[MRT6211]

Do you regress when you’re in session with T? Meaning, do you act or feel younger than you are? Do you mentally return to a younger age? What age?

[Amyjay]

Well, I have DID and as far as I know none of us identify as being as old as the body age so... yeah.

It is impossible for the adult ones of us to be out for an entire session. The most adult parts can go is about 10 minutes in, I think.

Yes because of the structure of therapy.
Normal life outside of therapy is noisy, hectic. We don't get the chance to sit and think.
But of course, there are plenty of experiences of people in the world in general that do so and when we have sometimes dealt with them in a personal or working environment you're left wondering what was that all about because their actions seemed childish. Even the person may wonder what happened.
In therapy that gets addressed.

[feileacan]

Yes, I have, but not that much anymore lately. But there were times when I felt mostly like wordless infant in the session, not really knowing what I'm thinking or feeling.

[seeker33]

I can definitely regress.

[DP_2017]

Nope. Never, not even in real life situations. I see that happen often and sometimes think something is wrong with me because I have no child like feelings within me or anything. Maybe because I've been giving adult responsibilities since I was 8 years old, it's all I've ever known really.

Originally Posted by DP_2017

Nope. Never, not even in real life situations. I see that happen often and sometimes think something is wrong with me because I have no child like feelings within me or anything. Maybe because I've been giving adult responsibilities since I was 8 years old, it's all I've ever known really.

It's all I've ever known. Regression isnt a Happy childhood place. It's where we got stuck dealing with life at an age that was to young to cope.

The fact you say that shows there will be regression. Didn't you mention that you joke around a lot worth T? That's a coping tool developed in childhood.

[DP_2017]

Yes but it's not really coping anymore, it's just what we do in sessions. Have fun and joke around. We have anything but "typical" sessions.

Most everything we do we learn as children, I don't really see it as regression. Just as a formed life skill we found works and carry with us.

[Echos Myron redux]

In a way. I don't really call it regression because I feel like that young part of me exists in the present, I'm not regressing back, if that makes sense. But I do feel and present as quite young a lot of the time in therapy.

[Anne2.0]

Back when I was doing trauma work, yes, and it was interesting to move from feeling like I'd fallen through a trap door into a very vulnerable place where it was nearly impossible to articulate what was going on to being able to have a sense of that younger place coexisting in different ways with my adult self, to being able to have some communication with that younger part of myself as an adult. I feel like I recaptured something from the "regression", something that has made me feel more whole.

[ArtleyWilkins]

I had to think about this awhile. I was prone to some serious dissociation, so I had to think about whether, in those states, I actually regressed or not.

I said "never." I don't recall ever being told I actually regressed, nor do I remember doing so. I did dissociate, but regression wasn't an aspect of that for me.

[88Butterfly88]

Sometimes but it hasn't happened lately. I'm a survivor of childhood trauma so I will return to around age 3-4 when my trauma occurred. I have cried out in session "I want my mommy". This wasn't directed at t, was wishing for my biological mother, who wasn't the problem in my childhood so she's a good person to me.

[SlumberKitty]

Yes with former T I definitely regressed at times. She would ask me stuff like, how old do you feel right now? So I know I had regressed. She explained it probably more than once but I was dissociated at the time and don't really remember what she was saying. Kit.

[MRT6211]

Originally Posted by SlumberKitty

Yes with former T I definitely regressed at times. She would ask me stuff like, how old do you feel right now? So I know I had regressed. She explained it probably more than once but I was dissociated at the time and don't really remember what she was saying. Kit.

I got asked the very same question by a former T quite a few times. I always told her I didn’t know, but I had a number in mind, I just felt stupid as a 21 year old telling her that I felt like I was 7. 7 was a very significant age for me, I realize now, though, so that probably would’ve been good to tell her...

[Waterloo12345]

Sometimes. It depends what we are talking about whether I do and if so to what age. I can also move between ages in one session.

[zoiecat]

Yes, all the time. I have DID and I was forced to act like an adult from a very young age. I think they feel safe with him and want to finally get the chance to be a kid.

[Merope]

I like this question. I don’t know if it’s regression or just a part of me that comes forward because the right conditions are in place, but I feel like a fifteen year old every time I am with my therapist. I think at least in part this has something to do with the type of transference (paternal) at play. Maybe countertransference too as there were definitely a few instances when he seemed to have slipped in a paternal role and this encouraged me to step into my child role. Or maybe I was just looking for things that weren’tt really there, I don’t know. Either way, I regressed as a result.

In a different vein, I sometimes think it’s a conscious choice too—I choose to relate to him as a kid because I’ve always wanted a caring dad. It’s almost like role playing. He picked up on it too, a few times, by saying that I sometimes refer to things the way a teenager would.

When it comes to my fear of him leaving me, I also feel like I react to it as a kid would, but a much younger one. I guess that has something to do with the multiple emotional abandonments from early childhood. Like a three year old would, I feel like my world would literally shatter if my caregiver/therapist were to abandon me.

[amandalouise]

here where I am regress is one of those gray areas.

some treatment providers define it as when someone is under hypnosis and the treatment provider "takes them back to younger days.

in this sense no I have never been regressed to a younger age to act out past situations or events.

some treatment providers here where I am define regress as being where a person is having flashbacks (reliving the past) in this sense yes I have had flashbacks where I have felt like the child I used to be and reacting like I would have back then when I was those ages.

Here where I am treatment providers do not call switching alternate personalities regression or regressed. this is because here where I am alternate personalities function just like any other human being. they play they work they cook they clean, they laugh they smile they do everything that is with in their "sense of agency" they have a definite purpose, job and reason why they were created through a persons dissociation problems (feeling numb, spaced out and lots more) in order for alternate personalities to take control and do their sense of agency there is a common thing called dissociation. Otherwise it would not be called a dissociative disorder called DID.

regression does not require a person to be traumatized and dissociated here where I am. any human being can go outside and throw snowballs and feel like they did as a child regardless of whether they have or do not have a dissociative disorder.

I have a sibling who has no mental and physical health problems but they are constantly pulling pranks, jokes, starting food fights, playing with a ball all kinds of things that children used to do before the invention of the cell phone and video games. I can see it now a whole generation to come is going to some day be calling playing on cell phones and video games regression because that new game or phone they just got will make them feel like they did when they got their first cell phone or first video game.

my point in this sense of what my location calls the inner child therapy technique of recognizing when you feel like a child and act / react like the child you used to be (your word regression) my answer is yes. yesterday I was reading a book with my children and I started remembering and feeling like I did when my mother would read to me this same book, my reaction was to make the same sounds and tones as my mother and I did when reading the book together. my children had a blast and I have no doubt that someday there will come many times in their lives when they will find their self feeling like they do today, yesterday when ever and react in the future like they are today...