Regression in Service of the Ego
Blog series: part 2
Regression in Service of the Ego
How Mothers Grow by Momentarily Letting Go
What Is Regression in Service of the Ego?
We often think of regression as something negative — a slide backwards into immaturity or dysfunction. But in the psychological world, not all regression is unhealthy.
In fact, a specific kind of regression — known as Adaptive Regression in the Service of the Ego (ARISE) — is not only healthy, it’s essential for early motherhood.
Coined by Heinz Hartmann and further developed by Ernst Kris, Schafer, and others, ARISE describes the ego’s ability to temporarily loosen control in order to access deeper feeling, imagination, and intuition — all without losing overall stability. It is a flexible, reversible, and purposeful descent that supports transformation.
Why Mothers Regress — and Why That’s a Good Thing
In her dissertation The Psychological Birth of the Mother, Betty Lynn Moulton applies this concept of ARISE to the experience of new mothers. She explains that this ego function is what allows a mother to enter into Primary Maternal Preoccupation (PMP) — the deep attunement state described in Part 1.
“The capacity to experience PMP depends upon a strong ARISE function.”
— Betty Lynn Moulton, 1991
This means the mother must temporarily relinquish her usual adult defenses and multitasking mind in order to enter a more fluid, intuitive, emotionally attuned state — one that feels “regressed” but is actually in service of her growth and the baby’s needs.
Vedic Wisdom Meets Modern Psychology
In the Vedic tradition, there is a deep understanding that transformation often arises from stillness, surrender, and inward turning — pratyāhāra (withdrawal of the senses) and chitta vṛtti nirodha (stilling the fluctuations of the mind) are not considered regressions, but necessary gateways to deeper insight. In this light, ARISE is not unlike the yogic principle of softening the ego to connect with the true Self. Just as the mother must loosen her adult identity to attune to her child, the seeker must loosen their egoic attachments to experience unity (samādhi). Both are paths of union, attunement, and inner expansion — and both require a profound trust in the process of temporarily “not knowing” in order to awaken new levels of awareness.
How ARISE Works
Think of ARISE as the ego’s ability to dip into earlier, more instinctual ways of knowing — like:
Reading cues nonverbally
Moving at the pace of sensation and emotion
Feeling deeply without immediate intellectual explanation
This isn’t dysfunction — it’s devotion. The ego steps back so empathy can step forward.
Regression as a Mirror and a Portal
Moulton emphasizes that this kind of maternal regression is not a loss of self, but a temporary reorganization. In fact, ARISE enables the mother to restructure her personality to include the child as a new internal object — a process that deepens empathy, emotional flexibility, and self-understanding.
“The regression facilitates growth and maturity as a mother.”
— Moulton, 1991
Over time, the mother re-emerges from this state — not the same, but expanded. Her ego has incorporated a new capacity: to hold another person with presence, feeling, and love.
When Regression Is Blocked
Not all mothers experience this regression easily. Some — due to trauma, cultural pressure, or internal defenses — may resist this softening. The mother cannot allow herself to dip into the necessary regression, often out of fear of psychological disintegration. But with support and time, many mothers can gently access this capacity and find that they emerge stronger for it.
Reflection: Letting Go to Grow
In a world that equates growth with control, the idea of loosening in order to evolve can feel counterintuitive. But ARISE reminds us that sometimes we must surrender certainty, structure, and surface-level functioning in order to access a deeper well of knowing.
Motherhood — especially in its early stages — calls us not to be more of who we were, but to become someone new.
Coming Up Next
In Part 3, we’ll explore how this ego reorganization leads to real, long-term structural change — including shifts in the mother’s superego, self-esteem, and the emergence of what psychoanalyst Teresa Benedek calls “motherliness.”
Attribution
This post draws from:
Moulton, B. L. (1991). The Psychological Birth of the Mother: A Study of Primary Maternal Preoccupation. The Wright Institute.
Kris, E. (1952); Schafer, R. (1958). Adaptive Regression in the Service of the Ego.
Winnicott, D.W. (1956). Primary Maternal Preoccupation.