Course Overview
The autonomic nervous system is at the heart of daily living powerfully shaping our experiences of safety and influencing our capacity for connection. Polyvagal Theory, through the organizing principles of hierarchy, neuroception, and co-regulation, has revolutionized our understanding of how this system works. Guided by Polyvagal Theory, we have a deep appreciation of the ways experience shapes the nervous system and of the pathways that lead to healing. Trauma interrupts the development of autonomic regulation and sidetracks building the circuitry of safe connection. Without intervention, adaptive survival responses become habitual autonomic patterns, and pathways of connection are replaced with patterns of protection. With an updated map of the autonomic circuits that underlie behaviors and beliefs, we have a new understanding of the characteristic post-traumatic patterns of hyperarousal, hypervigilance, disconnection, and numbing and can reliably lead our clients out of adaptive survival responses into the autonomically regulated state of safety that is necessary for successful treatment.
This workshop series combines didactic teaching with experiential practices to support participants in developing an embodied understanding of the organizing principles of Polyvagal Theory and integrating the principles into clinical work.
February 6: Navigating the Autonomic Hierarchy
February 13: The Process of Neuroception
February 20: Co-Regulation - Connecting Through the Social Engagement System
February 27: Integration and Application
At the end of the course participants will be able to:
- Describe the autonomic hierarchy and the emergent properties of states through a process of autonomic mapping
- Explain how neuroception shapes behavior
- Apply strategies that utilize the co-regulating pathways of the Social Engagement System in clinical work to improve clinical outcomes
- Practice skills to identify and interrupt patterns of protection and shape the system toward connection
- Utilize the guiding questions of Polyvagal-informed therapy to make clinical choices
Note: This course requires live participation. A certificate of completion will be issued to all participants who attended the full course. 11 CE credits are available for this course. If you would like to receive CE’s, please select this option on the registration page.
Deb Dana, LCSW
Deb Dana, LCSW is an author, clinician, and consultant specializing in using the lens of Polyvagal Theory to understand and resolve the impact of trauma and create ways of working that honor the role of the autonomic nervous system. She developed the Rhythm of Regulation Clinical Training Series and lectures internationally on ways Polyvagal Theory informs work with trauma survivors. She is a founding member of the Polyvagal Institute, clinical advisor to Khiron Clinics, and an advisor to Unyte. Deb’s clinical work published with W.W. Norton includes The Polyvagal Theory in Therapy: Engaging the Rhythm of Regulation, Polyvagal Exercises for Safety and Connection: 50 Client Centered Practices, and the Polyvagal Flip Chart. She partners with Sounds True to bring her polyvagal perspective to a general audience through the audio program Befriending Your Nervous System: Looking Through the Lens of Polyvagal Theory and her forthcoming print book Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory.
To learn more, visit rhythmofregulation.com
