Teoria Polivagal Porges PDF

○
Polyvagal Theory: Why This

Changes Everything
A Webinar Session with

Ruth Buczynski, PhD
○
and Stephen Porges, PhD
nicabm
The National Institute
○ for the Clinical Application

of Behavioral Medicine www.nicabm.com
Polyvagal Theory: Why This Changes Everything 2
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Polyvagal Theory: Why This Changes Everything
Contents
Heart Rate Variability and Self-Regulation: What’s the Relationship? . . . . . . . . . 3
The Organizing Principles of Polyvagal Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
How We Use Others To Feel Safe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Three Hierarchical Systems for How We Respond to the World . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
How The Vagus Nerve Is a Paradox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
The Vagus: A Conduit of Motor and Sensory Pathways . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
The Connection between Trauma and Social Engagement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
How Music Cues Vagal Regulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
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Social Engagement Signals: Self-Regulating vs. Being Clueless . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Recruiting Neural Regulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
How Attachment Theory Connects to Adaptive Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Making Hospitals More Psychologically Safe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
TalkBack Segment with Rick Hanson, PhD and Bill O’Hanlon, LMFT . . . . . . . . . 23
About the Speakers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
○ A complete transcript of a Webinar Session

featuring Stephen Porges, PhD and conducted by Ruth Buczynski, PhD of NICABM
The National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine
www.nicabm.com
Polyvagal Theory: Why This Changes Everything
○ with Ruth Buczynski, PhD

and Stephen Porges, PhD
Dr. Buczynski: Hello everyone. We hear how our unconscious functions - heart rate, respiration - are
vaguely related to social relationships such as trust and intimacy. If they are, they would have a huge
impact on treatment - our treatment of anxiety, depression, trauma, and even our treatment of autism.
I’m Dr. Ruth Buczynski, a licensed psychologist and president of The National Institute for Clinical
Applications of Behavioral Medicine and my guest tonight is Dr. Stephen Porges.
We’re going to be talking about the Polyvagal Theory. I’m sure that you’ve heard about this before, and
if you haven’t, I’m sure that you’ll be hearing a lot more about this going forward.
But as I was talking about unconscious functions and whether someone’s heart rate affects their sense
of trust and intimacy, it’s not just how the nervous system influences our interaction with others, but the
reverse is also true - our interactions with others influence the nervous system.
The person who discovered all this and put it together and can help us to understand the subsystems that
go beneath that and support this is Dr. Stephen Porges. Stephen, thanks for being here and welcome.
Dr. Porges: Thank you, Ruth. It’s a pleasure to be here and to deconstruct the complex ideas associated
with Polyvagal Theory into usual constructs that clinicians may find useful.
○ Dr. Buczynski: Yes, and just to give you all just a little more background on Stephen, he is the author of
The Polyvagal Theory, and I’m going to say that he is the inventor, or discoverer, of it as well.
The subtitle of his book is Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication,

and Self-Regulation. He is currently professor and director of the Brain Body Center in the Department
of Psychiatry at the University of Illinois in Chicago.
We’ve a huge call planned, so let’s jump right in. We spoke about your theory last year and let’s review
the basics, and then we’ll get much more deeply into it.
Heart Rate Variability and Self-Regulation: What’s the Relationship?

Heart rate variability: you’ve observed that people who have some stability in their heart rate and people
who are more able to self-regulate seem to be different, in terms of how they respond to trauma and
other experiences, than people who don’t have stability in their heart rate and can’t self-regulate it. Can I
switch over to you now and let you put that into your terms?
Dr. Porges: Sure. The ability to observe heart rate patterns

is literally a portal to watching how our nervous system “The ability to observe
is regulating our bodies. When the pattern of heart rate is heart rate patterns is... a
showing nice periodic oscillations, it’s basically saying that portal to watching how
○ we’re in a good state; it’s reflecting a homeostatic system our nervous system is
that is regulating well. regulating our bodies.”

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When this system gets challenged, the neural feedback - from the periphery, from our viscera, from our
○
heart - to our brain, changes, and the portal, this vagal-regulation of the heart, reflects this change. It
reflects this by modulating periodic changes in beat-to-beat heart rate, which is also known as heart rate
variability.
I want to change the theme of how we conceptualize the relation between our bodily process and
our psychological experiences. Rather than discussing this relationship as a correlation, think of the
measureable heart rate pattern more as a portal that enables us to measure how our nervous system is
adjusting to various challenges and how our body is reflecting those adjustments.
The Organizing Principles of Polyvagal Theory

Dr. Buczynski: Your theory provides the organizing principles behind the observation, and I would say
that you are tying together some pretty disparate fields, scientific fields and treatment fields. What are
your thoughts on that?
Dr. Porges: From my perspective this has been my lifelong journey

“...our nervous to integrate knowledge to further explain features of the human
system responds experience. It’s very paradoxical in a sense, but also a wonderful
to challenges in a experience if you can use your research and your profession and
very adaptive way.” avocation as well as your vocation to explore ideas about how our
nervous system functions - really how we function in a complex
○
environment.
The concepts underlying the Polyvagal Theory are relatively basic, but they had been elusive for decades
if not centuries. The clue to the framing of the Polyvagal Theory was to understand and appreciate that
our nervous system responds to challenges in a very adaptive way.
That adaptive way follows a predictable strategy defined by our phylogenetic history. Our reactions to
challenges follow how the nervous system shifted during evolution- at least how the neural-regulation of
our autonomic nervous system shifted - as mammals emerged from reptiles.
Dr. Buczynski: This evolution is not just the biological evolution, but the genetic evolution.
Dr. Porges: Right, the systems changed, and as they changed they provided the mammal, which we
are, with various adaptive functions. So the first point needed to understand the Polyvagal Theory is to
realize that humans, being mammals, need others to interact with in order to survive.
The important aspect is that mammals require

opportunities to reciprocally interact. The reciprocal
behavioral interactions serve a function in regulating “...mammals require
each other’s physiological state. Basically, we create opportunities to reciprocally
relationships to feel safe and to maintain our health by interact...we create
facilitating the regulation of our physiology. relationships to feel safe
and to maintain health by
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If we see this as a theme through human development, regulating our physiology.”
then concepts like attachment start to make sense, as do
concepts like intimacy, love, and friendship.

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But then again, concepts like bullying and concepts like having problems with individuals or spousal
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conflict also start to make sense. Oppositional behavior in the classroom starts making sense. Basically,
our nervous system craves reciprocal interaction to enable state regulation to feel safe and when this is
lacking we have behavioral problems.
Now, that being said, both the positive and negative

consequences of behavioral interactions have been
“Polyvagal Theory emphasizes primarily interpreted from a behavioral and not
that neural pathways of social physiological perspective.
support and behavior are
shared with neural pathways However, the Polyvagal Theory emphasizes the
that support health, growth, physiological aspects of these reciprocal interactions,
and restoration.” and documents that the neural pathways of social
support and social behavior are shared with the neural
pathways that support health, growth, and restoration.
Mind and body responses during reciprocal interactions are not correlations; they’re the same thing from
different perspectives.
Dr. Buczynski: I want to get you to repeat that: the neural pathways are shared. Just give us that one
more time.
Dr. Porges: There are neural pathways of social support. Again within areas of social psychology and
behavioral medicine, scientists are interested in how friendships or social interactions enhance health or
○ the progression of recovery from injury and disease.
Science has operationalized this issue as “giving” people social

support. That is not the real issue. The real issue is whether the
“...the human nervous
system...is on a quest
social interactions are appropriate for the physiological state of for safety and we use
the individual and whether acts of social interaction are actually others to help us feel
using the same neural pathways that support health, growth, and safe.”
restoration. For example, if a sick person does not feel safe in
the environment, then the “implementation” of social support as
a treatment might be harmful, not helpful.
So, the real message is that we need to understand that the human nervous system, like the nervous
systems of other mammalian species, is on a quest, and the quest is for safety and we use others to help
us feel safe.
How We Use Others To Feel Safe

Dr. Buczynski: You remind me, and I hadn’t intended for us to talk about this, but there is some
research - maybe three or four years ago. They were looking at failing practice physicians and they
recruited a whole bunch of people who were sick and randomly assigned them. Half got a warm
connection and empathic listening to their symptoms; the other half got this sort of status quo medical
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treatment with no warmth and kindness. They actually found that the people who got the warmth and
kindness recovered from the flu faster.

