In contemporary clinical practice, psychoanalysts are increasingly encountering patients who exhibit a profound sense of emptiness, expressed through feelings of inadequacy, non-existence, and futility. The presence of these patients, challenging the primacy of classical psychoanalysis, can no longer be considered an exception to the rule. Accordingly, this present work aims to investigate the notion of cleavage as well as the clinical management of regression in the analytic process. This work draws on seminal contributions from the psychoanalytic field, encompassing perspectives from Freud, Sándor Ferenczi, D. W. Winnicott, René Roussillon, and other contemporary commentators. To achieve the proposed objectives, the research was divided into two theoretical chapters and one theoretical-clinical chapter. The first chapter focuses on understanding the impact of relational quality in the primitive stages of subjective constitution. The second chapter presents the development of trauma theory, emphasizing the mechanism of cleavage adopted in response to instinctual excess within the metapychological shift of the 1920s. The third theoretical-clinical chapter explores the regression within the analytic process, accompanying attempts to elaborate on primitive traumas that challenge the capacities for representation and symbolization. To illustrate the connection between the presented psychoanalytic theory and clinical practice, a clinical fragment is provided, wherein elements related to the discussed topics can be identified. We assert that the analytic process with these patients must proceed through paths of regression while fostering trust in the analyst s care.