Clinical applications of the polyvagal theory

If our clients could have thought their way out of the impact of trauma, they would have done that a long time ago.

Trauma resolution is not about thinking. Healing depends, instead, on the work undertaken at the level of the autonomic nervous system, which shapes our clients' experiences of safety and influences their capacity for connection. Traumatic events have a far-reaching impact on this system. Autonomic pathways trigger survival responses that often lead our clients on a painful journey into a state of shutdown, collapse, and dissociation. How can we help our clients find their way back to safety, and how do we prevent it from happening in the first place?

Polyvagal theory, developed by Stephen Porges, offers a revolutionary roadmap to lead clients out of their adaptive survival responses into the autonomically regulated state of safety that is necessary for successful trauma treatment. Dr. Porges' colleague and author of The Polyvagal Theory in Therapy, Deb Dana, shares this roadmap with you in this exciting recording.

You will become fluent in the language of polyvagal theory, become confident in your ability to help clients safely tune into and reshape their nervous systems, and rewrite the trauma stories that are carried in their autonomic pathways. Come and learn the organising principles of polyvagal theory and work with practices designed to help clients move out of despair and isolation and return to a place of awareness, connection, and social engagement.