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Dr. Porges: All this makes physiological sense, and this quest to connect with others is often missing
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from the vocabulary of several health-related disciplines.
Dr. Buczynski: Why does it make physiological sense? That’s the piece that you’ve put together and
contributed, so that’s the piece that we want to hone in on. Why does it make sense?
Dr. Porges: It makes sense because of the degree of social behavior. The cues from the safe individual
enable the sick or compromised person not to be in defensive states. When we are in a defensive state,
then we are using our metabolic resources to defend. It’s not merely that we can’t be creative or loving
when we’re scared, we can’t heal.
So, it’s the same pathways. To be even more succinct, it is a vagal pathway. All the interest in the vagus
nerve is really interest in the information that the nerve is conveying. It’s conveying information, from
the brain to the periphery, to calm down - you’re safe.
If the higher order parts of our nervous system detect risk, or

“...the vagus nerve danger, then this vagal calming response is retracted, and we
conveys information immediately move to a physiological state that supports fight or
from the brain to the flight behaviors. The neural circuit that supports fight or flight
periphery - to calm behaviors is an older phylogenetic circuit that enables defense to
down and you’re safe.” occur through increases in mobilization.
Polyvagal Theory describes a wonderful neural circuit that is

available when you’re in safe environments. It enables the face to work, to articulate, to be expressive.
○ It also enables our voice to be prosodic and calming to others. Without awareness, we express safety
cues to others and detect cues of safety from others. We detect cues from the upper part of the face; we
pick up cues from the acoustic properties of vocalizations; we even pick up cues from head gestures and
even hand gestures.
Our temporal cortex reads this information. It reads to detect the intentionality of biological movement.
If you put a hand over the back of the head of a strange dog, what will happen? The dog will bite
you. If you put your hand down in front of the dog, the dog will sniff the hand and see this as a neural
exploratory behavior and not get defensive.
The temporal cortex detects facial expressivity, intonation and gesture, and makes a decision, which is
not cognitive, whether the features of the engagement are safe or dangerous.
Dr. Buczynski: Now, what about people who don’t have the ability to read those?
Dr. Porges: Ok, now I want to make one other point,

and then we’re going to get to that. The other point is “...the temporal cortex detects
why the Polyvagal Theory even evolved. facial expressivity, intonation
People understood that there are fight-flight systems,
and gesture, and makes
and they understood that there are calming systems,
a non-cognitive decision
but they didn’t understand that the calming system, this
whether the engagement is
safe or dangerous.”
○
new mammalian vagus, was linked to the face. That’s
an important contribution from the Polyvagal Theory,

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and it’s also important in the sense of understanding that there was a hierarchy, that the vagal system
○
could dampen the sympathetic nervous system.
But what was missing, totally missing, or written out of the literature, was an ancient and old defensive
system of shutting down - the death feigning, the mouse in the jaws of the cat.
We have been structured through education and socialization to believe that there is only one form
of defense, and that is fight-flight. We have been so structured to believe that there is only one aspect
of defense: to mobilize. And we have associated words like stress to be consistent with this view of
mobilization and defense. Even in response to trauma, clinical diagnoses incorporate the term stress -
post traumatic stress disorder.
But there is a different defense system not associated with mobilization and not accurately described
by “stress.” If you are stressed, you have high heart rate; you have an increase in muscle tone. But
if you talk to people who have experienced trauma and abuse, you find out that their experiences are
experiences of shutting down, losing muscle tone, losing consciousness, and dissociating.
When victims of trauma and abuse try to explain these

“...people who have features to many clinicians there is a disconnect between
experienced severe abuse the personal experience and the clinicians’ expectations.
often are panicked when they Functionally, the clinicians, with the model that trauma
have difficulties explaining and abuse provoke a state of stress, aren’t listening.
their experiences...”
This is why people who have experienced severe abuse,
○ physical trauma, often are at a loss. They are really

panicked when they have difficulties explaining their experiences, because the clinical world did not
have the vocabulary to describe immobilization as a defensive system.
When I talk about psycho-biological treatments for trauma and abuse, or when I talk about models of
stress and fear, I am often asked, “Are you studying fear?” I say, “Do you mean fear as in when we run
away? Or fear as in when we pass out?”
We use psychological constructs, and those psychological constructs often do not map well into the
biological adaptive responses. The reason that we are having this discussion is that several clinicians and
researchers, people within the trauma field, use the Polyvagal Theory to explain many of the important
attributes of their clients; attributes that they had no way of explaining without the concepts and
constructs described in the Polyvagal Theory.
I was totally shocked, that by giving talks about what I

observed in my research - even examples of infants reacting “...Polyvagal Theory
with bradycardia and apnea - that my research findings could explains client attributes
be translated into the human experiences associated with that clinicians have had
trauma and abuse. no way of explaining...”
I am pleased that the clinical world is incorporating it into

their perspective and using it to enable clients to develop a valid interpersonal narrative of how their
○ body responds to life threat in a heroic manner - explaining bodily responses to trauma and abuse as an
adaptive strategy that enabled them to survive.

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Three Hierarchical Systems for How We Respond to the World
○ The major contribution of the Polyvagal Theory is, in my view, the articulation that there are three
hierarchical systems which we use to respond to the world.
When we are in safe environments, picking up cues and processing facial expressivity of gesture and
also when we are in enclosed environments like we are now – you are in a room with four walls and
doors and I’m in a room with four walls and doors - neither one of us is looking too much behind us. If
we were conducting this interview in an open area, our nervous system would constantly want to look
behind us; we would want to identify risk.
But there is no risk here. We have created within our society environments that are defined as safe,
because they have a certain amount of structure. We know
“... face to face interactions that our nervous system wants this; we know that if we
are often very helpful in can use face to face interactions, we can diffuse many
resolving conflict.” misinterpretations of events. So, face to face interactions are
often very helpful in dampening and resolving conflict.
We also know that our sympathetic nervous system is really not a bad thing - it’s good in that it enables
us to mobilize. But if it is used solely as our sole defense system, we’re a dangerous organism. We’re
mobilized, and we’re, in a sense, skittish. We’ll hit people, and we’ll misinterpret other people’s cues.
The Polyvagal Theory enables us to understand that the sympathetic nervous system provides the neural
platform for these asocial and defensive behaviors.
○ But there is another defense system, and that system is the shutdown system, and the shutdown system
has many adaptive functions. It raises pain thresholds. It enables an individual to experience horrendous
exposure to abuse, while reducing the physical pain and sensations, and thus, to survive.
But there are a lot of consequences when this

adaptive defense system is recruited for survival.
Although mammals evolved to rapidly shift between “Mammals... did not evolve to
social engagement and mobilization behaviors, we shift between this shutting
did not evolve to shift between this shutting down down system and mobilization.”
system and mobilization or between shutting down
and social engagement.
If you think in terms of people who have been abused, the defense that they may use is to mobilize to get
out of the dangerous environment and flail out aggressively at people who might hurt them.
So, the issue is to think in terms of a hierarchy with each circuit having adaptive function - each circuit
being good for something.
But there is a problem. If we use the immobilization circuit as a defense, then our nervous system
doesn’t have easy access to the neural pathways to get out of it. That’s why so many people are in
therapy - because they can’t get out of that circuit.
○
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How the Vagus Nerve Is a Paradox
○ Dr. Buczynski: Now where does the vagus nerve come in? How did you discover its connection to this?
Dr. Porges: The vagus nerve is involved in the shutting down response, but it is also involved in social
engagement and calming down. Actually, the vagus nerve is a paradox when we try to understand its
functional roles related to behavior and psychological experience.
The Polyvagal Theory was the product of trying to resolve this

“The vagus nerve paradox. If I go back to the history, I was pleased with my research
is a paradox... program.
involved in both
the shutting down I was showing that heart rate variability, which I assumed reflected
and in social vagal regulation of heart rate, was very protective. Heart rate variability
engagement...” was related to all kinds of wonderful attributes. If you had low heart
rate variability, then you were at risk for a variety of things.
Low heart rate variability was related to risk and disease. It was not specific and was linked to
anxiety, depression, diabetes, and heart disease. I was continuing to explore how heart rate variability
was related to health risk when I received a letter from a neonatologist, who read one of my papers
describing the positive attributes of infants with high heart rate variability. In his letter he stated that
when he was in medical school, he had learned that the vagus could kill you, and he said perhaps too
much of a good thing is bad.
○ This statement provided a conflict in my thinking and now I had to deal with this paradox. My research
was demonstrating that there was a vagal influence that is protective. And, the neonatologist reminded
me that there was a vagal influence that can kill you - causing massive slowing of heart rate and a
cessation of breathing resulting in a state similar to passing out or vasovagal syncope.
How do you reconcile those two contradictory influences? The

neonatologist reconciled it as “too much of a good thing is
bad.” From my perspective this could not be the answer. My “...science is really
reason was based on my observations of infants. Infants only wonderful, not because
had bradycardia when heart rate variability was low. When of what people know,
heart rate variability was high, there were no apnea and no but because of what
bradycardia. This suggested that heart rate variability was a they don’t know.”
protective pattern that could inhibit the mechanisms producing
bradycardia.
Without the heart rate variability patterns, then bradycardia occurred. These observations sent me into
an intellectual black hole. In a sense, science is really wonderful, not because of what people know, but
because of what they don’t know.
If the question could be structured, then an explanation of the mechanisms could be discovered. The
solution emerged while studying the evolutionary changes in the neural regulation of the autonomic
nervous system. Specifically, the answer became clear as I studied the phylogenetic changes of the
○ vagus in vertebrates and especially how vagal pathways changed in the phylogenetic transition from
reptiles to mammals.

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It became an interesting story, and the story is still evolving. It’s really quite exciting. One might think
○
the study of neural systems would put someone to sleep, but really, it’s quite exciting especially when
we investigate the transition from reptiles to mammals. Our ancient common ancestor was a tortoise, and
what was the tortoise’s defense system? Shutting down and even, retracting the head!
We still have that system. It’s in our nervous system. We inherited that neural circuit. We don’t use
it often, and, in a sense, we’re not really supposed to use it,
because it has too many risks. Because we are mammals, we
“... physiological circuits
need lots of oxygen, so slowing our heart rate and stopping our
or states are not
breathing is not a good thing. However, if mobilization doesn’t
voluntarily selected.”
get us out of danger, our nervous system may automatically
switch to this system.
The issue, again, is to understand that the physiological circuits or states are not voluntarily selected.
Our nervous system is evaluating this on some unconscious level, and I use the term neuroception to
respect and acknowledge that our nervous system, without awareness, is evaluating features of risk in
the environment.
If you start feeling comfortable with me and I start using good prosodic features - my gestures are fine,
I’m not in a sense yelling at you, I’m not talking in a deep tone of voice, I’m not pushing information
- you’re going to start listening better, and you’re going to calm down. If I talk like most university
professors, your eyes will start rolling up and you’ll lose interest and say, “You made a good choice to
become a clinical psychologist and not a professor!”
○ We understand that when we start dealing with

ideas and objects, and not with people, the way we
relate becomes different, and I want to bridge those
“... Polyvagal Theory uses
evolution as an organizing
two thoughts in a moment. But the real important principle to decipher these
point is that the Polyvagal Theory uses evolution neural-physiological circuits and
as an organizing principle to decipher these neural- how they work.”
physiological circuits and how they work.
Early in vertebrate evolution, neural regulation of the heart is mediated by an unmyelinated, which is
a less efficient, vagus. This neural system provides an ability to defend by immobilizing, which meant
reducing metabolic demands, reducing oxygen demands, reducing food demands, and surviving.
As vertebrates evolved, they start to get a spinal sympathetic nervous system, which emerges in boney
fish. Bony fish can coordinate movements among groups, schools of fish; they can use mobility as a
defensive system. As a defensive system, mobilization with its dependence on the sympathetic nervous
system inhibits the immobilization circuit.
As mammals evolved, something special happens to the vagus. Mammals have a new vagus that
dampens the sympathetic and the adrenal circuits to enable mammals to engage socially, and to optimize
metabolic resources. This is one of the main points of the Polyvagal Theory: when we are social and are
engaged, we’re reducing metabolic demands to facilitate health, growth, and restoration.
○ Now, there’s another important issue here. When this wonderful vagus emerges in mammals, the area
of the brain stem that regulates this newer myelinated vagus is linked to the brain areas that control

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the striated muscles of the face. This area of the brainstem
○
controls our ability to listen through middle-ear muscles,
“When we are social and
our ability to articulate through the laryngeal-pharyngeal
engaged, we’re reducing
muscles, and our ability to express through the face.
metabolic demands to
And now, since you told me that you’re a licensed clinical facilitate health, growth
psychologist, when you look at people’s faces and listen and restoration.”
to their voices, you are actually assessing your client’s
physiological state because the face and the heart are wired
together in the brain stem.
Again, the real important issue for many individuals, especially those who have experienced trauma, is
that the upper part of the face is flat and the intonation of voice lacks prosody. Another, often neglected
feature of those who have experienced trauma, are reported difficulties in understanding human voice in
background sound while being hypersensitive to background noises. This difficulty is due to a deficit in
the neural tone to the middle ear muscles.
Now one final point: how do we know if a fossil is a mammal or a

“When we listen to the reptile? We can identify the mammal by having detached middle
intonation - prosodic ear bones. Detached middle ear bones are the smallest bones in
features of voice - we the body. They’re regulated by the two smallest muscles in the
are reading in the body, which are regulated by nerves that go to the area of that
other person their brain stem that regulates the vagal control of the heart.
○ phsyiological state.
When we listen to intonation - prosodic features of voice - we are
reading in the other person their physiological state.
If their physiological state is calm, it calms us down. Another way of thinking about this point is to
acknowledge that in mammals, long before there was syntax or language, there were vocalizations,
and vocalizations were an important component of social interactions. Vocalizations convey to the
conspecifics – members of the same species - whether that individual is safe to come close to.
The Vagus: A Conduit of Motor and Sensory Pathways

Dr. Buczynski: Now, I want to back up just enough to give a little bit more foundation, especially
because not everyone on the call has exposure to this. So, is the vagus nerve a family of nerves or neural
pathways that originates in several areas of the brain stem?
Dr. Porges: There are different ways of looking at this. You can ask the question: What’s in the nerve?
You can ask the question: Where does the nerve come from? You can ask: Where in the brain does it go
or to where in the periphery?
Think of the vagus as a conduit, a cable with lots of fibers

in it, and you did a good job of describing it the way you “Eighty percent of the
did. The vagus is not merely a motor nerve, meaning that it fibers in the vagus are
○
comes from the brain stem to the viscera; it’s also a sensory sensory.”
nerve, going from the viscera up to the brain.

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Now you have the mind-body, body-mind, or brain-body, body-brain relationship. Eighty percent of
○
the fibers in the vagus are sensory. Only a few of the motor are myelinated, and they are profoundly
important in regulating areas above the diaphragm. Most of the unmyelinated vagal pathways are
actually regulating areas below the diaphragm.
Now I want you to think for a moment, what are the clinical features or problems of any of your clients?
They have gut problems, gastric problems, and that is because the unmyelinated vagus is now being
recruited as this immobilization defense system, or when people are in states of highly mobilized, as a
defense strategy, they are dampening the ability of the old vagus to function in a homeostatic way.
So we have the different areas of the brain stem that are both the source area of the motor fibers going
down and also the locus of where the sensory fibers are coming.
Mammals have sensory fibers and two types of motor fibers

