Interrupted Emotional Development
A new theoretical framework for understanding why emotional struggles persist, and what it actually takes to heal them.
For decades the behavioral health field has…
Operated from a foundational assumption that emotional dysregulation is primarily a disorder to be managed. Jodee's research asked a different question: what if dysregulation isn't the problem, but the consequence?
Her doctoral research explores what happens when early emotional development is disrupted, by dysfunctional systems, absent conditions, and environments never designed to support healthy growth. The consequences don't resolve on their own. They compound across the lifespan. And they show up, reliably, inside the very systems meant to address them.
This is not a repackaging of existing theory. It is a new framework. One that changes what the field should be asking, assessing, and doing.
The Core Concept
What is Interrupted Emotional Development?
Interrupted Emotional Development (IED) is the suspension of emotional growth that occurs when the early relational conditions required for development are absent, disrupted, or misattuned. When a primary caregiver is emotionally unavailable or disconnected, the co-regulation a child needs to build internal emotional capacity simply doesn't happen. Without that external scaffold, emotional development arrests at the age the interruption occurred, leaving the individual chronologically mature but emotionally under-resourced, regardless of age, intelligence, or circumstance.
What follows isn't pathology. It's adaptation.
IED theory locates the root of chronic dysregulation in that interruption, and argues that lasting healing requires returning to the developmental foundation that was never laid, not simply managing the symptoms that grew in its place.
Her research is entering public record.
Three bodies of work, each examining a different layer of the same systemic failure.
IED: A New Theoretical Framework SSRN Preprint | Link to publication
When Systems Fail Preprint | Under peer review, Humanities & Social Science Communications / SpringerNature Link to publication
Applied Relational Healing Published Link to publication
What her research addresses
Her research sits at the intersection of three questions the behavioral health field is only beginning to ask:
Why do emotional struggles persist despite treatment? Most clinical interventions target symptoms. This research examines the developmental root beneath the symptom, and why treating one without addressing the other leaves so much healing still waiting to happen.
How do systems often replicate the same problem they are trying to solve? Organizations built by humans carry the developmental patterns of the humans who built them. Understanding that connection changes how we design, assess, and transform behavioral health systems.
What would it look like to actually prevent this? The research points toward a prevention-first framework, one that requires a fundamentally different understanding of human development than what currently informs clinical training and organizational design.
Why It Matters
The gap this fills.
Developmental psychology has long understood how early experience shapes the capacity for regulation, attachment, and growth. Clinical psychology has built an entire treatment infrastructure around the symptoms that emerge when that development goes wrong. What has been missing is the bridge between them, a framework that connects the developmental interruption to the clinical presentation, and points toward what intervention actually needs to address.
IED is that bridge.
Who This Is For
The systems we build to treat behavioral health challenges are often the same ones that unknowingly exacerbate them. IED theory helps explain why, and points toward what needs to change.
Clinicians & Researchers The IED preprint is peer-reviewed, freely available on SSRN, and offers a theoretical foundation for reexamining how emotional dysregulation is understood, assessed, and treated. Read the Research →
Behavioral Health Organizations IED theory has direct implications for how your organization understands the people it serves, and the people who serve them. Training and consulting built on this framework are available. Schedule A Conversation
How To Engage With Us
If you're a clinician or organization ready to bring IED training to your team, you're in the right place.
Training & Speaking Inquiry
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What People Are Saying
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Your approach was the most effective I’ve experienced on this topic. Focused, actionable, and free of fluff, you delivered tools that truly invite healing, not just treat symptoms.
Brian Weiss, MD • Psychiatrist | Best Selling Author
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Jodee brings deep clarity to how people think, lead, and learn. Her practical approach creates lasting shifts in awareness and behavior.
Dr. Joseph Rios • Educational Consultant | Google
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Our student-athletes, coaches and faculty continue to reference Jodee’s methods. It’s powerful to watch how her frameworks shape not just performance, but the entire system around it.
Eric Stark • Head Volleyball Coach | University of Michigan Dearborn