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Polyvagal Informed Therapy Master Class Transcripts Modules 15

This document provides an introduction to applying polyvagal theory in clinical practice. It discusses an upcoming module series where Deb Dana will demonstrate how she incorporates polyvagal theory into psychotherapy by showing sessions with three separate clients addressing different issues. The introduction emphasizes that polyvagal theory provides a framework but is not a standalone treatment model. It outlines three key concepts from polyvagal theory that therapists need to understand: neuroception, hierarchy, and co-regulation. Neuroception refers to how the nervous system unconsciously assesses safety by constantly monitoring cues from within the body, the environment, and social interactions.

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100% found this document useful (2 votes)
330 views144 pages

Polyvagal Informed Therapy Master Class Transcripts Modules 15

This document provides an introduction to applying polyvagal theory in clinical practice. It discusses an upcoming module series where Deb Dana will demonstrate how she incorporates polyvagal theory into psychotherapy by showing sessions with three separate clients addressing different issues. The introduction emphasizes that polyvagal theory provides a framework but is not a standalone treatment model. It outlines three key concepts from polyvagal theory that therapists need to understand: neuroception, hierarchy, and co-regulation. Neuroception refers to how the nervous system unconsciously assesses safety by constantly monitoring cues from within the body, the environment, and social interactions.

Uploaded by

sorintichy
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Module 1: An Introduction to Applying Polyvagal Therapy in Clinical Practice

Deb Dana, LCSW

Zach Taylor (00:18):


Well, welcome everybody to Psychotherapy Networkers Masterclass Series. This one on Polyvagal
Informed Therapy. And our guest today is Deborah Dana, who is one of the first psychotherapists to
popularize and implement polyvagal theory into various forms of psychotherapy. So, Deb, welcome to
the class.

Deb Dana (00:50):


Thanks, it's [inaudible 00:00:50] to be here with you.

Zach Taylor (00:53):


Great. So the purpose of this introduction is simply to introduce some of the core concept of polyvagal
theory and how they can be implemented into various forms of psychotherapy. We're not here to certify
or train anybody in polyvagal theory, polyvagal informed therapy but think of this as a surgeon in
training, might stand in the operating room, watching the surgeons do their work. In this course, in this
series, we're going to watch Deb at work, live, in session over three different modules, working with
three separate clients, on three separate issues, and how she incorporates polyvagal theory into her
work.
So the purpose of this module is simply to give you the core concepts that you need to know to
follow along. And then if you'd like to know more, we encourage you to pick up Deb and Steve Porges'
books. We encourage you to train with Deb Dana in some of her live trainings or in various other ways of
learning more about polyvagal.
So with that, polyvagal theory was proposed by Steve Porges many years ago. And Steve is a
professor and researcher. But Deb, as we said, is one of the psychotherapists who really grabbed on to
that theory and figured out a way to make it very, very clinically applicable. So Deb I want to ask you,
how can polyvagal theory help the regular psychotherapist improve client outcomes?

Deb Dana (02:37):


Great question, and I think it really gets to the heart of polyvagal theory because the autonomic nervous
system, which is what polyvagal theory is describing, is at the heart of our lived experience. It is where
everything begins. So, a polyvagal informed approach to therapy simply means that you are
understanding how this basic biology works and how to make it work with you, and with your client in
whatever kind of therapy model you're using. All sorts of models use different ways of engaging a client
in the change process. But if the nervous system is not actively engaged in that with you, if you are in a
fight with the nervous system then therapy is going to be ineffective. I'd probably not even say less
effective, but ineffective because the nervous system is going to drive the state of your client, and that
state is going to allow them access to certain stories and keep them from hearing other stories.

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Zach Taylor (03:51):
So if what I hear is that understanding where your client is in their nervous system is sort of a
foundation for working for all of the other things. Their thoughts, their stories, their personal narratives,
their habits they're trying to break. Understanding what part of their nervous system that comes from is
pretty key.

Deb Dana (04:14):


Right. Because if we can work with the state first, then all of the things that you just mentioned that had
come out of that state, emerge out of that state, are then available for change to be engaged within and
worked with. I really think in therapy we're working with the minds and bodies of our clients. And so we
understand ways of understanding the brain that have been around a long time, and polyvagal theory
gives us a roadmap to understanding the way the nervous system and the brain interact to inform our
therapy. I think when we understand how it works, then we know how to work with it. And that really
has been a illuminating experience for me. Understanding polyvagal, it's like, oh some of the things I was
doing already, now I know why they're working. And other things, I know why they weren't working.
It's sort of this lovely way of understanding, oh this is why this didn't work. And if I do it in this
way, then I can help my client with it. It's a great roadmap.

Zach Taylor (05:29):


A good roadmap. So I'm curious then. How did your practice change? There's a lot of therapists probably
watching this who may know, everybody's heard of this by now. But they don't really know, how do I
use this, and how would this really change my work? I think the first thing to point out is that, polyvagal
theory, or polyvagal informed therapy, is not a model of psychotherapy in and of itself. Is that correct?

Deb Dana (06:00):


It is not. It really is an approach. As you're going to see in the demo videos, and as we're going to talk
about today, there are certain elements that guide polyvagal informed approach, but it's not a protocol,
or a step-by-step process.

Zach Taylor (06:19):


Okay. It's just something we can incorporate into whatever model we're already are very comfortable
using.

Deb Dana (06:26):


Yes, and I think most models really are already, in some way, engaging the autonomic nervous system.
They may not be explicitly naming that, but since the nervous system is what's driving all of this, models
of therapy need to take that into account.

Zach Taylor (06:47):


Great. Okay. So I'm curious. How did learning about polyvagal theory change your practice?

Deb Dana (06:57):


It was a before and after experience for me, and I write about that in the book. I say that I hope
clinicians who dive in will also experience that before and after experience. That, once you learn how
the nervous system works, and learn how it is at work in your client's daily living, and I guess I would say,

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more than that, in your own daily living, that you can never again not see the world through that lens.
So for me, I read Steve's book. Steve and his wife Sue, who is also a researcher in oxytocin, came to
Maine and did a two-day presentation for my group and my colleagues. From that point on, it was, ooh
how do I bring this into work with my clients? Because I love theory, I love science, and then it's like,
what do I do with it? And so for me, that's always the next step. It's sort of, what do I do with this?
That's where my work was born.

Zach Taylor (07:58):


Well you obviously figured out what to do with it because you train all over the world and teach
clinicians how to use it. So let's jump into how to use it. Okay? And again, I just want to emphasize that
we're just going to give you the core concepts here that you need to follow along throughout this
course. These are the things you're going to see over and over and over again. So if you don't quite get it
right at this moment, there are a lot of big words, a lot of new words, and we're going to just warn you
about that in advance. But we encourage you to use this introduction as a launching point, and you're
going to see this used over and over and over again in the following modules.
So to start, Deb you said that there are three basic organizing principles that therapists need to
know. If you can get these three, you could get started, is that correct?

Deb Dana (08:53):


Absolutely. These are the basic building blocks of polyvagal theory. They are neuroception-

Zach Taylor (08:57):


So what are they?

Deb Dana (08:59):


Neuroception, hierarchy and co-regulation.Neuroception is the way our nervous system takes in
information below the level of our awareness. And I use a short hand by saying it works inside-outside-
between. So it works inside our bodies listening. It's listening outside in the environment and then it's
listening in the space between two people. So right at the moment, yours and my nervous systems,
through neuroception, are taking in that information. Inside, outside and even though we're virtual,
between.
And the thing we want to remember about that is it's happening in every micromoment. No
matter if we're paying attention or not, neuroception is happening. And so in order to work with it in
clinical application, we bring it into explicit awareness.

Zach Taylor (09:50):


Okay. So the first principle is neuroception. How is that different from perception?

Deb Dana (09:58):


Perception is a cognitive experience. It involves the critical parts of your brain. But the nervous system is
a subcortical system. It certainly [crosstalk 00:10:12]-

Zach Taylor (10:11):


Subcortical meaning?

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Deb Dana (10:15):
It starts in the brain stem, and then moves down your body. It does have some interactions going
upward to your cortex, so it does communicate that way. But basically, it is a below the level of the
brain. It's a brain stem and down system. So it's working in the background.

Zach Taylor (10:35):


Is it fair to say that neuroception is our nervous system's feelers, or its eyes and ears? It's what it's
sensing?

Deb Dana (10:45):


That's a lovely way to put it. Absolutely. It is the microsecond to microsecond sensing of the nervous
system. Because its job is to have those feelers, inside-outside-between, to find out when is it safe and
when is it not safe for us. So it's helping us navigate the world. That's its job.

Zach Taylor (11:07):


Great. So polyvagal informed therapy starts with this understanding that our nervous system is always
listening. Always listening in and it's listening into our bodies, what's going on inside. It's trying to listen
in on what's going on with you, the other person. And then it's trying to figure out the relationship.
Something in between, right?

Deb Dana (11:29):


And in the environment. The world around us, listening.

Zach Taylor (11:32):


And in the environment. Okay. Those are the ways our nervous systems are always listening.

Deb Dana (11:36):


Yes, exactly. It's lovely to think of that deep listening, isn't it? That there's a system inside you that
listens. I love that. So that's neuroception.

Zach Taylor (11:48):


That's neuroception. [crosstalk 00:11:48] that our nervous system's always listening leads into this next
phase, which is that there's actually three listeners in there. Almost. This listening system is divided up
into three parts.

Deb Dana (12:05):


So as the neuroception listens, I guess what I would say is that, then this hierarchy gets contacted. So as
neuroception brings in this information, one of these three states of the autonomic hierarchy then gets
pulled, gets energized, gets activated.
So if we think about the hierarchy, it's fairly straightforward. We have the parasympathetic and
sympathetic. As you see on the slide, you can see that they are both the oldest dorsal vagal, and the
newest ventral vagal. So that's your parasympathetic, and then in the midst of that evolutionary
process, was the sympathetic nervous system. And why I like this, this is a predictable hierarchy. That's
why this is such a great roadmap, because we're in-ventral. That's the place the nervous system

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inherently longs to be and tries to have us be, in-ventral. And when we move out of ventral because of a
challenge to us, a challenge in the environment, something that feels too big, we go to sympathetic.
That's the next stop on this hierarchy into mobilization and fight and flight, or aggression or escape. And
if that then doesn't solve the problem through this hierarchy, you know where you go next. You go to
dorsa to disappear to an immobile place and then you collapse.
That's the joy of the hierarchy, is it shows you the pathway. We each travel that pathway at
different rates of speed and for different amounts of time, but that's the pathway that humans travel.
And then as you can see, because of the hierarchy, to get back, we go back up the hierarchy from dorsal,
to sympathetic, to ventral.

