Polyvagal Theory: A Science of Safety

The talk will focus on how Polyvagal Theory provides a neural foundation for a brain-body medicine that would lead to insights into the treatment of trauma-related mental and physical health challenges. The theory describes how, via evolution, a connection emerged in the brain between the nerves that control the heart and the face. This face-heart connection provided the structures for the “social engagement system” that link sociality with autonomic regulation and explains the important mediating role of physiological state in facilitating either connectedness and intimacy or defence such as fight/flight, hypervigilance, dissociation, collapse, shutdown, and even syncope.