Polyvagal Theory and its Clinical Applications (Online Learning)
When: On-Demand Video Course
Time: 26h
Led by: Jan Winhall, Jonathan Baylin, Deb Dana, Stephen Porges, Dafna Lender
This all encompassing course will teach you everything you need to know about the Polyvagal theory. The theory focuses on how trauma disrupts the functioning of the autonomic nervous system. By developing your understanding, you can guide your clients back to the feeling of safety and influence their ability to connect to themselves and others. You will be presented with many techniques to take to your own practice, which you can apply to the treatment plans of both adult and child clients to achieve successful treatment effects.
To introduce the themes of this video course, first immerse yourself into this fascinating discussion between three experts; Stephen Porges, Vittorio Gallese and Daniel Seigel chaired by Giovanna Liotti. They will delve into the subjects of attachment, mirror neurons, intersubjectivity and trauma. They will share their expertise and deepen your understanding of their research fields.
The Polyvagal theory: demystifying the body’s response to trauma : This theory uses the principles of hierarchy, neuroception and co-regulation to understand the autonomic nervous system (ANS) and its importance in shaping your clients experience of safety and influencing their capacity for connection. Trauma interrupts the development of autonomic regulation and shapes our systems into patterns for protection rather than connection. Develop your understanding of the autonomic circuits that underlie behaviours and beliefs to reliably lead your client out of adaptive survival responses and into the autonomically regulated state of safety that is necessary for successful treatment.
Using the polyvagal model for therapy begins with helping your clients to map their autonomic profiles and track their movement along the autonomic hierarchy. The essential clinical question addresses how to help clients interrupt habitual response patterns and find safety in a state of engagement. Polyvagal theory will guide you to becoming a regulated and co-regulated resource for clients to ultimately help them experience a feeling of safety. Working with this theory you will find practical ways to effectively help clients identify and interrupt familiar response patterns and strategies to shape their ANS towards safety and connection.
The polyvagal theory provides a plausible explanation of how trauma and chronic abuse disrupt homeostatic psychological processes and social behaviour and how clinical treatments might be designed to remediate these problems. It also explains why trauma distorts perception and displaces spontaneous social behaviours with defensive reactions. In this presentation you will focus on the restorative power of understanding the adaptive function of stress. By deconstructing the biobehavioural features of stress reactions, both you and your client are better informed in your client’s journey to success. You will also learn the role of neuroception, the process in which the nervous system evaluates risk in the environment without awareness and often independent from cognitive narrative. Learn how to assess the consequences of trauma-related experience by understanding the features of three polyvagal visceral response strategies.
Applying the polyvagal model: Building on the brain-based model of state shifting described in Part One, Dr. Baylin will then discuss a number of different ways to promote intentional, mindful regulation of internal state shifting to support improved emotion regulation. Dr. Baylin will apply Porges’ concept of “neural exercises” to help you learn how to access the ventral vagal system that supports healthy emotion regulation and social engagement. He will explain a number of different pathways or “portals” into the ventral vagal system that we can use to promote more effective emotion regulation and state shifting in ourselves and in our patients. Furthermore, Dr. Baylin will discuss the role of the therapist as a “social buffering”, coregulating, “brain whispering” partner in the process of helping patients’ shift from chronic self-defensiveness into the state of open engagement.
Cost - AUD $283.13 (Includes GST).
Registration – Click the ‘Register Now’ button to learn more and secure your ticket!
26 CPD/CE credits
