Resiliency: Resistance and Regression – A Necessary Step into the Amorphous

There is a quiet wisdom in what therapists know, not just about our patients, but about the terrain of transformation itself. We know that change is not clean. It doesn’t follow a straight line. And yet, we often expect it to – in ourselves.

When we speak of resiliency, it can feel like a call to action: adapt, overcome, endure. But in the therapy room – and in our own bodies – resiliency is rarely heroic. It is often messy, nonlinear, and regressive. It is disorienting. And it is absolutely necessary.

To move forward, something in us must first loosen its grip. And that loosening – that tender, sometimes chaotic unraveling – often brings with it a wave of resistance. Resistance to the unknown. To what cannot yet be named. To the amorphous.

And still, we step into it. Because we know – as clinicians and as human beings – that the amorphous is where new shape begins.

Why Regression Matters

In the clinical frame, we often hold space for the ways our patients resist growth: they come close, then pull back. They open, then shut down. They flirt with insight, then disappear into old stories. We know this is part of the work. But what if we turned that same lens inward?

In ourselves, resistance can feel like failure – like we’re "supposed to be past this.” But what if regression isn’t a sign we’re going the wrong way? What if it’s the signal we are approaching something important – something not yet metabolized?

In this way, regression becomes an essential step in building resiliency. Not the bounce-back kind, but the deeper, layered kind – the kind that roots itself in repair.

A serene space designed for meditation and personal growth.

The Healing in Rupture and Repair

There is a parallel process in all of this. As we allow ourselves to soften into what’s unresolved, we stretch our capacity to stay with others in their uncertainty. As we re-engage with our own histories – the ruptures and the repairs – we refine our clinical presence, our humility, our attunement.

This is what deepens our work. Not cleverness. Not certainty. But the hard-earned, embodied knowing that healing is recursive. That we grow in spirals. That the next evolution often begins in a temporary unraveling.

So I invite you – not to fix yourself, or find the perfect intervention – but to step into the unknown with me. To enter the amorphous. To allow the movement of regression to carry you, not backwards, but inward – and ultimately, forward.

Because in that space – beneath the resistance, inside the regression – is the quiet birthplace of the next version of you. And with it, the next layer of healing you will offer to others.

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