Zach Taylor (13:58):


So another word for hierarchy is a pathway. And this pathway of our nervous system has three stops
along the way, essentially. Three major stops. Let's go through the... So our nervous system developed
over time. These are new words for everyone, so I just want to pause here for just a moment and just go
into each of these three states. And then we'll see them in action in just a moment. But the oldest one
that's at the bottom of the slide that you saw, is called what?

Deb Dana (14:37):


Dorsal vagus. [crosstalk 00:14:42]

Zach Taylor (14:42):


And this was the first part of our nervous system, is my understanding?

Deb Dana (14:45):


First part. Around 500 million years ago, in the history of our organism, the dorsal vagus, and that's the
part of our nervous system that we still carry today. Because again, when evolution creates the next
level, it doesn't get rid of the first level. So this early level is still at work in our system. And that's the
part of our nervous system that takes us out of connection with others. Takes us into disconnection. In
our biology we call it a conservation mode that we go in. Everything slows down biologically. But
psychologically, we feel a numbing, a disconnect, a fuzziness, a fogginess, some flavor of that
disappearing as an adaptive survival response. And again if we think about neuroception, it's because
neuroception has listened in and found something that's dangerous. And so it's then activating this
response.

Zach Taylor (15:48):


And then in the middle of these is our sympathetic state.

Deb Dana (15:57):


Our sympathetic nervous system. So we have the parasympathetic dorsal vagus, and then about 400
million years ago, the sympathetic nervous system came into being. And instead of having to collapse or
become invisible or immobile to survive, now we could mobilize. We could flee, we could fight, we could
run, we could do all those active escape plans. And so that's the sympathetic nervous system in its
survival response.
I guess we should also say that dorsal and sympathetic also have regular roles in our nervous
system. The dorsal vagal system runs our digestion, so we need it. It's a vital part of our nervous system.

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Sympathetic impacts our heart rhythms, our breathing rhythms, our movement of our limbs. It's a vital
part. But when they go into adaptive survival modes because neuroception has said, ooh danger, then
we move into either the immobilization or dorsal, or the mobilization, fight-flight or sympathetic.

Zach Taylor (17:04):


I think that's really important to point out, that these parts of our nervous system are dorsal vagal,
which is the oldest, and our sympathetic, which is the second oldest, do a lot of different things. Really,
really great things for us, things we need that we're not even conscious of. When we get into this
survival response, they have two very basic functions. One is to shut us down, the dorsal vagal, and
immobilize us, make us disappear, be invisible like certain animals and creatures that just shut down and
feign death even. And then the second one if we can, to mobilize first. To get out of there, run, escape.
So these were the two parts of the nervous system for a long time. And then what Steve, I think
proposed is that a second part of our vagal system was created and this is where polyvagal theory came
from.

Deb Dana (18:08):


Right. So polyvagal, it's interesting because we get to the newest part, which is our ventral vagus. Steve
really, in the lab, in his research which led to the development of polyvagal theory, found that, really
what he was discovering in what's called the vagal paradox, is not this new social engagement part
which has been called rest and digest, in some ways. But what he really discovered was the dorsal vagus.
That was his discovery. He got to help us understand why people go into collapse, disconnection,
immobilization. Because the ventral vagus... There was no ventral, there was just vagus. It was either
parasympathetic or sympathetic. And so his research, in his brilliance led to understanding that the
vagus is both ventral and dorsal. Two very separate pathways. And the ventral vagus is our newest.
It's this mammalian system that allows us to do what you and I are doing right now.
Communicate, connect, feel safe in the world. Feel regulated. That's this ventral vagal system. And as
long as we have some ventral vagal energy in our system, even in the hierarchy you could see that
ventral vagal at the top is sending energy down to sympathetic and dorsal. And as long as it keeps
sending energy, then dorsal and sympathetic get to do their non-reactive roles. So this ventral vagus is
sort of holding the others in its embrace. That's a fun way to think about it.
It's only when ventral vagus goes offline, when the challenge is too much for that part of our
nervous system and it fades into the background, that's sympathetic's adaptive survival response comes,
and then dorsal's adaptive survival response comes. Does that make sense?

Zach Taylor (20:12):


Yeah. So we're going to hear a lot more about ventral, sympathetic, and dorsal down the road. But just
for now, if you're watching this, see if you can try to commit these three words to memory in some way.
Write them down. Ventral, sympathetic, and dorsal. You're going to hear a lot more about them. You're
going to see how these actually play into real life therapy.

Deb Dana (20:39):


Ventral connection, sympathetic mobilization, dorsal immobilization. Easy.

Zach Taylor (20:46):


Sure. Great way to remember.

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Deb Dana (20:47):
Okay. Perfect. Good.

Zach Taylor (20:48):


So the third principle. We've gone through neuroception, we've gone through hierarchy. The third
principle is co-regulation.

Deb Dana (20:56):


Yes. Co-regulation which I always think is where we should start, but it's always the one I do third
because we are wired to be in connection with others. It's called a biological imperative which means we
do not survive without connection to another human.And our nervous system, to think it's a system of
relationship because it's regulated and shaped through our interactions with others, and our interaction
with the environment as well. It's always being shaped.
So the cues that we send out into the world and then we receive from the world, either co-
regulates, which then allows for possibility, or increase our disregulation, and then we go into those
habitual survival response patterns that we talked about, sympathetic and dorsal. The lovely thing about
knowing this about the nervous system is that, that's why polyvagal is such a hopeful approach. Because
the nervous system is always being shaped in these interactions. So as you and I are beginning to find
our way into connection and friendship and working together, our nervous systems are taking that in,
and are shaping an expectation that this is going to be fun and this is going to be an enjoyable
experience.

Zach Taylor (22:22):


That's a beautiful sentiment because it shows us that if we can really get to understand our client's
nervous system, that we can help shape it in a way that leads them to feel more regulated. More
hopeful, see things more positively, and be able to act more skillfully.

Deb Dana (22:47):


It opens up the possibilities for them that we, as therapists, can feel and can see are there, but our
clients can't until their nervous systems are ready and able to take that in.

Zach Taylor (23:01):


Great. So let's get into the first thing you tend to do in therapy. To try and introduce clients to polyvagal
theory and these three states of their nervous system. The reason we're going to go over the new
introductions is we don't really see this in the sessions. In a lot of these cases, the clients have already
done this with you, so we're going to go over it briefly here so that you know, this has already been
done. So what is one of the first things you do to introduce clients to this polyvagal idea?

Deb Dana (23:37):


This personal profile map that you and I are going to just briefly look at and fill in a couple of pieces of is
the foundational starting point. Because this map helps clients know where they are, what state that
they're in, where are they in this hierarchy, which I've made into a ladder. That was my first place in, and
I have to say that it's an easy way to find your way. And we humans need maps. This map answers the
question, where am I? Because if I don't know where I am, I don't know how to find my way back to
ventral. Or I don't know, maybe I'm in ventral and I really could celebrate and savor that experience. So

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this personal profile map is something I do in the very, very beginning of therapy. It really brings the
hierarchy alive for clients. And what is lovely about it is, it's not serving abstract thought. This is your
nervous system that we're getting to know. People often go, "Oh that's what happens there."
So imagine you've had some of that thought as you flipped over this map. If you were going to
fill the map in, one of the rules in polyvagal informed therapy is that whatever you're doing with your
client, you always want to end in ventral. So if we did this map fully, we would do sympathetic, and then
dorsal, and then end in ventral. Why we do that is we're reminding the nervous system that it has
flexibility to find ventral and be in ventral. So if we were starting in sympathetic... We're just going to do
the two questions that come into each. But if we were doing it fully, you'd be bringing a moment of
sympathetic alive in your system. We'll just be dipping a toe into it, because we don't want it to fully tick
you over. We just want to have enough of it so you can get a flavor of it. And you'd write in that middle
section of the ladder what happens in your body, what are your thoughts, what do you feel, what do
you do, what do you think.
So we would get all that described there but then the two sentences we're going to fill in. I'm
going to ask you, so when you are in that sympathetic state, what did you fill in for "the world is."

Zach Taylor (26:00):


Oh, so my own map.

Deb Dana (26:03):


Yeah. What was your-

Zach Taylor (26:04):


So I did this just before we came on this morning. I'm the test case. What I did is... So there's two
question in sympathetic. "The world is", and "I am." And when I'm in sympathetic state, which is my
mobilized, anxious often state, the world is dangerous and out to get me.

Deb Dana (26:32):


Beautiful.

Zach Taylor (26:33):


And I'm trying to protect myself.

Deb Dana (26:35):


The world's dangerous, out to get me and I have to protect myself.And then "I am"?

Zach Taylor (26:40):


I am lost and vulnerable. Kind of a feeling of, I have a hard time finding my footing, finding something to
hold on to. I feel like, I'm being tossed around.

Deb Dana (26:57):


You can feel it when you describe the world in yourself, right? See that's the power of doing this map.

Zach Taylor (27:00):

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We haven't even talked about an example, and I can feel it.

Deb Dana (27:01):


That's the power of mapping, it begins to bring it alive. So we'll anchor again, you and me here.

Zach Taylor (27:12):


Okay. I'm here.

Deb Dana (27:15):


I know. We're here. So let's go to dorsal for just a moment. In dorsal, we would do the same thing. We'd
bring... And really in dorsal, I'm asking my clients for just a hint of that flavor in their system because
dorsal can take over really quickly. And if your client has a history of a lot of dorsal energy in their
system, you want to really use your co-regulating, your voice and your eyes, your smile, your proximity
to make sure they're staying anchored with you in ventral, and of ventral, to look at what they want to
say. Even if you're doing this map, this really is a dyadic experience. We're doing this together. It's
always a clinician-client together. So in dorsal, what did you find for "the world is" and "I am?"

Zach Taylor (28:10):


Right. For dorsal, the world is impossible and overwhelming, in sort of my experience. And, I am
paralyzed. Not paralyzed. I feel like I'm stuck in a space that I just can't get out of. I know you use a lot of
imagery around these states. My image of that state was of being in a kind of underwater cave. It's
under the water but it's almost an air pocket under the water. And I kind of see what's going on above
the water but they can't hear me, I can't hear them.

Deb Dana (28:10):


And there's now way to get there.

Zach Taylor (29:01):


And I'm just sort of in this air pocket underneath.