“If confronted with a - some from this old unmyelinated vagus going primarily to
challenge, the first part of below the diaphragm and others from the new myelinated
your nervous system will vagus going to the heart. Mammals have two types of vagal
negotiate by using the face, motor going from the brainstem to the viscera and sensory
vocalization, and language. fibers going from the viscera to the brainstem mapping our
visceral experience and communicating it to the brain.
Dr. Buczynski: Polyvagal hierarchy states that there are different zones of arousal affected by trauma.
Is that correct?
○ Dr. Porges: What the theory states functionally, is that if you are confronted with a challenge, the first
part of your nervous system will try to negotiate by using the face, using vocalization, using language.
If that doesn’t work, there’s going to be a retraction of the new social engagement system to promote
mobilization. If that doesn’t work, then you’re really going to gear up the sympathetic nervous system
for fight-flight.
If you can’t escape, and you can’t fight, and this is similar to the scenarios described by individuals with
trauma histories, especially small children, or individuals confronted by larger and stronger individuals,
or experiences in an environment where someone has a weapon; then in these situations, increasing
sympathetic nervous system activity is not adaptive since mobilization will not be an effective defense.
Under these circumstances the nervous system seems to evaluate the risk of life threat and will trigger a
shutdown response.
I’ll try to give you a short example illustrating this response. “If you can’t escape
On CNN they were showing an airplane having great difficulty and you can’t fight...
in landing. The wings were tipping back and forth and it was the nervous system
uncertain whether the airplane would land safely. It landed and evaluates the risk of life
a reporter interviewed the passengers. threat and triggers a
shutdown response.”
The interviewer went up to one woman and said, “How did
you feel?” and the expectation was that the woman would
say, “I was really scared. I was ready to jump out of my skin.” But her comment wasn’t that - she said,
○ “Feel? I passed out.”

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Now, was the woman’s passing out a voluntary escape?
○ “An individual’s response No, her nervous system detected features of risk. The point
to the event is the critical I really want to make is our neuroception, our nervous
feature.” system’s evaluation of risk without awareness, is functionally
unpredictable. We don’t know how our nervous system will
respond.
If that plane hit the ground and went up into flames, her transition from life to death would have been
without pain. However, many of the people in exactly the same environment were screaming, and I’m
sure that there were others that were relatively calm. So here we have an example of the same physical
risk event being translated by different nervous systems in different ways.
This leads to the real problem when we start dealing with trauma, where the clinical world is obsessed
on the event and not on understanding that an individual’s response to the event is the critical feature.
The Connection Between Trauma and Social Engagement

Dr. Buczynski: Can we start tying that knot to social engagement - trauma and social engagement?
What’s critical there?
Dr. Porges: What’s critical here is if people go into this state of immobilization with fear - where they
are utilizing this very ancient neural circuit - the nervous system doesn’t provide them with an easy
way to get out. And by getting out, I mean getting back to a normal system where social engagement
○ processes are easily recruited.
For most people, the trauma experience results in the

development of a complex narrative of why they don’t want to “The first thing the
socially interact: they don’t trust people…basically they have client needs to do in
visceral physiological feelings. They’re exhausted, their nervous any environment is to
system is detecting risk when there is no real risk, and they are navigate in space to
trying to negotiate this very complex world. The narrative they’re ensure safety.”
building is an attempt to support the physiological experience.
But, the real question is how to get a person out of that state?
How do you recruit the wonderful social engagement system to inhibit the sympathetic mobilization and
to move out of the dangerous immobilization state?
This is where some ideas from the Polyvagal Theory are slowly creeping into the clinical world.
The first thing that the client needs to do in any environment is to navigate in space to ensure safety. Pat
Ogden is truly a master in understanding this feature. In her clinical settings, she empowers the client to
move and even position the therapist to insure that the client experiences a sense of safety.
Often feeling safe has a lot to do with the proximity to the therapist. In a sense, the therapist, as another
human being, is dangerous to a client who has been traumatized. To reduce these features of danger, Pat
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empowers the client to navigate in the space of her office to feel safe.

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Once there is a feeling of safety, there’s a shift in physiological
○
“Once there is a feeling state. When there is that shift in physiological state, then
of safety, there’s a shift spontaneous engagement behaviors occur: the tone of the
in physiological state... voice changes and facial expression changes. If the therapist
tone of voice and facial is reciprocal and responds with engagement behaviors
expression change.” characterized by prosodic voice and positive facial affect, the
social engagement system of the client is stimulated.
Based on the Polyvagal Theory, I have two hints for clinicians: one, negotiate safety, and two,
understand that our nervous system responds to the features of others differently in safe environments
than in dangerous situations or even in noisy places.
Because noisy, low frequency sounds are triggers to our nervous system of predator, I suggest that the
first thing we should do to a clinical setting is make it quiet. Get rid of the low frequency sounds.
Many people with a trauma history don’t want to go to

restaurants; they don’t want to go to movie theaters; they “Listening to vocal music,
don’t want to be in shopping malls because the escalators the prosodic features
bother them - the vibrations and the low frequency activity. of sound, even without
Since we know this, why don’t we create environments another person, can
where they will feel safer? make us feel safer.”
Once our nervous system feels safer, then the therapeutic
○
strategy is: can you trigger the neural regulation of the social engagement system? How would we do
that? This is where listening to vocal music, the prosodic features of sound even without another person,
can have the effect of making us feel safer.
How Music Cues Vagal Regulation

Several years ago, I developed the listening project to stimulate social engagement behaviors in autistic
individuals. The intervention was an attempt to exercise the neural regulation of the middle ear muscles
by exaggerating the processing intonation of voice. When the neural regulation of the middle ear
muscles is increased it provides a cue to a nervous system that the person is in a safe place and the
autonomic nervous system responds by increasing the vagal regulation of the heart.
Dr. Buczynski: What do you do in the music project?
Dr. Porges: What do I do in it? I present computer-altered vocal

“...the listening project music. Vocal music, especially female vocal music provides
was developed to prosodic vocalizations without low frequencies. However,
stimulate social by processing the vocal tracks, the modulation of acoustic
engagement behaviors frequencies that characterize the vocalizations can be exaggerated
in autistic individuals.” and trigger the neural circuit controlling the middle ear muscles
more efficiently.
○
That’s what we were doing. The idea behind this strategy is relatively simple - if we can get the brain
to pick up the information – the prosody, the intonation, the feedback – then that will increase the

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neural tone to the muscles in the ear to dampen background sounds, and that would link into the vagal
○
regulation of the heart and calm people down.
For the fifteen years, I was walking around “...if we can get the brain to pick up
with that as a plausible theory. On December the prosody, the intonation, then that
of this year, my colleague, Greg Lewis and will increase the neural tone to the
I, filed a patent on a device that actually ear muscles, dampen background
measures the transfer function to middle ear sounds, link into the vagal regulation
structures. It was a concept that was missing of the heart, and calm people down.”
from speech and hearing sciences.
Now we are able to demonstrate whether or not a person is absorbing human voice or reflecting it, and
whether they’re absorbing low frequency predator sounds or reflecting that from the eardrum. Visualize
the eardrum as a kettle drum. As we tighten the kettle drum, the pitch goes up. As the middle ear
muscle tone increases the eardrum absorbs higher frequency sounds and lower frequency are reflected.
With the increased middle muscle tone, the frequencies associated with human speech are more likely to
be absorbed and we are better able to understand the speech of others. However, at the same time we are
better able to understand speech we decrease our ability to detect the low frequency sounds associated
with predator.
We use this device to evaluate middle ear function in people with auditory hyper-sensitivities. Many of
the participants in our studies have been autistic, but we also include individuals with other diagnoses.
Of interest to the treatment of trauma is the observation that many individuals with a history of trauma
○
frequently report auditory hyper-sensitivities.
We were able to document in our patent application that in individuals with auditory hypersensitivities
the absorption in the frequency band of the human voice was diminished at the second and third
harmonics of human speech. In people with auditory hypersensitivities, these harmonics, which are
necessary to detect the consonants in speech, were not getting into the inner ear and to the brain. They
were absorbing more of the low frequencies that were associated with danger and predator.
If they participated in the listening project, we were

“Our work is demonstrating able to rehabilitate the neural regulation and change
that auditory hypersensitivities the absorption curve. Our work is demonstrating that
are modifiable for many and auditory hypersensitivities are modifiable for many
‘listening’ is part of the social and demonstrating that “listening” is part of the social
engagement system.” engagement system.
Dr. Buczynski: In listening to all of this, are most of

the participants (you are working with) autistic children? Or have you started to include people who
have experienced trauma, or perhaps returning soldiers?
Dr. Porges: For about a decade, we were applying this intervention to solely autistic individuals.
However, given the complexity of the autism diagnosis, I decided to expand the research question from
autism to auditory hypersensitivities.
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I changed research strategies, because I wanted to demonstrate that auditory hypersensitivities could be
○
remediated, and when they were remediated there would be improvements in state regulation and social
engagement behaviors.
Also, I did not want to be accused of trying to cure autism, “When hypersensitivities
since the clinical diagnosis assumes that autism is a lifelong could be remediated, there
disorder. My goal was not to cure a controversial clinical were improvements in
diagnosis, but to change features of the behavior to enable state regulation and social
the individual to adapt better to the world they were living engagement...”
in.
To your question regarding PTSD or trauma, we have not done any randomized clinical trials. We’ve
completed one with autism, and the effects were quite good. In our study, if the autistic individuals had
auditory hyper-sensitivities, more than sixty percent of them no longer had it following the intervention.
If they no longer had hyper-auditory sensitivities after the intervention, most had improved social
engagement behaviors. The reduced auditory hyper-sensitivities reflect a neural-physiological state that
supports social engagement behaviors. If the intervention changed the neurophysiological state, then the
individual is in a neural platform that dampens defensive behaviors and facilitates spontaneous social
engagement behaviors.
Dr. Buczynski: How about music therapy? Does that have any (effect)?
Dr. Porges: Yes, music therapy might be helpful. The issue with music therapy is that as an intervention
○ the underlying mechanisms are not understood. Even though there are published reports and clinical
observations of improved behaviors, there is no strong theory of why it would work that has been
empirically tested.
However, the Polyvagal Theory with its link to the middle-ear muscles and link to laryngeal and
pharyngeal muscles, which are involved in singing, could be used to explain how music therapy might
be helpful.
First, we will discuss singing and then we’ll move to

my favorite form of music therapy, wind instruments.
“...singing controls breath... With singing, we control breath. Primarily, we expand
expanding the duration of the duration of exhalation, which increases the vagal
exhalation and increasing the efferent influence of the myelinated vagus on the heart’s
vagal efferent influence of pacemaker. The myelinated vagus, is the vagus of the
the myelinated vagus on the social engagement system and the expanded exhalation
heart’s pacemaker.” associated with singing increases the functional impact
of the vagus on the heart.
What do you do when you sing? You exhale. What else do you do when you sing? You listen with
your middle ear muscles. What else do you do? You utilize the neural regulation of your laryngeal and
pharyngeal muscles. What else do you do? You utilize the muscles of the mouth, exerting more control
of the facial muscles.
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If you sing with a group, then you are also
○
social referencing - you’re engaging others. “Music therapy, especially singing in a
Singing, especially singing in a group, is group, is an amazing neural exercise
an amazing neural exercise of the social of the social engagement system.”
engagement system.
The experience of playing a wind instrument shares many of the behavioral and neurophysiological
features of singing. Similar to singing, there are processes of listening, exhaling, and engaging
whoever is running or conducting the music. From an entirely different perspective, the behaviors and
neurophysiological “exercises” of singing and playing a wind instrument share features with pranayama
yoga. Pranayama yoga, functionally, is yoga of the social engagement system - yoga of breath and of the
striated muscles of the face and head.
Social Engagement Signals: Self-Regulation vs. Being Clueless

Dr. Buczynski: Interesting. Awhile back…we were talking about why some people need those social
engagement signals and other people just have no clue - as if it’s a foreign language and they’ve just
immigrated to a foreign country.
Dr. Porges: And that’s why you’re a licensed clinical psychologist and I’m a laboratory scientist. We
have both learned that we need to interact with people, but in different venues. I want to tie this together
and give you a plausible explanation. So let’s start off with forgetting that we have all these complex
○
diagnostic categories and all these terms.
Dr. Buczynski: Glad to do that.
Dr. Porges: Then we end up saying that there is comorbidity and use other kinds of terms, and that
doesn’t help because the diagnostic terms don’t get at the underlying mechanisms causing or mediating
the disorder.
Let’s create a very simple model of human behavior. Let’s place the ability of individuals to regulate
their biobehavioral states with other individuals along a continuum. This is really what you’re saying:
some people don’t have a clue about other people’s features and this informs you that their ability to
regulate their physiological state is not good with other people.
Now, let’s take another dimension and let’s

“In this new world of social ask about people who regulate their state with
communication - social networking... objects? Remember that we’re in a world in
by using computers and texting, which social communication is being redefined
we’re stripping the human interaction by people who are challenged in their own
from human interactions.” abilities to regulate physiological state with
others.
\This new world of social communication is what is called social networking. We’re using computers
and we’re texting. In a sense, we are stripping the human interaction from human interactions.
○
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We’re going from a synchronous interactive mode,
○
to an asynchronous mode. Now we leave messages “...many clinical disorders
and read message and form interactions that do not involve people who have
involve synchronous interactions. We are allowing difficulties regulating their state
the world to be organized based upon principles with others, and they gravitate
of individuals who have difficulty regulating in to regulating with objects.”
the presence of others, but regulate very well with
objects.
From a clinical perspective, many of the clinical disorders that are being treated are really about people
who have difficulties regulating their state with others and gravitate to regulating with objects.
It doesn’t matter whether we label these people with diagnoses such as autism or social anxiety.
It doesn’t really matter what we call it. What we know is that their nervous systems do not enable
reciprocal social interaction – they have difficulties feeling safe and experiencing the beneficial
physiological states that enable positive social behavior to be parallel to health, growth, and restoration.
For them, social behavior is not calming but is disruptive.
Individuals get pushed into these two different domains to regulation state, either interacting with others
or with objects. The problem is that our society, including our educational system, is emphasizing
interactions with objects and not with people.
Changes in education are moving away from face-to-face interactions.
○
“Changes in Schools are putting iPads in the hands of preschoolers and elementary
education are school children. I was watching a recent newscast of a school where
moving away the administrators and teachers were so proud that in their first grade
from face-to-face classroom, all of their students had iPads. As the camera captured the
interactions.” classroom, the kids were looking at the iPads, and were not looking at
each other or the teacher.
What is the consequence of this trend? This trend results in the nervous system not having appropriate
opportunities to exercise the neural regulatory circuits associated with social engagement behaviors.
If the nervous system does not have these opportunities, then the nervous system will not develop the
strength and resilience to self-regulate and regulate with others, especially when challenged.
If schools continue on this trajectory of “technological advancement,” the children will not get the
appropriate neural exercises to develop an efficient neural platform to support social behavior and to
facilitate state regulation.
Another important point is what happens to

the school systems? Under the pressure of our “If schools continue on this
cognitive-centric, cortical-centric society, we trajectory of ‘technological
seem intent on force feeding everyone with advancement,’ children will not get
more information without understanding that neural exercises to support...social
our nervous system needs to be in a specific behavior and state regulation.”
○
physiological state to promote bold ideas,
creativity, and positive social behavior.

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Rather than enabling opportunities for music
○
and play with others such as team sports - all “Rather than enabling
opportunities to exercise the social engagement opportunities for music and
system - we treat these as “extra” curriculum play...we treat these as ‘extra’
activity that would distract from cognitive curriculum activity that distract
activities with a goal of enforcing children to sit from cognitive activities...”
longer in the classroom.
Dr. Buczynski: And get more information.
Dr. Porges: Get more information, and of course, the information is not getting in, and oppositional
behaviors are popping up. So, it’s a naïve view of the educational process and human development.
I think, based on your interests, you might want to ask questions about early experience, the
consequences of those early experiences, and how they lead to other risk factors. We could discuss
these questions from a neural, developmental, and even an exercise model; if we don’t utilize the neural
regulation of certain systems, they just will not develop well. It doesn’t mean that we are so pessimistic
that we can’t recruit them later; it means that because we haven’t recruited them early, there are going to
be consequences.
Recruiting Neural Regulation

Dr. Buczynski: How do we help someone who hasn’t recruited them learn how to recruit them?
○ Dr. Porges: The first thing, of course, is the context of safety. I was going to say depending upon the
age of the client, but actually, I would go back and say that the first thing to do is to convey that the
client, whether a child or an adult, did not do anything wrong. As soon as we attempt to modify a
person’s behavior, we tend to overwhelm the client with so much negative feedback emphasizing that
the behavior or feelings should be changed, that the client responds defensively as if they did something
wrong.
\This changes their physiological state and makes the circuit for social engagement behaviors
unavailable. So, there’s a total paradox of how we raise our own children, how we teach our own
students, and how we function.
If we want individuals to feel safe, we should not

“...we can recruit our wonderful
accuse them of doing something wrong or bad. We
brain with creative cognitive
need to explain to them how their body responded,
functions to develop a narrative,
how this response was adaptive, how we need to
treating atypical behaviors - not
appreciate the adaptive features of these responses,
as bad - but as understandable
and understand that this adaptive feature can change
in terms of adaptive and heroic.”
in different contexts.
Then we can recruit our wonderful big brain with creative cognitive functions to develop a narrative that
treats our atypical behaviors not as bad, but as understandable in terms of adaptive function, and often
○
heroic.

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How Attachment Theory Connects to Adaptive Function
○ Dr. Buczynski: I suppose this would be a good place to just go into the whole attachment theory or how
attachment connects to this theory.
Dr. Porges: It’s a frequently asked question and part of it is linked to the fact that my wife, Sue Carter,
discovered the relationship between oxytocin and social bonding. For many years, I’ve said that this was
her research - social bonding and attachment type issues. She developed her idea based on the prairie
vole, a small rodent that has very interesting social behavior, including pair-bonding for life and fathers
and siblings acting as caregivers. The vole is quite an amazing animal.
The prairie voles have a high level of oxytocin. During the past few years, Sue and I have been
collaborating and measuring vagal regulation of the heart in the vole. This little animal has vagal
regulation of the heart very similar to humans; a pattern that is atypical for rodents and other small
mammals. This convergence among features of high levels of oxytocin, high vagal tone to the heart,
social monogamy, and alloparenting makes the vole a very interesting and a much more relevant model
for social behavior than laboratory mice or rats.
Since I started to collaborate with Sue, I could cross the line into the research area of attachment. Before
we collaborated, there was a division between our research areas: My research emphasized engagement,
safety, and proximity or negotiation, and her researched emphasized social bonding and reproductive
behavior.
○
As we started to collaborate, I started to cross the line, and when I crossed the line, I realized that there
was a sequence involved here that was missing in the attachment literature. The attachment literature
focused on the theoretical models of John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth.
Missing from these theoretical models was what I call

the preamble to attachment – signals of safety are the “...signals of safety are the
preamble to attachment. I felt that one couldn’t even preamble to a hierarchy
discuss issues of attachment without discussing features of attachment...social
of social engagement and I started to propose that engagement provides the
social engagement provides the neural platform upon neural platform upon which
which attachment processes can occur. It’s a hierarchy. attachment processes can
Sue and I were working together on a concept, which

we called the love code, and the love code really had two parts, phase one was social engagement, which
dealt with the engagement behaviors of psychological distance - negotiation of proximity, and phase two
had to deal with physical contact and intimacy. To articulate this as a code, it meant that if it was done in
the proper order, healthy attachment and bonding would occur and if the order were shifted the outcome
could be disastrous.
From a clinical perspective, people who get bonded to each other without feeling safe with each other
may be an important driving force for many couples who come into therapy. From my perspective,
attachment should not be discussed on any level, whether it is theoretical or observational, without first a
○
thorough understanding of the contextual setting to determine whether the conditions support safety and
social engagement.

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Making Hospitals More Psychologically Safe
○ Dr. Buczynski: We don’t have a lot of time, but I have a note here that I wanted to ask you about
hospitals and making hospitals more psychologically safe. That is a time when we would hope that our
facilities and the way we organize them would enhance or recruit people’s best – their immune system
functioning… But I’m not sure that we are the best at that because we’re focusing so much on other
things…
Dr. Porges: I think this is very important question, and

unfortunately the answer is that very little effort has gone
“...we can’t wait to get out into this. Those of us who have been hospitalized can tell you
of the hospital because that after being awakened every hour and being chronically
the hospital is not safe.” disturbed by noise and staff, we can’t wait to get out of the
hospital because the hospital is not safe.
The issue has a lot to do with who organizes the services delivered in hospitals - why are they there?
Many of the staff perform services to protect the hospital from malpractice suits. Surveillance becomes
important, and cleanliness becomes important. Other issues regarding the quality of human interactions
tend not to be important, and this is tragic.
When people go into a hospital, they are saying, “I’m going into a physical situation where I cannot
protect myself. I want to be assured that I’m in safe, loving hands.” And this is just not happening.
○
I think it is really tragic because there are so many well trained and loving clinicians and practitioners in
the allied health areas that could create a different type of clinical setting for patients in hospitals.
Rather than being overwhelmed with documents to sign

that are releasing hospitals of all the responsibilities –
“...a hospital concierge
because you can’t get the medical service unless you
would enable your body to
sign - why not have someone who is like a concierge
work with the treatment -
for your body, and lead you through all these tasks?
to become a collaborator
This person could escort you to the hospital and take
in the process of healing
the burden of hyper-vigilance from you. This would
as opposed to being
enable your body to work with medicine, or work with
frightened.”
treatment - to become a collaborator in the process of
healing as opposed to being frightened.
The issue, as we discussed very early in the interview, is that if you’re frightened and if you’re scared,
you’re not going to heal. If we know this, why don’t we do whatever we can to make people feel safe?
Dr. Buczynski: One thing that comes to mind - I had abdominal surgery 20 years ago and in the last
couple of years, a colonoscopy, and in both cases, I’d negotiated ahead of time to have my glasses on so
that as I was coming out of the procedure, I would be able to see. Not being able to see, since I’m legally
blind without my glasses, would have left me vulnerable. I wanted to get the information I needed to
orient and protect myself.
○ Dr. Porges: That’s a perfect example…if you can’t see, you’re disoriented. If you’re disoriented, there’s
uncertainty. If there’s uncertainty, you’re in a state of danger. What if someone that you had discussed

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this with had held your hand and said, in a nice voice, “Ruth, everything’s fine. It will be a little
○
disorienting for a few minutes, but don’t worry; I’m here.”
Often, while you’re waking up, you’re pushed onto a gurney and
“...as human shoved into a room. It’s manualized; even in all the treatment models,
beings, we require where they talk about evidence-based practice, it’s really a way of
reciprocity and justifying manualized treatment. What we need to realize is that
context to feel safe.” we’re human beings and that human beings require, not just need, but
require reciprocity and context to feel safe.
Dr. Buczynski: Next time we talk we can talk a little more about your thoughts on low frequency
sounds in hospitals, but before we close, I just wanted to ask you, Stephen, what’s next for you?
Dr. Porges: Well, I think of myself as a mature scientist who’s done some interesting things, and I
intend to do many more new interesting things. My wife, Sue Carter, and I will be moving from the
University of Illinois to Research Triangle Institute International in North Carolina. We’ll be there
July 1st, where we’re creating a new center, a new program, and the program is called the Translational
Research in Neural Medicine.
You can get some hints about what that really “Rather than medicine just being
means. Rather than thinking that medicine or surgical or pharmaceutical,
medical treatment is just surgical or it’s going to be we’ll develop models...that
pharmaceutical, what we are going to develop are trigger the nervous system to
○
models in which you can trigger the nervous system recruit circuits that support
to recruit circuits that will support health, growth, health, growth, and resotration.”
and restoration.
Dr. Buczynski: Fascinating. I’m so sorry that we’re out of time. We actually went over just a little bit,
but it’s all so fascinating - all the work that you’ve done so far. I just want to say thank you, Stephen, for
giving us your time today and for your life’s work - all the pioneering efforts you have made and how
much you are opening up our understanding of what it is to be a human being. Thank you.
Dr. Porges: Thank you, Ruth, and I wanted to thank you for the opportunity of reaching out into the
clinical world, because my passion is not merely a passion of discovery, it’s a passion of translation.
Dr. Buczynski: Yes, ours too, actually, and that’s a good way to put it. Thank you, and good night.
Dr. Porges: Yes, good night.
Definitions:
Bradycardia: a resting heart rate of under 60 beats per minute, which can cause cardiac arrest in some
people.
Apnea: suspension of breathing.
Syncope: fainting or loss of consciousness
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TalkBack Segment with Rick Hanson, PhD and Bill O’Hanlon, LMFT
○ Ruth: That was a great call! I love talking with Stephen Porges – and I also love talking to Rick and
Bill in my Talkback Segments here! I am joined once again by my two colleagues. Dr. Rick Hanson is
a neuropsychologist and author of Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love and
Wisdom and Bill O’Hanlon has written many books, one of which is The Change Your Life Book.
So, what did you think of the call tonight? What stood out to you?
Rick: There were a couple of points, as an overview. The first was the idea of physiology as the target
and point of intervention and as the measure of success for an intervention. Of course, we never know
physiology directly; all we know is the higher level tip-of-the-iceberg in terms of conscious experiences.
Still, as therapists, to appreciate that we are regulating and

