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This corresponds again to the age-old association of the ideas of death and rebirth which we see together so frequently in stupor. It is the psychology of wiping the slate clean for a fresh start. The development and symptoms of stupor furnish evidence in support of the hypothesis of this type of regression.
Variability is, therefore, the rule among offspring in the same family, and in some instances it is decidedly pronounced, but in all cases, the variation must be confined to the possible combinations of characters transmitted from parents and ancestors. The law of regression represents the tendency of the extreme elements of the race constantly to seek the middle or mediocre level.
I have more than once found occasion to lay stress on the importance of a distinction between progressive and retrograde mutations in previous lectures. All improvement is, of course, by the first of these modes of evolution, but apparent losses of organs or qualities are perhaps of still more universal occurrence. Progression and regression are seen to go hand in hand everywhere.
It is the source of all uneasiness, of life, and of love. "If, then, all organic instincts are conservative, historically acquired, and directed towards regression, towards reinstatement of something earlier, we are obliged to place all the results of organic development to the credit of external, disturbing, and distracting influences.
That is the probable basis for the suggestiveness which we concluded was a prominent factor in catalepsy. Indifference and stolidity may exist with those milder degrees of regression which do not conflict with one’s critical sense, and hence may be present without any false ideas. The next stage in regression is that where the idea of death appears.
The table for girls shown marked increase of all memory forms about the twelfth year. This relative increase is exceeded only in the fourteenth year for visual concepts. The thirteenth year shows the greatest increase for sounds and a remarkable regression for objects in passing from the lowest to the next grade above.
Frequently, I am inclined to believe usually, these movements result rather merely because there has been effected a psychobiological reaction, following the theory of psychophysical-progression, fixation and regression with involvement of the nervous paths most seriously affected or most easily disturbed.
This case exemplifies the principle of levels in the stupor reaction which we have found to be of great value in our study. These levels are correlated with degrees of regression, as a review of the symptoms discussed above may show.
The complicated mental machine lies idle for lack of steam or electricity. The typical ideational content and many of the symptoms of stupor are to be explained as expressions of death, for a regression to a Nirvana-like state can be most easily formulated in such a delusion.
Actually, hypnotists today always teach their subjects self-hypnosis so that any chance of dependency is obviated. Milton V. Kline, professor of psychology at Long Island University, postulates that hypnosis is primarily retrogressive. The theory that regression can spotlight personality disorders found in more infantile states is also widely held.
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