Understanding Regulation Allows for Better Interpretation

The polyvagal approach to trauma, offers a way to attune within ourselves, where our very own control and safety center can be our resource, ally, and our aid. Control and a sense of safety are often ripped from us in trauma, yet they are ironically the very options we have within at our disposal to respond to it.

The nervous system is continually scanning for cues of threat/danger and cues of safety, under our conscious awareness. This is something Stephen Porges, who discovered the polyvagal, has called neuroception. In neuroception, our nervous system is “listening” inside and outside, between us and other people. According to Dana (2018), our nervous system is picking up cues of safety and danger from other’s nervous systems.

According to Dana, the ventral vagal state is where we connect and co-regulate with others, experience feelings of wellness, calmness, social engagement, where we are nourished. Through regulation in ventral vagal, we feel healthy, connected, and grounded. It is evidenced in our heart rate, our breathing, our eye gaze, and facial expression.

Through our own regulated ventral state, we can bring others to a place of safety within themselves once we have done so for ourselves. We, by this very process, become a place of safety for others. The implicit, subcortical message, according to Dana, is that the “world is safe; what’s valued is protected.”

There is havoc on the ANS when ventral regulation can’t be accessed, nor is coregulation possible. We recognize cues of threat/ danger when our nervous system reacts to stimuli. In the sympathetic nervous system, we experience a sense of unease. It’s the mobilization piece that has us either fight, flight, or freeze. According to Dana, examples include feelings of escape, being hypervigilant, looking and listening for danger, experiencing a sense of separation, cut off from others, a focus on the predator, missing and misreading signs of safety. When we are fearful, angry, or anxious, we are activating our survival responses, we are in essence fighting back and taking action, (Dana, 2018).

Dana further explains in dorsal vagal state, we disconnect and disappear. It is immobilized or collapsed energy. This state includes a conservation mode of being numb, foggy, untethered, alone, lost, abandoned, unreachable, in despair. In dorsal collapse, there’s an inability to take action.

Dana describes trauma as a “chronic disruption of connectedness; when it happens, we lose our connection to ourselves. Trauma stories are carried in autonomic dysregulation… not a cognitive experience” (Dana, 2018). This is powerful information. It means healing isn’t solely possible through cognitive techniques. Trauma is stored and trapped in the body and it is worked hard upon by the autonomic nervous system moving through the vagal states. The ANS can inform when the stress is present and it can respond by calming the vagus nerve via regulating the nervous system, mitigating the residual powerlessness and helplessness of trauma.

By witnessing our reaction and the states that have consumed us, it is helpful to understand it was a form of protection, of survival. Thus the experience is a process that’s purpose is to keep us safe, from the “insult” to the psyche and or body (Dana, 2018).

Thus, regulation and coregulation between nervous systems becomes very important for healthy social engagement and connection. We are either feeling safe or danger when one is either in coregulation or survival response.” “Without the regulating other, the system is stunned, it cannot connect” (Dana, 2018).

When the “ventral vagal goes off line with too much stress, then sympathetic fight flight mode tries to address it; if that doesn’t resolve it, goes to dorsal vagal,” and ultimately immobilization or collapse (Dana, 2018). Tuning inward and listening for the autonomic changes, we can attend and nurture self and get to a sense of regulation and agency.

Dana reminds us lovingly to “Honor the wisdom that your nervous system has used to get you to this moment in time… turn towards it, be a friend to it, connect with it.”

Dana, has provided practices to help us become aware.

She suggests we can bring ourselves back to ventral with breathing awareness and establishing meaningful anchors to call upon to bring us to calmness and safety. She says when you find these anchors, via positive places, people, etc., deepen them in your memory. They are regulating memories.

Being aware of moment to moment experiences and our dysregulation within our nervous systems, we can be mindful of ANS activation and notice and address these changing states… to begin reconnecting, trusting, and establishling a sense of safety (Dana, 2018). This wholehearted attunement within self shifts from a place of danger to a state of safety through mindful regulation, generating the sense of embodied power and control.

According to Dana, since we are always asking, even under awareness, “Is it safe to connect?” ….we can ask ourselves “What is happening in this moment to impact connection?”

It is also suggested to ask oneself, “Am I anchored in my self regulation?

To begin connecting to regulation, find a cue of safety in your body, and find a cue of danger in your body. You can expand the question into the environment and with people in your life, according to Dana.

This develops attunement and facilitates integration.

Dana further suggests a creating a chart that lists 1) the things I can do on my own that help me stay in the safe and social ventral vagal state; 2) the things I can do to move me out of flight/ fight/ freeze sympathetic mobilized state; and 3) the things I can identify that immobilizes me or makes me feel collapsed in the dorsal state. What can I do with others to either, stay in ventral, or move me out of sympathetic and dorsal states- and name the triggers.

Deb Dana (2018). The Polyvagal Theory in Therapy; Engaging the Rhythm of Regulation. W.W. Norton & Company New York.

Written By: Annie Flipse, LCSW

Annie Flipse is a substance abuse counselor in IOP at, CARF accredited, Breakthroughs Counseling & Recovery, Jacksonville, Fl. She holds a masters degree from Florida State University and is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW). Annie is an educator and counselor with a background in human dynamics. She has experience working with teen parents, addicted adults, and her focus is in cognitive behavioral therapy and family systems theory, with emphasis on attachment and the polyvagal theory.