Atavistic regression

Atavistic regression is a hypnosis-related concept introduced by the Australian scholar and psychiatrist Ainslie Meares. Meares coined his term from the English atavism, which is derived from the Latin atavus, meaning a great-grandfather's grandfather and, thus, more generally, an ancestor. As used by Meares, for example, his 1960 work A System of Medical Hypnosis, the term atavistic regression is used to denote the tendency to revert to ancestral type:

Atavistic regression

Atavistic regression is a hypnosis-related concept introduced by the Australian scholar and psychiatrist Ainslie Meares. Meares coined his term from the English atavism, which is derived from the Latin atavus, meaning a great-grandfather's grandfather and, thus, more generally, an ancestor. As used by Meares, for example, his 1960 work A System of Medical Hypnosis, the term atavistic regression is used to denote the tendency to revert to ancestral type: