The Polyvagal Theory in Therapy: Engaging the Rhythm of Regulation
Dana takes polyvagal theory out of the laboratory, mapping how the nervous system moves between safety, mobilisation and shutdown, and what returns a person to steadiness.
Dana takes Stephen Porges’s polyvagal theory out of the laboratory and into clinical practice, mapping how the autonomic nervous system moves between social safety, mobilisation and shutdown. Written for therapists, with exercises and mapping tools, but readable by anyone trying to understand their own physiology of threat and what returns them to steadiness.
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Maria Popova
In the decades since, no one has championed polyvagal theory more ardently than the clinical psychologist Deb Dana. In her book The Polyvagal Theory in Therapy: Engaging the Rhythm of Regulation (public library), written for therapists, she explores how trauma automates our adaptive responses in a survival story that puts the fear-based dorsal vagus in command to induce collapse and dissociation, and how we can rewire our neural pathways toward the emotional safety of the ventral vagal state, where our capacity for curiosity, connection, and change flourishes.
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