regression

n.

1. Reversion; retrogression.
2. Relapse to a less perfect or developed state.
3. Psychology. Reversion to an earlier or less mature pattern of feeling or behavior.
4. Medicine. A subsidence of the symptoms or process of a disease.
5. Biology. The return of a population to an earlier or less complex physical type in successive generations.
6. Statistics. The relationship between the mean value of a random variable and the corresponding values of one or more independent variables.
7. Astronomy. Retrograde motion of a celestial body.
8. Geology. A relative fall in sea level resulting in deposition of terrestrial strata over marine strata.

A word introduced by Galton and deriving from the phrase 'regression towards the mean' that is often used as shorthand for linear regression or multiple regression models. In these models the expected value of one variable Y is presumed to be dependent on one or more other variables (x₁, x₂,...). The variable Y is variously known as the response variable, dependent variable, or outcome variable. The x-variables are variously known as antecedent variables, background variables, predictor variables, explanatory variables, controlled variables, or, potentially confusingly, independent variables. In the context of a factorial experiment the x-variables are factors. See linear regression.

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For more information on regression, visit Britannica.com.

A statistical measure that attempts to determine the strength of the relationship between one dependent variable (usually denoted by Y) and a series of other changing variables (known as independent variables). The two basic types of regression are linear regression and multiple regression. Linear regression uses one independent variable to explain and/or predict the outcome of Y, while multiple regression uses two or more independent variables to predict the outcome. The general form of each type of regression is:

Linear Regression: Y = a + bX + u
Multiple Regression: Y = a + bX bX + BX + ... + BX + u

Where Y is the variable that we are trying to predict, X is the variable that we are using to predict Y, a is the intercept, b is the slope, and u is the regression residual. In multiple regression the separate variables are differentiated by using subscripted numbers.

Investopedia Says:
Regression takes a group of random variables, thought to be predicting Y, and tries to find a mathematical relationship between them. This relationship is typically in the form of a straight line (linear regression) that best approximates all the individual data points. Regression is often used to determine how much specific factors such as the price of a commodity, interest rates, particular industries or sectors influence the price movement of an asset.

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A statistical technique used to estimate mathematical models of economic and other processes. It is used to find a mathematical expression that best fits the relationship between a group of random variables as indicated by a sample of data.
Example: An appraiser wants to find the relationship between sales prices for homes and their physical characteristics. Data are collected on the prices of a group of homes and their size, number of rooms, location, and age. Linear regression is used to analyze the relationship expressed by the data. The regression model can then be used to estimate prices for other similar houses on the market.

noun

A return to a former, usually worse condition: retrogradation, retrogression, reversion. See forward/backward, repetition.

The Latin equivalent of regression means "return" or "withdrawal"; it also signifies a retreat or a return to a less-evolved state. There is no very precise psychoanalytic definition of the concept of regression. It is useful to introducs the idea of temporality. It could be said to represent an articulation between the atemporality of the unconscious, the primary processes, and the temporality of the secondary processes. Some analysts assign this notion a metaphoric value; it retains the connotations of a journey through time and the changes that will be necessary in psychoanalytic treatment.

Sigmund Freud introduced the notion of regression in The Interpretation of Dreams (1900a). The concept was necessary for his description of the psychic apparatus in terms of a topographical model, represented by an instrument whose component parts are agencies or systems with a spatial orientation. Excitation traverses the system in a determined temporal order, going from the sensory end to the motor end. In hallucinatory dreams, excitation follows a retrograde pathway. Dreams have a regressive character due to the shutdown of the motor system; the trajectory goes in the reverse direction, toward perception and hallucinatory visual representation. This regression is a psychological particularity of the dream process, but dreams do not have a monopoly on it. In the section of the last chapter of The Interpretation of Dreams titled "Regression," Freud wrote that "in all probability this regression, wherever it may occur, is an effect of a resistance opposing the progress of a thought into consciousness along the normal path. . . . It is to be further remarked that regression plays a no less important part in the theory of the formation of neurotic symptoms than it does in that of dreams" (pp. 547-548). In this last chapter Freud already distinguished between three types of regression: topographical regression, in the sense of the psychic system; temporal regression, in the case of a return to earlier psychic formations; and formal regression, where primitive modes of expression and representation replace the usual ones. He also noted: "All these three kinds of regression are, however, one at bottom and occur together as a rule; for what is older in time is more primitive in form and in psychical topography lies nearer to the perceptual end" (p. 548). This basic unity is central to his metapsychological use of the concept.

In Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905d) Freud implicitly invoked the idea of fixation, which is inseparable from regression. In "A Metapsychological Supplement to the Theory of Dreams" (1916-17f [1915]), he underscored the distinction between "temporal or developmental regression" (of the ego and the libido) and topographical regression, and the fact that "[t]he two do not necessarily always coincide" (p. 227). Then, in the twenty-second of the Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis (1916-17a [1915-17]), he distinguished two types of regression affecting the libido: a return to the earliest objects marked by the libido, which are of an incestuous nature, and a return of the entire sexual organization to earlier stages. Libidinal regression is only an effect of temporal regression, with a reactivation of old libidinal structures preserved by fixation. At that point he asserted that regression was a "purely descriptive" concept, adding: "we cannot tell where we should localize it in the mental apparatus" (pp. 342-343). In making this assertion, he retrenched from his earlier position and denied regression its metaphysical status, which it would regain only after 1920 with the second theory of the instincts. It then becomes constitutive of the death instinct and can threaten to destroy psychic structures, but also becomes a mechanism that can be used by the ego.

According to Marilia Aisenstein's article "Des régressions impossibles?" (Impossible regressions?), "Freud's reticence around the notion of regression in 1917 was linked to its relation to the first theory of the instincts and the first topography. He had difficulty in situating and formulating regression not only in topographical terms, but above all in terms of the libido and the instincts of the ego.... It then became necessary to separate regression from disorganization, as the latter was envisioned by Pierre Marty and the psychosomaticians of the Paris School.... If the retrograde movement is not stopped by regressive systems involving fixations, the end result can be a process of somatization." Regression is indispensable to the work of psychoanalytic treatment; it implies the notion of change and is part of the healing process, according to Donald W. Winnicott (1958). Regression is a form of defense and remains in the service of the ego. From the analyst's point of view, formal regression provides another way of listening.

Bibliography

Aisenstein, Marilia. (1992). Des régressions impossibles? Revue française de psychanalyse, 56 (4), 995-1004.

Freud, Sigmund. (1900a). The interpretation of dreams. Parts I and II. SE, 4-5.

——. (1905d). Three essays on the theory of sexuality. SE, 7: 123-243.

——. (1916-17a [1915-17]). Introductory lectures on psycho-analysis. Parts I and II. SE, 15-16.

Winnicott, Donald W. (1958). Through paediatrics to psycho-analysis. London: Tavistock.

Further Reading

Balint, Michael. (1968). The basic fault. Therapeutic aspects of regression. London: Tavistock.

Blum, Harold P. (1994). The conceptual development of regression. Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 49, 60-76.

Inderbitzin, Lawrence, and Levy, Steven. (2000). Regression and psychoanalytic technique: A concept's concretization. Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 69, 195-224.

Sandler, Joseph, and Sandler, Anne-Marie. (1994). Theoretical, technical comments on regression and anti-regression. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 75, 431-440.

—MARTINE MYQUEL

A Freudian concept used by psychiatrists to signify a return to primitive or impulsive behavior after more mature behavior has been learned. (See also defense mechanism, id, and libido.)

1. return to a former or earlier state.
2. subsidence of clinical signs or of a disease process.
3. in biology, the tendency in successive generations toward the mean.
4. the relationship between pairs of random variables; the mean of one variable and its location is influenced by another variable.

• r. analysis — see regression analysis.
• r. coefficient — is the factor which determines the slope of a regression line; the greater the coefficient the steeper the line.
• curvilinear r. — when the relationship between two variables is not linear.
• linear r. — the relationship between two variables is a straight line.

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Dansk (Danish)
n. - regression

Français (French)
n. - (Biol, Psych, Stat, fig) régression, (Méd) détérioration

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - οπισθοδρόμηση, (μαθημ., ψυχολ.) παλινδρόμηση

Español (Spanish)
n. - regresión, reversión

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - (mat.)(psyk.) regression, tillbakagång

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
复原, 退步, 逆行

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 復原, 退步, 逆行

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 회귀계수

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) إنحسار, نكوص, إرتداد‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮תסוגה (פסיכולוגיה, סטטיסטיקה)‬

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