A solar return is often referred to as a “progressed” chart.

You cast the solar return yearly for the exact minute and second in degrees in which the Sun was at your birth.

Where the “progressed” or “protected” term comes in, is your progress the natal ascendant through the signs.

So if your Aries rising, then your second year your ascendant is “progressed” or profected” to Taurus.

The meaning of this is, in the second year, Venus as ruler of Taurus will be Co-significator of the native in the solar return (profected chart).

Make sense?

So you do this every year, if the solar return promises good but the projected ascendant ruler is afflicted in the natal, you would judge a mixture, it takes away some good. You have to search out the significators in the natal then return to understand what may happen.

Likewise, if the return promises evil, but the profected ascendant ruler in the natal radix promises good, it mitigates the evil.

So in short, a solar return IS a profected chart.

It’s a bit of a dated term because people don’t really study astrology from books they like to look stuff up on the web and therefore these bits of wonderful knowledge slip past them.

Look into William Lilly’s Christian Astrology for a more fuller understanding of this curious topic.