dysregulating our client’s physiology continually is very
“...think of the body
powerful for me - to think of the body as a target, including
as a target, including
its underlying deep architecture of systems.
its underlying deep
The second thing that struck me was that the vagus nerve architecture of systems.”
establishes an ongoing baseline, based on the parasympathetic
nervous system, of calm.
When the brain detects a threat or an opportunity, it disturbs away from that resting state into pursuit of an
opportunity, fighting, fleeing from or freezing around some kind of threat. But the resting state, the home
○ base, is a place of inner peace.
I find that helpful with clients – to really stand with them, knowing in our own bones of a conviction that
underneath this freaked-out top layer of awareness is always a fundamental place that is the home base of
calm, happiness and love. It is not a matter of building the home base, but returning to it, which is a lot
easier to do.
At a deep level, Mother Nature is on your side and that is

reassuring for a lot of people.
“It is not a matter of building
the home base, but Ruth: How about you, Bill?
returning to it, which is a lot
easier to do.” Bill: What stood out for me was the physical environment. In
“therapy land,” we tend to center our attention on the inside
of people, where the problem and solution are. We sometimes
forget the resources beyond people.
I was trained as a family therapist to think in systems, but even beyond systems is the physical environment
– what are the chairs like in your office, how close are you sitting to the client and when do they feel safe?
My friend Steve Gilligan had a funny case with a woman who had been traumatized; he was sitting at the
normal distance you would from a patient or client and she said, “You’re sitting too close to me. I feel
○
really freaked out.” And he said, “Okay, I’m going to back up till you feel safe.” He was halfway out the
door of his office when she finally said she felt safe.

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We tend to forget that physical environment and I thought
○
what Steve Porges said was so powerful; when we are “In ‘therapyland,’ we tend
outside, we are constantly vigilant because we could be to center our attention
attacked, which is very deep and primitive. on the inside of people...
we sometimes forget the
You held up my latest book, but I just finished my next resources beyond people.”
one, which is about writing: studying the habits of writers
and what helps them write. There was a writer who found
she had to be in a corner of her room with furniture all around her and her back to the room so she’d feel
contained and safe enough to be able to write.
We need to think about the physical environment and what

“We need to think about the might create safety for your client or patient. To tell you the
physical environment and truth, I haven’t asked any of my clients that – but I’m going
what might create safety for to now.
your client or patient.”
Ruth: Interesting. Rick, how would you apply polyvagal
theory to treatment in practical terms?
Rick: There are a lot of different ways; I couldn’t give an exhaustive answer here, but a couple of things
struck me. One is Stephen’s notion of hierarchy; first we seek to regulate ourselves through social contact,
then through activated sympathetic nervous system-based fighting or fleeing. If all else fails, the most
ancient and primitive system – the freezing response – takes over. Helping people “move up that ladder”
○
is a helpful way to think about it.
I also find that helping people have an internalized sense of others who care about them – which also
showed up in Belleruth’s discussion about imagery –is deeply important, as well.
The last thing I was struck by was implicit in much of what Stephen had to say, which is this: whether
content is present in the vagus nerve because it came from the outside or whether it arose from the inside,
it is still content in the vagus nerve. Specifically, if we receive soothing prosody – the intonation of the
voice – or we receive soothing facial expressions, that material
is going into the vagus nerve, which is great.
“...if we are soothing to
But also, if we are soothing to others – for example, taking care others...that is a great
of little kids or pets and treating them well - that is a great way way to activate positive
to activate positive vagal nerve processes. vagal nerve processes.”
It reminds me of research that has been done on animals who
have been severely traumatized when they were young. These animals can partially recover well-being –
as best as one can tell with animals – and normal stress chemistry by taking care of younger animals, even
of a different species. Traumatized chimpanzee infants, for example, can repair some of that by taking care
of puppies or kittens when they are adults.
That gives us the opportunity to look for ways that our clients can give support, soothing and nurturing to
others and internalize some of it themselves.
○
www.nicabm.com
Ruth: Thank you. Bill, Stephen said that we are social
○ “...our clients can give creatures and many of us need others to feel safe – yet we know
support, soothing and that can break down during trauma. What are your thoughts on
nurturing to others and rebuilding broken social networks?
internalize some of it
Bill: He talked about myelenation and the un-myelenated parts
themselves.”
of the vagus nerve; I actually know about that because when
my son, who is now twenty-six, was an infant, we were feeding
him skimmed milk because that’s healthy.
The pediatrician found out and said that we needed to feed him whole milk because he needed to myelenate,
which is the development of the covering around nerves that help to regulate the electrical impulses that
go through. It’s like the rubber that goes around wire so you don’t get a shock.
I think there’s a social myelenation process that happens if you are in a safe environment and rhythmically
in tune. Let me give you a couple of examples. When I first started teaching at medical school, I had
a colleague who also used hypnosis and worked in a
hospital with infants that failed to thrive.
“...there’s a social myelenation
They were taking in food, but they weren’t growing and process that happens if you
there was usually some sort of trauma involved. He are in a safe environment and
taught parents to stroke the babies in time with their rhythmically in tune...”
breathing and it seemed to calm the parent, as well as the
○
child. It started the social myelenation process and the
babies started to gain weight and thrive.
There is something about that connective social experience when it is not threatening. There was a study
of people who went through a big earthquake, like the Haiti earthquake or the earthquake in Armenia
years ago, and they found that people who were with other people developed post-traumatic stress at
lower levels than people who were alone. Of course, this is when you are with other people who are not
traumatizing, abusing or dysregulating you.
Judy Beck did research and showed that people recover from post-traumatic stress in group therapy at
higher rates and more quickly than in individual therapy. If you have other people that are in tune with
you, who have been traumatized, saying, “I know what you mean. I felt that, too,” there is an attunement.
The social myelenation process stood out throughout Stephen Porges’s talk; we as therapists can support
the person socially – that’s not the only cure, but it helps
them myelenate socially so they can heal internally.
“...people recover from post-
traumatic stress in group Ruth: This is the last webinar in this series. As we look back
therapy at higher rates over all six calls as a whole, what stands out to you?
and more quickly than in
individual therapy.” Rick: For me, there were two things. The first one is respect
for individual differences – whether it is the difference
between military culture and civilian culture, or the fact that
○ some people are going to find re-regulation primarily in the social sphere and others are going to find it

www.nicabm.com
in their own relationship with their bodies through relaxation practices, or an engagement with the object
○
world, like gardening or going for walks in the wood.
The other thing that popped out for me was– I’m getting a little emotional about it – that there was an
extremely inspiring sense of resourcefulness - of never giving up, of feeling down deep, from beginning to
end, that there is always something you can do.
We can do so much by accessing a wide range of different tools in the toolbox and demonstrating to our
clients our own profound commitment to their well-being over time; our clients have a willingness to keep
trying something else, if we need to.
To me, that is such an important part of working with

trauma; the embodiment of efficacy is the antithesis
“...there was an extremely inspiring
sense of resourcefulness - never
of the word helplessness. It is this fundamental
giving up - feeling that there is
stance that there is always something you can do.
always something you can do.”
You know, taking our stand with Captain Kirk and
rejecting the Kobayashi Maru scenario.
Ruth: Rick, that’s interesting. It makes me think of how proud I am of how much our field is growing and
how many new discoveries are coming out.
Twenty years ago, maybe even five or ten years ago, we didn’t even know a lot of the things we have talked
about in this series and that makes me think about how much more we will know next year. It is exactly
the way you put it - this whole idea of never giving up.
○ Thankfully, there are many pioneers working to build our knowledge about how trauma affects people,
how it affects the brain and the different in-roads we can make.
Bill, what are your thoughts?
Bill: I am probably preaching to the choir here because almost