Deb Dana (29:05):


Trapped there. That's a beautiful description of what that place is. That's the place where neuroception
has sent it a life threat. Not necessarily a concrete someone's out to get you but neuroception is of life
threat and it takes you that, that place. The path of last resort, I call dorsal, right? What was your
imagery for sympathetic?

Zach Taylor (29:32):


Sympathetic. Just very different. It was almost the feeling of I'm kind of in a fire and I have to get out of
it. And I just have to find the quickest way, almost standing on the coals and the hot fire. Everywhere I
step it kind of hurts, I just have to keep moving until it...

Deb Dana (29:58):


Keep moving. Right, right. That's perfect. And you've beautifully described the job of sympathetic
because on this hierarchy, as you've just so beautifully illustrated, sympathetic's job is to keep you from

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going to that dorsal place of being trapped and immobilized. It's what keeps you moving. Two very
different landscapes. Two very different stories, right? So, let's come to ventral.

Zach Taylor (30:26):


Okay. I'm popping up to ventral. I like this.

Deb Dana (30:31):


I know. Usually brings a smile to people. So when we come to ventral, and I will say that for some
clients, they may think that ventral's a place that they don't go to, where they don't visit often. Often
clients tell me that they think their ventral system is broken. They're too damaged. For those clients, you
only need a micromoment of a ventral experience. It's often the relationship, the therapeutic
relationship that brings it. It could be with a pet. It can be in nature because those are predictively
bringing of those moments. In case you listeners have a client that's really struggling with it. Never fear.
There was just a micromoment needed. But I get the feeling that you know this place. So tell me, what's
the world like and you in this place?

Zach Taylor (31:21):


Yeah. So I answered the questions that the world is full of hope and opportunity. I feel really safe to
explore and take risks, do new things, that feeling like I have something to come back to. And I wrote
that I am safe and connected.

Deb Dana (31:39):


Beautiful. Yeah. Feel the difference of that.

Zach Taylor (31:43):


My image of the ventral state was of that feeling, almost in late spring, when the sun really starts to get
warm. Particularly where I'm from in Michigan and maybe in Maine. You know that feeling of coming
out of the gray. That first day of warm sun, you just go outside and I lay on the porch and just let the
sun, not only hit me, but sink, kind of soak into me. And that feeling of the sun's warmth sinking into me
about an inch or two, all over, is sort of that same feeling of being in ventral. Everything just kind of
like...

Deb Dana (32:22):


I'm enjoying it with you right now. It's lovely. It's lovely, it's beautiful. And then for people for whom
ventral, sympathetic and dorsal are not there, preferred words to describe their states, to name their
states. As you can see on the map, on the right hand side are those rectangular boxes that I invite clients
to name their own state. So that rather than dorsal... What would you call your state, if you didn't call it
dorsal, [inaudible 00:32:54] named?

Zach Taylor (32:57):


I could use the imagery of being in the underwater cave. Is that [crosstalk 00:33:01]?

Deb Dana (33:02):


Yup, could be underwater cave. And sympathetic might be?

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Zach Taylor (33:06):
Being in the fire.

Deb Dana (33:08):


In the fire. Yeah. Fiery. And ventral might be?

Zach Taylor (33:20):


Being in the sun. I don't know what I would call that state. I know the feeling but I don't know if I have a
name for it yet.

Deb Dana (33:31):


So if you take one minute and just let your brain take a rest for a moment, and just connect with your
ventral system, and ask it, what would it give itself for a name? Where do you go? They may not know
yet.

Zach Taylor (34:05):


The comforting place. I don't know if that's a name, but the comforting place. The comforting place.

Deb Dana (34:10):


The comforting place. Absolutely. Yeah.

Zach Taylor (34:13):


That was good.

Deb Dana (34:14):


It's lovely. Because we seek so hard and yet if we just go here. The names, the words, the experiences
are there. And when you start off with clients, you're trying to give them the experience of getting out of
their head, and into their nervous system. And so often, what happened to you, happens for clients. "I
don't know what I'd call it." Let your nervous system tell you. Then, oh interesting. This map really
begins to hook clients immediately because they're getting to know their lived experience differently.
Because you could see your three states have very different behaviors, thoughts, feelings, beliefs,
stories. And each of those states allows you to do different things. When you're in dorsal, your story is
going to be one of isolation and being in stuck in that air pocket, and not being able to get... It's like the
world doesn't exist. You're alone. In sympathetic, the story is going to be one of "I have to get away." In
ventral, the story is one of connection, and taking in, and that comfort, right?
So when our clients are in sympathetic or dorsal, we can't expect them to have a story that
would come out of ventral. It's not that they don't want to, their brain may want to but their biology will
not let them. And that's part of what we begin to learn with this map.

Zach Taylor (35:45):


Right. Okay, so these are the three states that we spend a little bit of time on. There's one more process
that's at play. One more thing that's just a tool. That something is very biologically based that we can
use in polyvagal informed therapy. And you call this the vagal break? Let's discuss the vagal brake.

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Deb Dana (36:08):
Steve actually named this the vagal brake. The vagal brake is one certain pathway that is the ventral
vagal pathway, that goes to the sinoatrial node of your heart, which is your heart's pacemaker. And so
the role of this ventral vagal circuit is to regulate your heart rate. If the circuit was not there working,
your heart will be dangerously fast all the time. And so what it does, is it helps us keep an anchor... I call
it an anchoring ventral... so that we can engage with the sympathetic nervous system. We can feel the
beautiful mobilizing energy of the sympathetic nervous system without going into fight and flight.
Without going into a survival response. Because once we go into it and adapt a survival response and
sympathetic, cortisone and adrenaline begin to flood our system. And we know the outcome of that.
So the vagal brake really is what we're exercising when we do therapy because we're helping
our clients be able to regulate, to have a reflective response rather than an automatic reaction. And it's
the vagal brake that allows us to do that sort of movement of more energy, less energy, more energy,
less energy.

Zach Taylor (37:25):


Here's one of the things I learned in, just watching your sessions, was that the goal is not to stay in your
ventral vagal state all the time. It's about how to learn how to flow between the states without going
into some of the more extreme reactions of the states, or getting too triggered by the states and losing
our sense of groundedness and safety.

Deb Dana (37:51):


Exactly.

Zach Taylor (37:51):


It sounds like this vagal brake is the muscle we're using to try and go through those states safely.

Deb Dana (38:01):


Right, right. And so, just sentiment of what you said because it's so important, that the goal is not to be
in ventral all the time. It's unrealistic and not wanted to be in ventral all the time. And in fact, it doesn't
make us unwell if we leave ventral. It's when we leave ventral and get stuck and cant' return to ventral
that we suffer from physical and psychological dis-ease. And that's important for us to know as
therapists, and for our clients to know, that it's not that you leave ventral. It's that you can't find your
way home again. Again, that's why we have maps to find our way home. The vagal brake is something
that you'll see in the demos because I do teach it and use it with all of my clients as a way to remember.
We have something that is a part of our biology that's going to help us get back to ventral. You played
with yours.

Zach Taylor (39:02):


Yes I did.

Deb Dana (39:03):


It was great. Because the vagal brake, when you bring it into imagery, one way to work with it, is to find
an image that you have some active control over. And so, what did you find for yours?

Zach Taylor (39:17):

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For me, and we're in the middle of February right now as we record this. But, it's skiing. I was always
afraid of skiing. I didn't really learn as a little child, and I've never had a single lesson. Watching others,
and I guess, watching my wife who's a great skier, and sort of learning from her by osmosis, I've learned
that there's no slope that's really too steep, I mean, within reason, that I now can't navigate because I
learned to slow my skis. For me that triggered the image of a vagal brake because it's really not about
the situation alone that dictates how I feel in that situation but about my skill in navigating it, and my
ability to slow myself down. And engage my vagal brake or engage my ski in a particular way as I go
down the hill so I can go down and feel safe as I do it.

Deb Dana (40:31):


Right. So you can choose how fast you want to go and you can then slow yourself down again. Because
sometimes, you want to go a little faster, and enjoy the ride and then it gets on the edge, you want to
slow down again. So that's a beautiful example of the vagal brake, and if we bring it into application for
just a moment. Can you think of something that would be slightly challenging in, if we're in a one to 10
and like, a one to three range? Just a little challenged? Can you think of something? You don't need to
tell me what it is, but yeah. And so then use this image of your vagal brake. You need to have more
energy to meet that challenge, so point your skis downhill, right? And then when you've met the
challenge, turn your skis so that you're gliding side to side again. And just notice how that...

Zach Taylor (41:28):


Truly, just going through this exercise, we didn't even have a full session, but in going through this with
you now and before we got on camera, I could see myself taking this into my real life immediately.

Deb Dana (41:43):


Right. Beautiful. And that really is, is what I want with polyvagal informed therapy. It really is about
helping clients become active operators of their own system, so they have tools that they take out of
therapy session, and practice out there in the world. And this probably is also a good time to say that
this is not just for clients, but this is for therapists as well. Because we have to know how to do this in
order to show up and be anchored in our ventral.

Zach Taylor (42:12):


So there's just one more slide that we want to show today, and that's just this hierarchy in action. Just
take us through, very briefly, this sort of how we move and how the vagal brake interacts with all these
different states. We'll flash the slide up here. If you could kind of walk us through it.

Deb Dana (42:32):


Sure. So at the top of the hierarchy, ventral vagal, where we long to be, where we're engaged,
connected. Connected to self, other, the world, spirit. That all happens from ventral. The vagal brake
relaxes and re-engages in that space between ventral and sympathetic, allowing us to have more
energy, less energy, be passionate, playful, alert, all of those things. At some point if the challenge that
we're trying to meet gets too big, the vagal break releases all the way, and now we are in sympathetic.
We are in sympathetic fight and flight, and the HPA access, the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal access, is
engaged and shoots you full of cortisone and adrenaline.
So you can see that we have two choices there. We hope to find our way back up to ventral, but
if we can't do that... We can only sustain sympathetic for so long. Everybody has different amounts of
time, well then, go to dorsal. Okay? And you can see dorsal at the bottom there. So you notice, the vagal

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brake when it goes away, you go to sympathetic and then it's gone. It has nothing to do with dorsal. So
the vagal brake's job is to help us move between ventral sympathetic in a regulated way, being able to
use the energy of our system. When it goes away, we're in full sympathetic fight-flight, and then end up
in dorsal. That's the hierarchy in action.

