The Polyvagal Theory in Therapy: Engaging the Rhythm of Regulation (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology)

When I teach Polyvagal Theory to colleagues and clients, I tell them they are learning about the science of safety—the science of feeling safe enough to fall in love with life and take the risks of living. Polyvagal Theory provides a physiological and psychological understanding of how and why clients move through a continual cycle of mobilization, disconnection, and engagement. Through the lens of Polyvagal Theory, we see the role of the autonomic nervous system as it shapes clients’ experiences of safety and affects their ability for connection. The autonomic nervous system responds to the challenges of daily life by telling us not what we are or who we are but how we are. The autonomic nervous system manages risk and creates patterns of connection by changing our physiological state. These shifts are slight for many people, and, in the moments when large state changes happen, their system is resilient enough to help them return to a regulated state. Trauma interrupts the process of building the autonomic circuitry of safe connection and sidetracks the development of regulation and resilience. Clients with trauma histories often experience more intense, extreme autonomic responses, which affects their ability to regulate and feel safe in relationships. Polyvagal Theory helps therapists understand that the behaviors of their clients are autonomic actions in service of survival—adaptive responses ingrained in a survival story that is entered into automatically. Trauma compromises our ability to engage with others by replacing patterns of connection with patterns of protection. If unresolved, these early adaptive survival responses become habitual autonomic patterns. Therapy through a polyvagal lens, supports clients in repatterning the ways their autonomic nervous systems operate when the drive to survive competes with the longing to connect with others. This book is designed to help you bring Polyvagal Theory into your therapy practice. The polyvagal theory presented in client-friendly language. This book offers therapists an integrated approach to adding a polyvagal foundation to their work with clients. With clear explanations of the organizing principles of Polyvagal Theory, this complex theory is translated into clinician and client-friendly language. Using a unique autonomic mapping process along with worksheets designed to effectively track autonomic response patterns, this book presents practical ways to work with clients' experiences of connection. Through exercises that have been specifically created to engage the regulating capacities of the ventral vagal system, therapists are given tools to help clients reshape their autonomic nervous systems. Adding a polyvagal perspective to clinical practice draws the autonomic nervous system directly into the work of therapy, helping clients re-pattern their nervous systems, build capacities for regulation, and create autonomic pathways of safety and connection. With chapters that build confidence in understanding Polyvagal Theory, chapters that introduce worksheets for mapping, tracking, and practices for re-patterning, as well as a series of autonomic meditations, this book offers therapists a guide to practicing polyvagal-informed therapy. The Polyvagal Theory in Therapy is essential reading for therapists who work with trauma and those who seek an easy and accessible way of understanding the significance that Polyvagal Theory has to clinical work. "With ... explanations of the organizing principles of polyvagal theory, this complex theory is translated into clinician and client-friendly language. Using a unique autonomic mapping process along with worksheets designed to ... track autonomic response patterns, this book presents ... ways to work with clients' experiences of connection. Through exercises that have been specifically created to engage the regulating capacities of the ventral vagal system, therapists are given tools to help clients reshape their autonomic nervous systems"--Dust jacket flap