title: Isakower-like experience on the couch: a contribution to the psychoanalytic understanding of regressive ego phenomena.
abstract: Since Isakower's original contribution of 1938, Isakower phenomena have been viewed as primitive experiences involving maternal breast, womb, and face imagery. This clinical report harks back to the less well-known hypothesis with which Isakower concluded his paper: he suggested that these perceptual experiences are related to childhood oedipal masturbatory fantasies at the time of going to sleep. In this paper four Isakower-like phenomena experienced by a patient on the couch are reported in the dynamic context in which they occurred. It is argued that these phenomena constitute a type of regressive ego experience that defends against oedipal conflict.
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003220:Conflict, Psychological; D003674:Defense Mechanisms; D004532:Ego; D005201:Fantasy; D006716:Homosexuality; D006801:Humans; D007092:Imagination; D008297:Male; D009813:Oedipus Complex; D010465:Perception; D011573:Psychoanalytic Interpretation; D012043:Regression, Psychology; D014167:Transference, Psychology