Zach Taylor (44:08):


Nice. Okay. So hopefully you all have enjoyed this brief introduction to polyvagal theory. If you weren't
familiar with polyvagal informed therapy before, hopefully this gives you some idea of what you're
about to see. You're going to see how Deb works with ventral, sympathetic and dorsal, how she teaches
clients the vagal brake metaphor, and how she works with three very, very distinct situations. The first
client, dealing with a lot of just generalized anxiety. The second client, dealing with a kind of driving
phobia after some severe car accidents, which are very specific kind of issue. And then a third client
going through something, of course we all go through, which is grief and loss.
So you're going to see how Deb applies these principles we went over, which may seem very
conceptual, and what does this have to do with therapy. You're going to see how she applies this in a
very, very precise manner over three sessions.
So we want to thank you for joining us in this introductory module. And the very next video,
we're going to jump in to see how Deb works with generalized anxiety.
So Deb, thanks for being here, and we hope you'll all join us in the very next video.

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Module 2: Mapping & Mastering the Three States of
Our Nervous System: Ventral, Sympathetic, & Dorsal
Deb Dana, LCSW

Zach Taylor (00:00:19):


Well welcome everybody to Psychotherapy Networker's masterclass series. This one on polyvagal
informed therapy with Deb Dana. Deb, thanks for coming back.

Deb Dana (00:00:31):


Lovely to be here.

Zach Taylor (00:00:33):


Right, so today's session is a followup from our introduction, where we went over the basic principles of
polyvagal that you are going to need to know in order to really be able to dig in and follow these clips.
Today's session we'll be watching a real live psychotherapy session with Deb Dana. Although these are
colleagues she's working with, these are still real sessions, so very excited to jump in. Before we do, I
was wondering if we could just review some of the basic concepts very briefly that we went over in the
introduction.
Deb to start, really the basis of what we're working with is our client's nervous system, and that
is based on this concept of neuroception. If you could just remind us what neuroception is and how
that's going to play into what we're about to see.

Deb Dana (00:01:27):


Sure, so neuroception is the way the autonomic nervous system is taking in cues of safety and unsafety.
It's listening in these three streams of awareness. It's listening inside the body. It's listening outside in
the environment and it's listening between two or more nervous systems. You see neuroception playing
out in the demos, in the ways that we're sort of bringing explicit awareness to that implicit process. We
have to bring perception to neuroception and as you watch I think you'll find that, that's happening
often. That, that explicit naming of the neuroception of the cues of safety and unsafety.

Zach Taylor (00:02:14):


Great, great, so where we're taking that unconscious neuroception process and turning it into
perception. Something that they can actually use to begin to change their nervous systems responses.
Great.

Deb Dana (00:02:25):


Right, because if it remains implicit we can't do anything with it.

Zach Taylor (00:02:29):

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Exactly, right. The second concept is what we're being perceptive of, and that is these three states of our
nervous system. There's essentially, and what Steve Porges's theory really proposes there are these
three basic states. We learn that neither of them are necessarily good or bad, but they're all different
states that are useful to us. You call these three states a hierarchy of states, and often put them on this
ladder as a metaphor.
Just remind us, because these are big words that it's easy to forget, just remind us what these
three states are called and how we work with them, and how we're going to work with them today.

Deb Dana (00:03:11):


Sure, so ventral vagal is the newest state. The state that allows us to be safe and communicate and
engage, connect. Connect to ourselves, to others, to the world, to spirit that's the ventral vagal state. If
you put it on the ladder when you did your ladder map, that's the top of the ladder.
Then moving down to the middle of the ladder and moving down the hierarchy one is
sympathetic, which is a system of mobilization. When it's in a survival response, it brings us the fight and
flight energy. Then at the bottom of the ladder is the dorsal vagal state, which in a survival response
takes us out of awareness, out of connection into disappearance, into shut down.
We're moving through these three states all the time and you'll see in the clips that we're really
using the pathway between these states as a therapeutic tool.

Zach Taylor (00:04:09):


Yeah, I think it's interesting what you just said, that we're always moving through these states. They're
not exactly, the dorsal state, the shutdown state is not necessarily just a traumatic response. This is a
state we all go into at times, some of us get more stuck there than others. Very important to normalize
that and help clients work through these different states and just get comfortable with them, right?

Deb Dana (00:04:32):


Right, we call that in the beginning the befriending process, that we befriend our states. We turn
towards our states with curiosity and compassion because they're there for a reason. Whenever
sympathetic or dorsal gets really big and takes over, it's a survival response. In the polyvagal informed
therapy world, we always put adaptive in front of survival response. It's an adaptive survival response.

Zach Taylor (00:04:58):


Fantastic. The third concept we want to remember as we watch this session is something you call co-
regulation. Just remind us what that is and so we can see when it happens.

Deb Dana (00:05:09):


Yeah, right. Co-regulation is the essential ingredient really in the therapy process. It's my ability to be
regulated and offer that regulating energy to my client, so that we are in this together. I like to think of
the nervous system likes to be joined in some way. You'll see in the clips that co-regulation can look a lot
of different ways. You have to find the right degree of offering that ventral presence, that is a cue of
safety for the other nervous system.
When we are the co-regulating energy for our client, we're really moment to moment gaging
what's the right way to be offering this for that client's nervous system.

Zach Taylor (00:05:57):

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Good and you're right, it does look a lot of different ways. We're going to see it several ways in this
session, so I encourage people to look for it. One way you co-regulate is that you actually invite this
client. When they go to these different states that are quite scary to him, you offer to go with him and is
that a form of co-regulation?

Deb Dana (00:06:19):


Yes, and that's an offer that I always make. I will always say, "Do you want me to go with you?" I will also
say, "Or do you want me to stay here in the ventral holding this space to help you come back when you
need?" Some clients don't want you to go with them, but they want that connection, they want to know
you're there. There are lots of fun ways to play with being there, to be with in a different way. I'm
anchored in ventral and I can stay there or I can go with you, so yeah.
That's a lovely co-regulating experience. Most clients in my experience say, "Oh, you'd do that?"
Their experiences going to these dysregulated states alone, that's the traumatic event, being alone and
yeah.

Zach Taylor (00:07:05):


Right, and the very last thing I want to remind people of is that, we're jumping into these sessions with
people who've done a little bit of training in polyvagal. They've already done something that we
mentioned in the introduction to the course called their personal profile map. This is something Deb has
developed and does with new clients, working from a polyvagal informed approach. I just want to
remind you, you're not going to see that in this session, but Deb can you remind us, what is the personal
profile map? Why is it so important to do with a new client when doing this type of informed therapy?

Deb Dana (00:07:41):


Yeah, so the personal profile map is a client's first invitation to get to know their three states. They get
to know what happens in those states, their behaviors, their beliefs, their feelings, their thoughts. They
identify those two core beliefs by filling in the sentences the world is as in I am.
As I do this with my clients, because even though they're the one mapping, it's still a dyadic
experience of doing it. As we do that together, we're creating that first common language. You'll notice
in the demo clips that we use that we're already on your map. We have that shared language and when
my client says, "Oh, I'm in my sympathetic," we have an idea of what that is because we've done that
map together. Yeah, I feel it's an essential first step.

Zach Taylor (00:08:33):


Great, and very important as you watch this session and the following sessions, as Deb said, you're going
to hear her refer to their map, "Where are you on your map?" Just so everyone knows that that is what
she's referring to, right?

Deb Dana (00:08:48):


Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Zach Taylor (00:08:49):


Let's dive in, everybody buckle up. We've got a fun and sometimes bumpy road ahead of us, but I think it
resolves really, really powerfully. Who will we see in the session? If you just want to set it up just briefly
so that people know what they're about to see.

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Deb Dana (00:09:08):
Sure, so this session is with Steve and Steve is an old ...

Zach Taylor (00:09:13):


Not Steve Porges.

Deb Dana (00:09:15):


No, not Steve Porges. I have yet to do a session with Steve Porges, maybe we'll make that happen, but
this is with a different Steve. A colleague who I have known for a long time and who used to live here in
Maine, where I live and moved away many years ago. We have had no contact for a long time and he
walked into the first day of my training week at the Cape Cod Institute and I was totally surprised,
delighted. It was just lovely to see him.
When we do this demo, he has done about nine hours of intro to polyvagal theory. That's the
level of his polyvagal informed awareness.

Zach Taylor (00:10:03):


Great. Okay, so let's just jump in and see how you get started.

Deb Dana (00:10:07):


Okay.
I'll sit here and then we're going to figure out this yeah, why are you moving? Where do you
want to be? How's this feel?

Steve (00:10:16):
This is okay.

Deb Dana (00:10:17):


How do you know?

Steve (00:10:20):
Because of my bubble.

Deb Dana (00:10:20):


You've got your bubble?

Steve (00:10:20):
Yeah.

Deb Dana (00:10:24):


Yeah? If I move back what happens, better or worse? Nervous system says, " Come in," or, "Stay where
you are," or, "Move back,"?

Steve (00:10:34):

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You're good. No further back.

Deb Dana (00:10:36):


No further back?

Steve (00:10:38):
Yeah.

Deb Dana (00:10:38):


Is it better in? If I move in what happens? What happens now?

Steve (00:10:42):
Further forward. No further.

Deb Dana (00:10:44):


Yeah?

Steve (00:10:44):
You're good.

Deb Dana (00:10:44):


I'm going to sit right out here.

Steve (00:10:44):
Yeah.

Deb Dana (00:10:47):


Okay, perfect. All right well played.

Steve (00:10:47):
And me?

Deb Dana (00:10:52):


How about the angle, what does this feel like for you?

Steve (00:10:58):
Yeah, this is good.

Deb Dana (00:10:58):


This is good?

Steve (00:10:59):
Yeah.

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Deb Dana (00:11:00):
Settled in a bit?

Steve (00:11:01):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Deb Dana (00:11:02):


Okay. Yeah, so I'm going to invite our nervous systems just to help us have a conversation for a minute,
just reconnect. Yeah. It's been such a joy to be in each other's energy again after many, many years.

Steve (00:11:23):
Yup.

Deb Dana (00:11:23):


Yeah.

Steve (00:11:26):
[inaudible 00:11:26].

Deb Dana (00:11:27):


Yeah, so my system's reaching out to yours and let you use it in whatever way feels right to you.

Zach Taylor (00:11:35):


Okay, so that was an interesting start to a therapy session. I don't think I've ever seen that before. What
is this positioning you're doing with him and why is this important?

