Deborah Dana – 2-Day Workshop: Polyvagal Theory Informed Trauma Assessment and Interventions: An Autonomic Roadmap to Safety, Connection and Healing

Outline

ESSENTIALS OF POLYVAGAL THEORY

• Evolution of the autonomic nervous system
• How trauma influences autonomic profiles
• Three organizing principles
  • Neuroception: Detection without perception
  • Hierarchy: 3 predictable pathways of response
  • Coregulation: The biological imperative

NEUROCEPTION AND THE SHAPING OF AUTONOMIC PATHWAYS

• Understand the internal surveillance system
• Track cues of safety and danger
• Everyday “biological rudeness”
• Trauma, autonomic wisdom, and cognitive override

NAVIGATE THE AUTONOMIC HIERARCHY

• Exploring three autonomic circuits
  • Sympathetic branch
  • Ventral vagal pathway
  • Dorsal vagal pathway
• How trauma shapes cycles of autonomic response
• Engage the regulating capacities of the autonomic nervous system
• Introduction to autonomic mapping

THE SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT SYSTEM

• The five elements of the Social Engagement System
• What happens when parts of the system are unavailable?
• Using the Social Engagement System to regulate states
• Exercising the Social Engagement System

TRACKING AUTONOMIC STATES

• Seeing patterns over time
• Use micro-moments to resource change
• Explore the blended states of play and stillness
• Create autonomic anchors

MEETING THE BIOLOGICAL NEED FOR CONNECTION

• Mapping the continuum of solitude to sociality
• Create safety in co-regulation
• Working with the cycle of reciprocity – rupture – repair

SHAPING THE AUTONOMIC NERVOUS SYSTEM TOWARD SAFETY

• Identify portals of intervention
• Create neural exercises
• Use breath as a regulator
• Resourcing new patterns through movement
• Explore the autonomic response to touch
• Use autonomic imagery

INCORPORATING POLYVAGAL THEORY IN CLINICAL PRACTICE

• Getting comfortable teaching Polyvagal Theory to clients
• Tracking the 8 steps of a Polyvagal-Informed clinical session
• Polyvagal-Informed assessment and treatment planning
• Polyvagal Theory and Phase I trauma treatment

RESPONSIBILITIES OF A POLYVAGALINFORMED THERAPIST

• The guiding questions
• Ethical considerations
• Research limitations and potential risks