s experience of madness and propose that Mitch Lauridsen himself experienced a bit of madness. It all begins with 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. While Jung identifies this as his confrontation with the unconscious, other psychoanalytically inclined theorists have used a phrase to describe not only Jung’s creative work, but also the remarkable work done by artists, scientists, and spiritual leaders. They introduced a concept called “regression in the service of the ego (RITSE).”
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.
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.
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.