Deb Dana (00:11:48):


It is the way I start most if not all of my sessions with clients every time. What we're doing is we're trying
to find the positioning of two nervous systems, where they can be in contact in a way that feels safe so
that the neuroception is one of safety and the co-regulation is in the amount that works for my client's
nervous system. You see that when we sat down and I asked about the position and Steve said, "This is
fine." Many clients will do that, "Oh this is fine," and then my next question traditionally is, "Well, how
do you know that?" Then we play with it.
I moved back a little bit, "What's that?" I move forward a little bit. We're getting to allowing his
nervous system to give him the nuance of information, not just simply say, "It's fine. Okay, let's go." But
to really play with the nervous system, giving him information, him listening and us using that
information. Then once we were settled distance wise, I asked about angle. Then you could see Steve
sort of adjusting angle and adjusting a little bit of distance. Then we both came into a moment of, "Oh,
now we're here."
If you're in that energy with a client, you know it when you get there, because your nervous
system sort of breathes this sigh of relief and you go, "Oh, now we're here." Yeah.

Zach Taylor (00:13:13):

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Good, so you're doing something else too that actually we can't see and that's, you're anchoring yourself
in ventral. Okay, that's probably a new word for people, a new phrase, anchoring yourself in ventral.
Break that down for us, what does that mean?

Deb Dana (00:13:32):


Yeah, and it is essential. I have to be really grounded in my ventral vagal system, I call it anchored in
ventral. I have to be filled with that capacity for regulation, because that's what my nervous system is
telling Steve's nervous system. That I'm safe, that I'm regulated, that I'm anchored. I'm predictably
present and that's all done without words.
There was one point when I said, "I'm sending you my ventral," so that was putting language to
the fact that I'm in ventral. Step one is to be in ventral and then step two is how do I use it? If we stay
with step one for a minute, anchoring in ventral, and again, I'm going to refer back to that personal
profile map and invite every therapist, clinician who is watching this to do their own personal profile
map first before you use it with a client.
You have to know, how does my system, how do I experience ventral? Then how do I know that
I'm there? The map is a way to really be able to explicitly do that. As we said, we don't always stay in
ventral. There are moments and maybe in some of these demos, I don't remember, when I fall out of
ventral and come back, which is fine. We therapists are not always in a ventral state when we're
working, it's perfectly fine. It's just that when we do that, we want to name that. We recognize it, name
it and then come back to ventral.

Zach Taylor (00:15:13):


Since we can't see it in this session, can I ask you, how do you know you're in ventral?

Deb Dana (00:15:19):


Yes.

Zach Taylor (00:15:20):


What sort of metaphor and image do you represent that with?

Deb Dana (00:15:25):


My ventral is felt here and many people feel their ventral here. Mine is felt here because mine sort of
moves from here out to the other person. When I'm really anchored in ventral, I know I'm here. I can
feel it here. I feel curious and interested in what's going on, and I have no agenda for the session, for my
client beyond let's explore where the nervous system is going to take us today. That's my way of
knowing I'm in ventral.
As soon as I start to have a thought that, "Oh, I want to do this, or we need to do this, or we
should do this," those words are not ventral. I know oh, I'm now moving into some sympathetic need to
make something happen.

Zach Taylor (00:16:16):


That mobilization state.

Deb Dana (00:16:17):

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Yeah, so for me ventral is an embodied experience here in a sort of this state of curiosity and interest
and a willingness to go wherever my client's nervous system wants us to go. Provide the anchor for my
client's nervous system, so a real trust in that.

Zach Taylor (00:16:37):


Great, good. Those are some of the essential ingredients to getting started. The personal profile map,
anchoring yourself in ventral and then creating this right amount of space so that they feel good. That
their nervous system feels good with your nervous system being in their presence.

Deb Dana (00:16:37):


Exactly.

Zach Taylor (00:16:55):


Great, okay.

Deb Dana (00:16:55):


We then create that nervous system to nervous system connection, yup.

Zach Taylor (00:17:00):


Good. The next clip we're going to see, you're going to do something, some other kind of anchoring.
You're going to work to anchor your client in ventral state, which is that calm, connected, peaceful,
socially engaged state. Let us know what we're about to see coming up.

Deb Dana (00:17:21):


With the neuroception of safety, right that's really-

Zach Taylor (00:17:24):


Neuroception of safety, okay.

Deb Dana (00:17:25):


... what we're looking for, yeah.

Zach Taylor (00:17:28):


Good. You're going to try to anchor that client in a ventral state. There's two kinds of concepts that are
going to come up in this session that I just want to preview and remind listeners of. One is, you're kind
of going to mention the ladder metaphor, so just remind us what the ladder is once more before we get
into it.

Deb Dana (00:17:51):


The ladder is that placing the three states on that hierarchy using the image of a ladder and a metaphor
of a ladder. Ventral being at the top, sympathetic, moving down one and dorsal at the bottom. When we
explore the states with Steve, we're really using that sense of geography, of moving from top to middle
to bottom on the ladder in order to help Steve navigate those states and find his way.

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Zach Taylor (00:18:24):
Great. Okay, good, so with that, let's jump into clip number two.

Deb Dana (00:18:30):


Great.
Let's see what's going on inside right now.

Steve (00:18:34):
Me?

Deb Dana (00:18:35):


Yeah. What's going on?

Steve (00:18:36):
Wow!

Deb Dana (00:18:36):


Where are you right now? Where are you on your ladder?

Steve (00:18:47):
Lower sympathetic some dorsal.

Deb Dana (00:18:50):


Heading towards that.

Steve (00:18:51):
I'm kind of firmly in it.

Deb Dana (00:18:54):


Beautiful, so right there? Okay.

Steve (00:18:56):
Yeah.

Deb Dana (00:18:56):


All right, and when we played around with how you experience your ventral, how has it come alive for
you? Where are you located in your body?

Steve (00:19:11):
It's overall calm.

Deb Dana (00:19:15):


Okay, it's something here?

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Steve (00:19:17):
Yeah.

Deb Dana (00:19:18):


Yeah. Okay, and I know your vagal brake has that beautiful, the sails adjusting so maybe let's bring that
vagal brake image to life at the moment and see if we can use that.

Steve (00:19:34):
Yeah, so I get stuck in terms of parts because it's just such [inaudible 00:19:39]. Anyway, so I'm aware
of-

Deb Dana (00:19:40):


Sure.

Steve (00:19:42):
... I don't know if it's dorsal or sympathetic that's no.

Deb Dana (00:19:49):


There's a cue of danger in there. What's the cue of danger? Just to ask your system, what's the cue of
danger?

Steve (00:19:53):
Getting too close.

Deb Dana (00:19:56):


Too close to me or too close to something inside you? Or too close what?

Steve (00:20:03):
Probably both, but you and something inside.

Deb Dana (00:20:08):


Okay, so let's start with the cue of danger around too close to me and just tell me a little bit more about
it. What feels dangerous?

Steve (00:20:20):
Connection to the known.

Deb Dana (00:20:20):


Okay.

Steve (00:20:25):
To feel the connection.

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Deb Dana (00:20:28):
Your system says connection is dangerous in some way?

Steve (00:20:28):
Yeah, oh yeah.

Deb Dana (00:20:34):


Yeah, and that's a familiar story to you?

Steve (00:20:37):
Yeah.

Deb Dana (00:20:38):


Yeah, so let's just sit with that for a minute, just that, oh yeah, that felt, yup. I get that, it's a familiar
story. Yeah. Which takes you to dorsal usually?

Steve (00:20:50):
First to sympathetic, run.

Deb Dana (00:20:52):


Run and then ...

Steve (00:20:53):
Yeah.

Deb Dana (00:20:54):


We haven't gone to dorsal right now, we're hanging.

Steve (00:20:56):
Right.

Deb Dana (00:20:57):


Yeah, so something's a little different.

Steve (00:20:59):
Well I can't run.

Deb Dana (00:21:01):


Well you can. You're welcome to, just ...

Steve (00:21:01):
We're on video.

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Deb Dana (00:21:09):
Let your nervous system hear, if you need to mobilize, we will do that. You are not trapped here. Okay?

Steve (00:21:19):
So noted.

Deb Dana (00:21:20):


Just take it, note it here, take it in here, right?

Steve (00:21:25):
Yeah, and there's this contradict, this whatever, part of me gets that.

Deb Dana (00:21:38):


Yeah, sure.

Steve (00:21:38):
Another part of me won't let me, so there's a way in which I'm trapped based on me.

Deb Dana (00:21:44):


Yeah, all right, so let's if we can bring a little ventral into our shared experience from reminding your
system that ventral is the place of safety. You can connect safely inside as well as is here when that feels
safe, but inside first. Let's bring some of that ventral, feel that here. Nice breath. Yeah, beautiful. Maybe
even feeling yourself out on the ocean, yeah.
As you're out there on the ocean, just feel yourself adjusting the sails, trimming the sails to the
just right place. Feel how your system can feel that, the just right place for you in this moment with me
and you can keep adjusting that moment to moment. Yeah. Where are you now? What's happening?

Steve (00:22:54):
Sympathetic has definitely settled.

Deb Dana (00:22:57):


Nice.

Steve (00:23:00):
Yeah.

Zach Taylor (00:23:00):


He starts this clip a little in this kind of sympathetic, wanting to run. You ask him, "What feels
dangerous?" He says, "Connection, connection feels dangerous," and like he wants to kind of run and
mobilize. What's going on in the beginning of the session here?

Deb Dana (00:23:25):

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Well, in the beginning we're just getting to know, where are we going to do some work today? What's
the pattern that comes up and what's the story around that pattern? He talks about, my question
usually is for a client as was with him, where are you right now? I want to know in this moment where
are you, and then he begins to talk about he's sympathetic and the fear of connection. We end up with
wanting to run.
One thing I did want to mention that you can see in this clip and hopefully in the other ones too,
that there's humor woven in. It's playful at times, which I really believe is important in this work as well.
It's powerful work, but playfulness is a part of it too, because at one point near the end of the clip, he
says, "Well, I can't run," because I'm reminding him, "You can always come back." He said, "I can't, we're
on video, we're taping this."
It's interesting because the nervous system when it doesn't have choice, brings a survival
response. For him that was a cue of danger, "I can't run." I said, "Of course you can, we can get up and
go anytime." Again, it's offering choice, understanding that, that's a cue of danger and offering choice,
we can get up and go.
The other piece that I really loved that came in the very beginning was, we had done an exercise
in the workshop earlier on the vagal break.

Zach Taylor (00:24:56):


Yes. Let's discuss that vagal brake and what you meant by that. You used this metaphor of adjusting his
sail.

PART 1 OF 4 ENDS [00:25:04]

Zach Taylor (00:25:00):


You kind of use this metaphor of adjusting his sales, in his case.

Deb Dana (00:25:05):


Right? Right.

Zach Taylor (00:25:06):


What's that all about?

Deb Dana (00:25:07):


So vagal brake is another piece that people will create a metaphor for, or a movement for. The vagal
brake is one circuit of the ventral vagal system that actually goes to your heart. And it controls your... It's
your heart's... The sinoatrial node of your heart, which is the pacemaker. So as the vagal brake relaxes a
little bit, we feel more sympathetic energy in our system. But as long as the vagal break is still there, we
don't go into a sympathetic fight/flight response. We simply feel more energized. And then as the vagal
brake engages again, we feel less sympathetic and more calm. And that's going on all the time for we
humans. In fact, on every inhale, your vagal brake releases a little bit, and your heart rate speeds up.
And on every exhale, it re-engages, and your heart rate slows down.
So it's a common biological experience. I like to bring it into awareness and metaphor because
we can use it. And for Steve... Steve's a sailor. And so it was very easy for him to say, "I'm trimming the
sails." That was his vagal break. And so we had this lovely ability to bring that piece in and use it. When
feeling as though you're going to sympathetic, you can adjust the sails. You can help your system feel

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that sympathetic but not go totally into sympathetic. So we came back to that a few times, I think, to
really feel what's it like when your sail is adjusted just the right way? That flow, that sense of safety and
regulation. You know?

Zach Taylor (00:26:50):


It's almost like you're helping him go from ventral to a sympathetic or mobilized energetic state without
going into that fight/flight version of sympathetic. Is that what you're saying?

Deb Dana (00:27:03):


Exactly.

Zach Taylor (00:27:03):


Helping him learn how to use his vagal brake strategically.

Deb Dana (00:27:07):


Exactly. Exactly. And for many people, that's a missing experience. Right?

Zach Taylor (00:27:11):


Yes, yes.

Deb Dana (00:27:14):


And so this is really teaching his system, and then letting him play with this capacity to regulate it a bit.
Right? Which really is the focus of this kind of therapy is helping a client understand, "Oh, I have some
management over this." Right? I'm not just... I can work with my system because I know how. Yeah.
Yeah.

Zach Taylor (00:27:36):


Right. So one thing you said is that we want to bring a little ventral into this sympathetic state.

Deb Dana (00:27:48):


Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Zach Taylor (00:27:49):


Again, these are a lot of new words for therapists who may not know a lot about Polyvagal. What does it
mean to bring a little ventral? And it sounds like an old 70s song, to bring a little love into your heart.
We're bringing a little ventral into your heart.

Deb Dana (00:28:04):


I love it.

Zach Taylor (00:28:05):


What does this mean?

Deb Dana (00:28:07):

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Yeah. So... Interesting. When you work in this way, when somebody is feeling a lot of sympathetic or
dorsal that we're going to see later in the demo with Steve. Rather than coming back to ventral
immediately, I like to say, "How about if we bring a little ventral to the state you're in, rather than
leaving that state?" It's a different experience. Sometimes we want to leave the state and come back to
ventral, and we do that a few times, too. But let's bring some ventral into the state you're in and see
what happens, which is a different kind of navigating the nervous system. And it's amazing what
happens when you bring a little bit of ventral. You could see, at the end, when we trimmed the sails just
right. And Steve said, "Oh, my sympathetic has calmed." Right? Right. Because we have a little more
ventral there with it. So that's really what I like to do with my clients rather than saying, "Well, let's
escape that place you are." No, no. Let's find a way to safely inhabit that place you are. Let's bring a little
ventral.

Zach Taylor (00:29:12):


It really reinforces something you said earlier, which is the goal is not to stay in a ventral, vagal state all
the time, just calm and serene and connected, but to learn how to travel and learn how to feel safe
when you're in sympathetic, learn how to even feel safe when you're in a dorsal state. And I think you
demonstrated that so beautifully, which is why I love that we're able to watch these sessions together. I
want to mention one more reframe you did because this one might have gotten missed. I only noticed it
because I watched this six or seven times. You reframed him. He said, "I feel something." And you
reframed that and said, "So your system says something." And I can't remember exactly what it was, but
you reframed "I feel" to "your system says."

Deb Dana (00:30:01):


Yes, yes.

Zach Taylor (00:30:02):


Why did you do that?

Deb Dana (00:30:03):


I do that all the time with my clients because we're really trying to find out how does your system? How
is it sending you information? The "I feel" is a more cognitive experience that your system is sending or
your system says, or the story from your system is, is a really embodied, autonomic place to be.
Because, again, I'm trying to help my client listen to the autonomic story, not the cognitive story that
comes out of that. And people find it a very different experience. And you just sort of... You very easily,
when you start using this language, you say, "Oh, so your system wants, or your system says." And
people just go there with you, and they go, "Oh, right." It takes them very gently out of that eye
cognitive place, back into, "Oh, right. We're working with my nervous system." Yeah.

Zach Taylor (00:30:54):


I know you're also trained in internal family systems and IFS. I it similar to saying a part of you feels? Or
more a sensory motor way of saying the body feels? Is this related in any way?

Deb Dana (00:31:08):


Yeah. It's an interesting question because Steve also is trained in internal family systems and sensory
motor, as both of us are. So we had all of that running in the background as well. And at one point he
looked at me and said, "A part of me. A part of me." Sort of that, "Oh my God. I have to say this."

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Because we were truly trying to be just in this Polyvagal place. But parts come in all the time. And for
me, what I say, and I will acknowledge the part and then go back to the state because for me, what
happens is the state arises. And then all of the parts that are connected to that state find the door open
for them to come and appear and be felt, seen, recognized and impact. So, again, it's like I'm getting
underneath the part to the environment that part lives in. So Steve would say a part, "Uh-huh. Of
course." Right? And then we just gently go back to the...

Zach Taylor (00:32:17):


That's an interesting statement. Not just the part, but the environment the part lives in.

Deb Dana (00:32:22):


Yeah. Yeah.

Zach Taylor (00:32:23):


That's nice. So let's set up the next clip, clip number three.

Deb Dana (00:32:27):


Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Zach Taylor (00:32:28):


This is... We're going to move into some new territory. And what you're going to be doing here is now
we're going to be really, intentionally leaving a ventral state. You kind of tried to anchor him in ventral at
the end of the last one. And in fact, he ended with "my sympathetic is calming." It's definitely, I think he
said he's definitely calmer. And so we left the last clip with him in a ventral state. Now you're going to
intentionally move him to a sympathetic state. He kind of started sympathetic, and you tried to move
him back into a ventral. Now we are going to intentionally map him and help him understand the path
from ventral to sympathetic. Anything, any ways you want to set up this clip?

Deb Dana (00:33:14):


That is sort of the next step in this process is once we've anchored in ventral and once I have a sense
that, "Oh, my client. I can help my client return to ventral." Right? We've created that. And below the
level of our talking, his nervous system is now feeling the trust that we can get back there, that our
nervous systems together know how to do this. So once we have that, then the next step is to let's go
explore these other states. Let's find the pathway between, and let's see if we can have a different
experience of sympathetic and then eventually dorsal, so that you can experience it differently. And
using metaphor.... I love using landscape. And then, "What's the landscape? What do you find there?"
And I think you find with Steve, it's an interesting landscape.

Zach Taylor (00:34:05):


Fantastic. Well, let's see what that landscape looks like.

Deb Dana (00:34:10):


So I'm wondering if we might create a pathway from ventral to a sympathetic to dorsal. So then we
could traverse that together. Where you can go, and I can wait at the top and look down at you and say,
"I'm here." Whichever your system decides is right. So let's come to ventral again. When you're there, in

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your ventral landscape, where are you? What's the image? Are you out on the water? Are you by the
water? Are you at the top of a mountain? Where would you be?

Steve (00:34:50):
Of the exercise that we just did?

Deb Dana (00:34:50):


Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Steve (00:34:56):
There was a moment after the... Oh, what day? Whatever.

Deb Dana (00:35:03):


They all run together.

Steve (00:35:07):
It was Sunday. Suzanne and I had been out all day, doing this and that.

Deb Dana (00:35:12):


Yeah.

Steve (00:35:13):
Seeing all these places. And at the end of the day, we were kind of killing a little time before dinner and
went to Wellfleet, sat on a bench on the beach. Water, sun, the afternoon sun. And my feet burned. And
she said, "Put them up." And she rubbed my feet, just laying there. The bench was just so ventral.

Deb Dana (00:35:41):


Oh, that sounds beautiful.

Steve (00:35:43):
It really was, just hanging out. Yeah. Connected.

Deb Dana (00:35:47):


Safely connected to yourself and to Suzanne.

Steve (00:35:50):
Yeah, yeah.

Deb Dana (00:35:52):


Just stay there for a minute. Really let that fill your system, that ventral state of connection. Beautiful.
Beautiful. So if that's the ventral landscape, Suzanne, you, bench, connection. Where and how do we get
them to sympathetic? What's the root for us? You leave the bench and go where? Where do we go
when we get to sympathetic?

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Steve (00:36:28):
Just someone other than her asking for connection.

Deb Dana (00:36:33):


Okay. All right. So when someone other than Suzanne asks for connection, and then if we were going to
go to that place...

Steve (00:36:41):
And mostly, especially, actually, it's connection that's not protected by support. Like those connections
[crosstalk 00:00:36:55].

Deb Dana (00:36:51):


Oh, yeah. Okay. Yep. Yep.

Steve (00:36:54):
It's the ones that are...

Deb Dana (00:36:56):


The personal ones, not the professional ones.

Steve (00:36:56):
Yeah, yeah.

Deb Dana (00:37:01):


Yeah. Hmm. Okay. So then what's the image that happens? How do you then come down the hierarchy
to sympathetic? You leave the bench, and what's the landscape in sympathetic?

Steve (00:37:15):
Just coming into any kind of interaction.

Deb Dana (00:37:18):


So in sympathetic, we leave the bench and now there's people.

Steve (00:37:23):
Yeah. Who want to talk to you.

Deb Dana (00:37:23):


Who want something. They want to talk to you. Oh, boy.

Steve (00:37:23):
Yeah.

Deb Dana (00:37:29):

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So it's like this in sympathetic.

Steve (00:37:29):
Yeah, it is.

Deb Dana (00:37:32):


Yeah.

Steve (00:37:33):
I always say, "Avoid the talkers."

Deb Dana (00:37:34):


Avoid the talkers. I love it. Okay.

Steve (00:37:40):
It's a little hard in my work, in the personal world.

Deb Dana (00:37:44):


It is a little hard in the personal world. So we go to sympathetic and there are a lot of people talking.

Steve (00:37:47):
Yeah.

Deb Dana (00:37:47):


There's this sense of pull. I need to, I have to. Something.

Steve (00:37:52):
Yeah.

