Passive defensive role

Nonmilitary or civil defense programs can play a key role in preventing a "cold war from becoming a "hot war. It is well to remember that nonmilitary actions, while defensive, need not be passive or submissive. They can be a positive war-deterrent force, and important to survival in any total war situation. 

One determinant of whether there is a forward movement is the therapist s ability to detect the patient s regressive tendencies and bring them into the open. The children of the fountain do remind us that the defense of regression may be expressed actively, as with the boy s upraised stick, or passively, as with the girl s stick resting on the shoulder. The mercury reminds us that the ever-changeable trickster, the Spiritus Mercurius, is likely to play a prominent role at this stage. 

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