The Polyvagal Theory in Therapy: Engaging the Rhythm of Regulation

Deb Dana

W. W. Norton & Company, Jun 12, 2018 - Psychology - 320 pages

The polyvagal theory presented in client-friendly language.

This book offers therapists an integrated approach to adding a polyvagal foundation to their work with clients. With clear explanations of the organizing principles of Polyvagal Theory, this complex theory is translated into clinician and client-friendly language. Using a unique autonomic mapping process along with worksheets designed to effectively track autonomic response patterns, this book presents practical ways to work with clients' experiences of connection. Through exercises that have been specifically created to engage the regulating capacities of the ventral vagal system, therapists are given tools to help clients reshape their autonomic nervous systems.

Adding a polyvagal perspective to clinical practice draws the autonomic nervous system directly into the work of therapy, helping clients re-pattern their nervous systems, build capacities for regulation, and create autonomic pathways of safety and connection. With chapters that build confidence in understanding Polyvagal Theory, chapters that introduce worksheets for mapping, tracking, and practices for re-patterning, as well as a series of autonomic meditations, this book offers therapists a guide to practicing polyvagal-informed therapy. 

The Polyvagal Theory in Therapy is essential reading for therapists who work with trauma and those who seek an easy and accessible way of understanding the significance that Polyvagal Theory has to clinical work.

About the author

Deb Dana, LCSW, is a clinician, consultant, speaker, and the?leading translator of Dr. Stephen Porges’s Polyvagal Theory. She is the bestselling author of The Polyvagal Theory in Therapy, Polyvagal Practices, and many others. She lives in Kennebunkport, Maine.

Stephen W. Porges, PhD, originator of Polyvagal Theory, is a Distinguished University Scientist and founding director of the Kinsey Institute Traumatic Stress Research Consortium at Indiana University, and a professor of psychiatry at the University of North Carolina. He lives in Atlantic Beach, Florida.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Polyvagal Theory in Therapy: Engaging the Rhythm of Regulation; Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology
• Author: Deb Dana
• Contributor: Stephen W. Porges
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2018
• ISBN: 0393712389, 9780393712384
• Length: 320 pages
• Subjects: Psychology / Clinical Psychology; Psychology / Interpersonal Relations; Psychology / Neuropsychology