Deb Dana (00:37:54):


Okay. All right. So from that place, let's be in that place just for a moment. And then we'll look back
towards the bench, towards Suzanne. And how do you get back there? Do you walk back? Do you
transport back? How do you get there? What's your route?

Steve (00:38:12):
I don't know.

Deb Dana (00:38:13):


So if we're in sympathetic, all these people talking to you. Do you just...

Steve (00:38:21):
So, mentally, if I'm there, I just mentally go back.

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Deb Dana (00:38:22):
So you leave, and you come back to the bench.

Steve (00:38:25):
I go back to the bench, just sort of reactivate the memory.

Deb Dana (00:38:30):


Beautiful. So come back to the bench. Just feel your system. Back to ventral. Beautiful. Yeah. So then
make that journey again, go down to that sympathetic place with lots of talkers. And just stay there for a
moment. And then take yourself back to the bench, to Suzanne. Do that, yeah. So your system knows
how to do this. You're not going to get stuck in sympathetic. Okay?

Zach Taylor (00:39:08):


So this was a fascinating clip that demonstrates this idea of helping people move from neuroception,
just their nervous system unconsciously noticing things, to them being able to have perception over
what's happening and how they move from feelings of safety to feelings of danger. And you start by
helping him come up with a metaphor of what does it look and feel like to be in a ventral state? And he
says, "It's to be on this, it's this memory of being on a bench with my wife."

Deb Dana (00:39:46):


Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah, yeah. And I love helping people come up with their ventral landscape
when it's an experience they've already had, when the nervous system has already had that experience
of ventral. And so for Steve, it was a memory of just a couple of days before on the bench with Suzanne.
And he... You could feel the ventral. You could feel it even watching the clip, I think. But in the room, you
could absolutely feel, "Oh, that is that place of safety. And safety and connection." It was really lovely to
see. So that's a strong anchor for him, right? That's a... And so for me, as a therapist, I know, "Oh, that's
a strong anchor. We can use that. And we'll be able to come back there often."

Zach Taylor (00:40:35):


And then, once you have that image around what ventral safety feels like, you ask him, "What is... How
do we get to sympathetic? How do we get to that sympathetic fight/flight mobilization place?" And he
names it right away.

Deb Dana (00:40:53):


Right, right. Which is usually what you find because the nervous system knows. And as soon as you bring
it to conscious awareness and ask the question, the nervous system gives you the answer.

Zach Taylor (00:41:02):


Yeah. He knew, but it doesn't sound like he's ever really put it in this way.

Deb Dana (00:41:07):


Right.

Zach Taylor (00:41:07):

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So he said, "It's when anyone asks me for connection outside of some kind of formal work boundary.
Like a friendship, or maybe somewhere in public." I'm sure there's many other situations, but he
identified that right away.

Deb Dana (00:41:22):


Yeah. Yeah.

Zach Taylor (00:41:22):


And so, very easy for him to get there. You can almost see the shift in his body just talking about it. And
you stay there for a moment, and then you do this funny thing. He's in sympathetic, and you say, "Now
look back at the bench."

Deb Dana (00:41:41):


Right. Right.

Zach Taylor (00:41:42):


And I think you also said, "Look back at ventral." And you ask him to see ventral from that sympathetic
state.

Deb Dana (00:41:50):


Right. Right.

Zach Taylor (00:41:51):


What's going on here? What are you doing here?

Deb Dana (00:41:53):


Well, that's that invitation to remember that sympathetic is right next to ventral on the hierarchy. Right?
And we can look right back there, and there it is. That, this again, is that "both and" that we keep talking
about. Right? You can be in sympathetic, and ventral is not totally out of sight. Right? And especially
where it was such a strong ventral experience of connection. And then sympathetic is about the danger
of connection. It's an interesting paradox there, right? Yeah.

Zach Taylor (00:42:28):


Very much. He also loves connection, but is afraid of it in other contexts.

Deb Dana (00:42:33):


Right. Right.

Zach Taylor (00:42:33):


Or his system's afraid of it.

Deb Dana (00:42:37):


His system, we're inviting his system. Thank you. Yes, we're inviting his system to kind of have this
experience of, "Oh, I'm in sympathetic." And, "Oh, right there." I look up because we're... The hierarchy.

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But right there is that place of safety and connection, and it's not that far away. So then we have to
figure out, well, how do we then get there? Right?

Zach Taylor (00:42:58):


Right. And you ask him that as soon as he can see ventral from where he stands, in this mobilized fight
or flight state. You ask him, "Okay, you see it. How do you get back there?"

Deb Dana (00:43:09):


Right.

Zach Taylor (00:43:09):


What an interesting question. "How do you get back there?" And I found this interesting, the first thing
he says is, "Well, I just go."

Deb Dana (00:43:16):


Right, right. Yeah.

Zach Taylor (00:43:17):


You know he's done this a million times in his life, as we all have. His system's done this multiple,
thousands of times a day. And yet many of us, most of us, don't know how we do it. Which is, I guess
how we get stuck, right?

Deb Dana (00:43:33):


Yes. Yes. And the... Coming to sympathetic for a bit, looking around and feeling it, but not staying there
too long because the experience of his nervous systems as he goes there and get stuck there. So we're
saying, "Well, we're just going to drop in here for a moment, and then we'll go on back. How do you get
there?" "Oh, I just see the bench, I visualize it, and there I am." "Beautiful. Let's do that." Yeah.

Zach Taylor (00:43:58):


Good. So he's not really sure how he gets back, but I guess that's part of the therapy is helping him learn
how to not get stuck in sympathetic and how to move back when he needs.

Deb Dana (00:44:10):


Right. Right.

Zach Taylor (00:44:11):


And I think you do that just beautifully.

Deb Dana (00:44:15):


And then you notice that we've done it once, we do it again. Right? Because you don't want to do it just
once. Once, it's like, "Oh, the new pathway is explicitly named here. Let's travel it again and make sure
that we can do it with a little more ease." Every time we do it, it gets a little easier to do. So we do it
again.

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Zach Taylor (00:44:35):
What an interesting way to close this out because in our next clip, we're going to see him actually having
some doubt in your statement that he can go to this place of sympathetic fight and flight and not get
stuck. He's not quite sure he trusts you quite yet, but that's the case.

Deb Dana (00:44:56):


Yeah. He's not sure trusts that his nervous system knows the way yet. Right? And so our work is really to
help him experience over and over, and to really trust that your nervous system does know the way. It
knows how to do this. And we can partner with your nervous system to make that journey over and
over. Yeah. Yeah.

Zach Taylor (00:45:22):


Okay. So let's see the two of you traverse together through the landscape from ventral to sympathetic
again and see how it goes this time.

Deb Dana (00:45:31):


Great.

Steve (00:45:33):
So, yeah. I get that neurologically, through memory, that state is always there. Physical reality is that
state's not always there.

Deb Dana (00:45:47):


Cause you've spent a lot of time in a survival response.

Steve (00:45:52):
I have. Yeah. Yeah. And because the dynamics change, depending on the situation.

Deb Dana (00:46:00):


So when you're at work, you're in that ventral venal state. Most of the time. I've seen your work. I know
your work. And I know that you are calm, and yo are in that ventral, regulated state. So just remember
that for a moment. And I get the context is different. Remember, the nervous system wants context,
choice, connection. So the context is different when you're at work, but that capacity is alive and well
inside you. That's what I want you to just hold on to for a minute.It knows how to do it. It does it
brilliantly, beautifully.

Steve (00:46:49):
It knows how to get back to ventral.

Deb Dana (00:46:53):


It knows how to be there. You can think of a time when you got pulled out of it with a client recently.
Cause we all do, right? And think how you got back. You came back to ventral to be there for your client.
Right?

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Steve (00:47:03):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Deb Dana (00:47:05):


So the pathway is already there.

Steve (00:47:05):
In the professional [inaudible 00:22:10].

Deb Dana (00:47:10):


Yep. Yep. So now we're going to build a parallel pathway in the personal domain. We're going to use the
wisdom. We're going to use the wisdom of your system.

Steve (00:47:10):
Okay.

Deb Dana (00:47:23):


Right? Because your system is incredibly wise because when you were young, it knew how to get you
out of a dangerous situation. Right? Adaptive survival response knows how to do that. So what we're
going to hope to show your system is that, even with me right now in this moment, right here with me,
you might even be safe to play around with connection. Right? That as you look at me, what cues am I
sending to your system right now? What are you taking in?

Steve (00:48:00):
My dorsal's activated. But I can perceive warmth, genuineness, invitation.

Deb Dana (00:48:16):


So does your neuroception feel that? Does it just feel mine... Just get out of your head for a minute, just
nervous system. If my nervous system is simply sending you cues of safety through my eyes, through
energy, through my heart, just that. Just see what your neuroception takes in.

Steve (00:48:41):
Yeah. It can perceive you.

Deb Dana (00:48:44):


So just stay there for a moment. Okay? And see if you can feel the predictability of what I'm sending.

Steve (00:49:01):
It's impressive how the story [inaudible 00:24:10].

Deb Dana (00:49:02):


So if we can just stay in this state for a moment, we'll get the story. But if we can just stay in this state
for a moment. Yeah, yeah. And my ventral, that is predictably going to be here for you. So you can dip in

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whenever you want. It's just here to go on that journey with you, wherever your system wants to take
us. Okay? What is your system doing right now?

Steve (00:49:45):
It's cautiously calm.

Deb Dana (00:49:46):


Cautiously calm. I like that. Nice. I like that.

Zach Taylor (00:49:52):


Okay. So I feel like, in this clip, his nervous system is starting to push back a little bit. He's in sympathetic
and the old story..

PART 2 OF 4 ENDS [00:50:04]

Zach Taylor (00:50:01):


He's in sympathetic and the old stories, he says, are coming up. And they're powerful, and they want to
pull him in. And I think a lot of us as therapists might get caught in that. I mean, we all do at times,
caught in the story. And then their client gets caught in the story.
And you do something very interesting here. You just bypass all of that.

Deb Dana (00:50:25):


Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Zach Taylor (00:50:26):


And you do some different things. You don't go with the stories. What are you doing here when his
nervous system starts pushing and saying, "I'm not sure I know, really, how not to get stuck in
sympathetic and how to get back to ventral when I'm on my own?"