“...there are many everybody who has been listening to this – in addition to you
pioneers working to build two and everybody that you have interviewed – knows there
our knowledge about how is no separation between mind and body neurology – and also
trauma affects people...” spirit, I would say. It is all embodied together; it is human,
social and environmental.
You have been doing this for many years, Ruth, and you have organized many mind-body conferences.
What came across is that we tend to silo things, but human beings live in a multi-connected and multi-
influenced world.
This is the good news and the bad news because you can be affected traumatically in any of those ways
– neurologically, physiologically, interpersonally, environmentally, bodily and muscularly. But that also
means that there are multiple ways into healing as well. As Rick said, that is the hopeful message.
I really can’t separate these because I have watched all of your Brain Series, Rick has written about this
○
and I am learning so much more. The bad news about trauma and the brain is that trauma gets grooved
neurologically and brain-wise; we tend to get grooved and if nothing moves us out of these groves, we
tend to stay in them, which are sometimes dysfunctional and not workable.

www.nicabm.com
The good news is that human beings can develop
○
through our whole lifetime – this is the idea of brain “The good news is that human
plasticity – you can always change those grooves. beings can develop through
That is the message of hope that I heard throughout a whole lifetime. That is the
this whole series: “Here is some understanding. If message of hope that I heard
you can use this understanding, you can help people throughout this whole series...”
move out of their deep groove. It’s not easy all the
time – but it is doable.”
Ruth: Fascinating. Again, I am afraid we have to stop – but I have a few things to say, especially because
this is wrapping up. First of all, please go to the Comment Board and tell us how you are going to use what
you heard today and what stood out to you. When you do, please put your first and last name, your city,
state or country, and your profession.
You’ll find that you will see other people’s ideas; you will get ideas from them and they will get ideas from
you. This is an important resource – as we have been talking about resources tonight.
I want to let you know that our researchers do their best to

“...you will see other
go through the transcripts to make sure that all the names
people’s ideas; you will get
referenced in the interviews are correct. If you had trouble
ideas from them and they
hearing specific names in the audio, you’ll find them in the
will get ideas from you.”
transcript.
○
We will be talking about dissociation and how important it is in trauma; we will also be talking about
secondary trauma and how so many of us who spend a lot of our time working with patients who have
experienced trauma are vulnerable to experiencing it ourselves just from hearing about it over and over
again. It is the same with first responders – police and firefighters and all of our brothers and sisters who
are in the military. Those will be coming up in the bonus calls next week.
One last thing I need to tell you is that the price for the Gold Membership goes up Monday, so be sure to
get it right now. You can click on our link right below and you will be able to sign up right away and get
all of that. You also help NICABM make these interviews free and available to people all over the world.
We don’t have the count for Trauma yet, but there were over seventy countries represented in the Brain
Series that we finished a few months ago; many folks there come from countries where they earn
substantially less – just a few dollars a week – and this helps make those calls available for free to those
people, as long as they are listening at the time of broadcast.
Please go to the link that is below and sign up for a Gold Membership.
Thanks very much – and thanks to both of you, Rick and Bill, for being part of this series. You have added
so much. It was nice meeting with you, hearing your ideas and bouncing our ideas off of one another.
Thanks very much for being a part of it.
Everyone, take good care. Bye now.
○
www.nicabm.com
About The Speaker:
○ Stephen Porges is currently a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry

and the Director of the Brain-Body Center in the College of Medicine at
the University of Illinois at Chicago and holds appointments in the Depart-
ments of Psychology, BioEngineering, and Anatomy and Cell Biology.
He is a former President of the Society for Psychophysiological Research

and has been President of the Federation of Behavioral, Psychological and
Cognitive Sciences.
Stephen Porges is married to C. Sue Carter, PhD, who is a biologist and

behavioral neurobiologist.
Books by Featured Speaker: Stephen W. Porges, PhD
The Polyvagal Theory Attachment and Bonding: A
○
New Synthesis
Click HERE Click HERE

to Purchase Now! to Purchase Now!
Find out more about this and related programs at:
○ www.nicabm.com

www.nicabm.com
○ About The TalkBack Speakers:

Rick Hanson, Ph.D., is a neuropsychologist, author, and teacher as
well as founder of the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and
Contemplative Wisdom. He teaches at meditation centers in Europe,
Australia, and North America. His work has been featured on the
BBC and in Consumer Reports Health, U.S. News and World Report,
and other major magazines.
Rick is currently a trustee of Saybrook University. He also served on

the board of Spirit Rock Meditation Center for nine years, and was
President of the Board of FamilyWorks, a community agency. He is
trained in several meditation traditions and leads a weekly meditation
gathering in San Rafael, CA.
Bill O'Hanlon, LMFT, is a dynamic, inspirational speaker and

prolific author (over 30 books so far) who helps motivate people and
organizations to determine what they are meant to be doing and to
remove the barriers to succeeding at those goals.
○ Originally trained as a psychotherapist, Bill has become known

for his collaborative and respectful approach, irreverent humor,
storytelling, clear and accessible presentation style, and his infectious
enthusiasm for whatever he is doing. He teaches seminars, leads
trainings, writes books, coaches people and offers websites, podcasts,
blogs, web-based courses, teleclasses and audio and video programs.
○
www.nicabm.com

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What is Polyvagal Theory?

What is Polyvagal Theory?

How does the vagus nerve influence social engagement and emotional regulation?

How does the vagus nerve influence social engagement and emotional regulation?

○

Polyvagal Theory: Why This

A Webinar Session with

○ for the Clinical Application

The Organizing Principles of Polyvagal Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

How We Use Others To Feel Safe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Three Hierarchical Systems for How We Respond to the World . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

How The Vagus Nerve Is a Paradox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

The Vagus: A Conduit of Motor and Sensory Pathways . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

The Connection between Trauma and Social Engagement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

How Music Cues Vagal Regulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Recruiting Neural Regulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

How Attachment Theory Connects to Adaptive Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Making Hospitals More Psychologically Safe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

About the Speakers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

○ A complete transcript of a Webinar Session

Polyvagal Theory: Why This Changes Everything

○ with Ruth Buczynski, PhD

The subtitle of his book is Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication,

Heart Rate Variability and Self-Regulation: What’s the Relationship?

Dr. Porges: Sure. The ability to observe heart rate patterns

The National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine

The Organizing Principles of Polyvagal Theory

Dr. Porges: From my perspective this has been my lifelong journey

The important aspect is that mammals require

The National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine

Now, that being said, both the positive and negative

○ the progression of recovery from injury and disease.

Science has operationalized this issue as “giving” people social

How We Use Others To Feel Safe

The National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine

If the higher order parts of our nervous system detect risk, or

Polyvagal Theory describes a wonderful neural circuit that is

Dr. Porges: Ok, now I want to make one other point,

The National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine

When victims of trauma and abuse try to explain these

○ physical trauma, often are at a loss. They are really

I was totally shocked, that by giving talks about what I

I am pleased that the clinical world is incorporating it into

The National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine

Three Hierarchical Systems for How We Respond to the World

But there are a lot of consequences when this

How the Vagus Nerve Is a Paradox

The Polyvagal Theory was the product of trying to resolve this

How do you reconcile those two contradictory influences? The

The National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine

○ We understand that when we start dealing with

The National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine

the striated muscles of the face. This area of the brainstem

Now one final point: how do we know if a fossil is a mammal or a

The Vagus: A Conduit of Motor and Sensory Pathways

Think of the vagus as a conduit, a cable with lots of fibers

The National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine

Mammals have sensory fibers and two types of motor fibers

○ “Feel? I passed out.”