Walking backwards: utilizing emotional regression as a therapeutic entry point in the treatment of substance use disorders, anger, and grief

Emotional regression, the temporary return to earlier stages of development in the midst of overwhelming emotion, represents a strong treatment point of entry in substance use disorder (SUD), anger, and bereavement treatment. This professional presentation explains how access to regressed states of emotion allows clinicians to access unresolved developmental pain, which underlies maladaptive coping behaviors. Citing John Lee, Harry Eisel, Freud, and contemporary family systems theory, I present a synthesizing model that focuses on emotional regression as both a diagnostic understanding and an intervention process.

Substance dependency, chronic anger, and unprocessed bereavement frequently occur as responses to early relational trauma and unprocessed emotional hurt. While clients are being stirred into regressive states, they let their guard down, and unfulfilled childhood needs, attachment trauma, and family patterns that tend to perpetuate pain reveal themselves. Therapeutic regression enables clinicians to bypass intellectual defenses, enabling direct access to the "younger self" where foundational wounds reside. Synthesizing genograms and family identity mapping, therapists are able to place in the foreground intergenerational patterns and systemic patterns of dysfunction, such as emotional cutoff, locked roles, and hidden rules that suppress emotional expression and healing.

The presentation offers evidence-informed approaches to inducing and working through regression safely, emphasizing trauma-informed care and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)-compatible values. Experiential techniques like guided imagery, somatic awareness, and narrative repair will be demonstrated as means of helping clients process developmental hurt without retraumatization. Participants will see how regression work can be integrated with behavioral coping with cravings, anger management, and recovery from complicated grief, placing emotional regression in its rightful role as an introduction to long-term change rather than an end in itself.

Case vignettes illustrate regression-focused interventions as a way to make breakthroughs in SUD treatment through improved emotional regulation, greater psychological flexibility, and greater self-compassion. Theory and practice are synthesized in this session, which equips clinicians with skill sets to identify regressive patterns, build stronger therapeutic alliances, and create recovery paths.

This presentation will challenge therapists to reconsider emotional regression as a therapeutic setback rather than an opportunity for profound change. By working at the moment of disruption of their emotional development, therapists can foster integration, resilience, and profound healing for substance use, anger, and loss disorders.

Aaron has been with Cirque Lodge since 2009 and has more than 30 years of experience working in the behavioral health field. This includes time working in the juvenile justice system, inpatient psychiatry, and community mental health. He has specialized in substance use issues and has worked at the residential, outpatient, and intensive outpatient levels of care. Aaron utilizes an eclectic approach to treatment with a strong foundation in Acceptance and Commitment (ACT) therapy, family systems theory, and contextual therapy. He has a significant interest in understanding the impact of transgenerational trauma on families, compassion fatigue and burnout in clinicians, and emotional regression. Aaron has lectured around the United States on these topics. As the program director at Cirque Lodge’s prestigious Lodge program, Aaron oversees the overall clinical experience of residents while maintaining a clinical caseload and supervising the clinical staff. Aaron is a member of the faculty at the University of Utah, College of Social Work, teaching in the Substance Abuse Counseling Program.