Deb Dana (00:50:42):


Right. And I really do try to stay out of story. I think I said to Steve, "We'll get the story," and we laughed.
We will get there. But right now let's put story aside and stay with state. And let's... when we go back to
neuroception.
And what I'm trying to do is, I'm simply trying to be in ventral and have my ventral vagal energy
be present, and let him know that it's predictably going to be there, and he can use it in what ever way
he needs. He can dip in, he can engage, disengage, re-engage.
Because, part of what I'm trying to do is let his nervous system know there's no expectation
here. He doesn't have to do anything to connect with me. I'm simply here offering a safe, ventral vagal
presence. And his system is going to help him figure out how to engage with that.
So, again, for me, and for the therapist in that place, we have to... my intent is to simply be
present and see what happens. And I think we talked about that, we're just going on a journey together,
wherever it takes us. And that's really... I'm talking to his nervous system, letting his nervous system
know, I don't know where we're going, but I can predictably bring safety to it, and let's just see what
happens.

PsychotherapyNetworker.org Page 25 of 59
So that's that choice. You know, we talked about context, choice and connection, that's the -

Zach Taylor (00:52:09):


You mentioned that with him, that our nervous system is always either looking for or wants these three
things, context, choice, and connection. Let's just take a moment on that because it feels important.

Deb Dana (00:52:23):


It is. We always want to offer choice, and so I was offering choice. You can dip in, not connect in any way
you want, there is no demand here. As soon as an offer feels, not like an invitation, but a request, the
nervous system is going to know that, the neuroception is going to have a response. So that's the choice
piece.
The connection piece is how do I offer my presence in a way that feels safe to his nervous
system. And this is a nervous system that feels cues of danger from connection. So, I have to be a little
more... hold back, still offering a stream of predictable ventral, but not surrounding him in it, or not
overwhelming his system with it. Just say, "Here it is, it's here." That's a new experience for him.

Zach Taylor (00:52:23):


Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Deb Dana (00:53:10):


It's here, it's predictable. You get to choose how you use it-

Zach Taylor (00:53:14):


And that's not coming at you-

Deb Dana (00:53:16):


Right.

Zach Taylor (00:53:16):


It's here for you. I love that, invitation, not a request-

Deb Dana (00:53:21):


Right.

Zach Taylor (00:53:21):


... and certainly not a demand, but an invitation. I'm here.

Deb Dana (00:53:27):


Right.

Zach Taylor (00:53:27):


And you can see him almost starting to buy into this.

Deb Dana (00:53:31):

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Yes.

Zach Taylor (00:53:32):


And you did two really interesting things once that resistance started to come in his nervous system, he
started to kind of get from that energetic sympathetic to the fight and flight sympathetic, he brought up
a lot of the old stories.
And you mentioned that you do this a lot. You actually do. You reminded him of... it was almost
a cognitive moment in some ways, it's like, just reminding him, "Yes there's times you do get stuck, but
there's also a lot of times you don't."

Deb Dana (00:54:03):


Right.

Zach Taylor (00:54:03):


And then you did a second thing, which was, you used yourself, that invitation of, what do you see here
right now from me? So maybe these other people have really gotten into your space and scared you, but
what do you feel from me right now, and gave him this new experience of invitation.

Deb Dana (00:54:22):


Right. Yes it's interesting because I know Steve as a really talented clinician, and I know that he brings
that beautiful connection, ventral connection to his clients. And so that, reminding him, I'm sure there
was a moment when you dropped out of connection and came back. Just that your nervous system
knows the way. Your nervous system knows the way.
I have that belief about nervous systems, they know the way to ventral. And I say that out loud
to my clients often, it knows the way. And so, how about in the personal world? Because, the biology...
he loves neuroscience like I do, the biology is already there. There isn't a separate nervous system for
personal and professional.
And so it's pretty clear-

Zach Taylor (00:55:11):


Very true here.

Deb Dana (00:55:12):


Let's see if we can play with that, play with what's already there and bring it into the personal realm.
And that was the context piece. Well you see the context is different, yes it is.

Zach Taylor (00:55:22):


Yes.

Deb Dana (00:55:22):


So let's play with that context and see, because context is creating a very different story for you
[crosstalk 00:55:31].

Zach Taylor (00:55:29):

PsychotherapyNetworker.org Page 27 of 59
And you hear him, you ask him what he's actually perceiving, and he says, "Yes, it can perceive safety
right now."

Deb Dana (00:55:38):


Right.

Zach Taylor (00:55:38):


And he actually started to use the language of the nervous system. It's not, I, but, it.

Deb Dana (00:55:44):


Right.

Zach Taylor (00:55:45):


Very interesting. And he ends this session back in ventral in a way-

Deb Dana (00:55:45):


Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Zach Taylor (00:55:49):


... cautiously, calm, I think was his phrase.

Deb Dana (00:55:52):


I love that. Cautiously calm, it's so beautiful.

Zach Taylor (00:55:55):


Cautiously calm. What a beautiful... he has such-

Deb Dana (00:55:58):


Yes.

Zach Taylor (00:55:58):


... nuance, and such vulnerability, and so in tune with himself, even though he's still learning, like we all
are, in many ways, much more advanced.

Deb Dana (00:56:11):


Yes.

Zach Taylor (00:56:11):


But is able to recognize that he's in this cautiously calm state, and that's where you end this session.
So, now we're going to head to this third state of the nervous system. You're actually going to
take him there.

Deb Dana (00:56:26):

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Mm-hmm (affirmative) yes.

Zach Taylor (00:56:27):


Because that's part of the therapy, we're learning how to travel through our nervous system.

Deb Dana (00:56:27):


Yes.

Zach Taylor (00:56:32):


So you're actually going to invite him to go to his dorsal state, which is the most shut down and
mobilized state that our nervous system has. How would you like to set up this clip as your first sort of
journey with him into his dorsal state? Because this is a big one for him.

Deb Dana (00:56:52):


Yes. So we've really established that he has a strong connection to ventral, and I have an absolute belief
that we can get there. We've now experimented with sympathetic and moving between the two states,
and he's beginning to trust my predictable ventral presence.
So those are all of the elements that we need in order to now let's go explore dorsal, which,
somewhere in our work together, he had identified was a very familiar place. So we know from that
statement that probably a lot of trauma stories lived there.
So we want to go there and we want to just simply get to know the dorsal landscape a bit. And
this is where it's important that he knows he's not alone. So that either I go with him or I'm there
holding the ventral cord for him, whatever his system wants.
But this is a moment with clients when they get to explore that other state, safely. Safely Being
the keyword, how do we do this safely?

Zach Taylor (00:57:59):


Yes. Good. Well, let's see how you safely guide him to dorsal.

Deb Dana (00:58:05):


Great.
Okay. So let's come back to the bench with Suzanne. Really feel that ventral vagal aliveness
there.

Steven (00:58:05):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Deb Dana (00:58:22):


And then let's go down through the sympathetic, everybody's talking, needing something. And let's keep
going down to dorsal, and tell me what's the landscape in dorsal?

Steven (00:58:33):
It's dangerous.

PsychotherapyNetworker.org Page 29 of 59
Deb Dana (00:58:33):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Steven (00:58:41):
It's emotionally dangerous.

Deb Dana (00:58:43):


Mm-hmm (affirmative). What's it look like there? Take me there with you. What does it look like? In this
dangerous, dorsal place?

Steven (00:58:53):
It's Stranger Things. It's dark-

Deb Dana (00:58:56):


It's dark Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Steven (00:58:59):
It's scary.

Deb Dana (00:58:59):


Mm- hmm (affirmative).

Steven (00:59:00):
It's reality... like there's a dizziness.

Deb Dana (00:59:08):


Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Steven (00:59:09):
Like you got your head on a swivel, you just got to watch.
But from a real, withdrawn place, like looking out from the head of a cave.

Deb Dana (00:59:25):


So we're in a cave looking out from the head of the cave. It's really dark, and there's a lot going on out
there that feels really dangerous.

Steven (00:59:25):
Yes.

Deb Dana (00:59:25):


Yes.

Steven (00:59:31):

PsychotherapyNetworker.org Page 30 of 59
Yes.

Deb Dana (00:59:32):


Absolutely. So I'm just going to ask you, is it okay if I journey there with you or would you prefer I not,
and just hear the story from you. What does your nervous system want?

Steven (00:59:49):
Wow.

Deb Dana (00:59:51):


Yes.

Steven (00:59:51):
[inaudible 00:59:55].

Deb Dana (00:59:51):


Is it okay if I come with you? Or stand outside?

Steven (01:00:21):
Yes, both.

Deb Dana (01:00:31):


All right.
So I'm right there with you.
That cave, where everything's dark. When you look out there's so much going on, it's dangerous.
Just see if your system can take in that there's another nervous system there with you right now.

Steven (01:00:59):
It's weird.

Deb Dana (01:01:01):


Different, yes. Yes, weird.

Steven (01:01:01):
Yes.

Deb Dana (01:01:01):


Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Steven (01:01:08):
Kind of almost too much.

Deb Dana (01:01:09):

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Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Steven (01:01:11):
Like I get the sense of... sensory [crosstalk 01:01:22].

Deb Dana (01:01:12):


Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Steven (01:01:13):
Like just-

Deb Dana (01:01:16):


Yes.

Steven (01:01:18):
... close up [inaudible 00:11:20].

Deb Dana (01:01:19):


So I'm going to just stand outside the cave for a while-

Steven (01:01:23):
Yes.

Deb Dana (01:01:25):


... move back just a little bit. Let's see how that feels. What happens now?

Steven (01:01:29):
Yes, better?

Deb Dana (01:01:39):


Feel better?

Steven (01:01:39):
Yes.

Deb Dana (01:01:39):


Okay.

Steven (01:01:39):
Yes.

Deb Dana (01:01:41):


So you could feel my ventral energy there with you, but not so much that you have to close up.

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Steven (01:01:41):
Yes.

Deb Dana (01:01:47):


Beautiful. Okay.
Yes.
Yes. Okay.

Steven (01:01:54):
Sort of like you're in the mouth of the cave. You're not outside-

Deb Dana (01:01:54):


Okay.

Steven (01:01:54):
... you don't have to be out-

Deb Dana (01:01:54):


I don't have to be out there, Mm-hmm (affirmative). I can be in the mouth-

Steven (01:01:56):
... but you're not in.

Deb Dana (01:02:03):


I'm not in, okay.
So I'm just going to stay there for a moment so you can really feel that you're not alone in that
place. And you can move me wherever it feels right to your system.
So just notice that in that place in the cave, that you also have that ventral vagal connection to
the [inaudible 00:12:36] you're seeing.

Steven (01:02:34):
It's such a foreign idea.

Deb Dana (01:02:40):


I know, isn't it? And if we think about... because I know you like the neuroscience like me, if you're
thinking about the archeology and the structure, the Vagus is all one conduit. So your cave dorsal is in
fact biologically connected to your ventral. And the energy flows. So just play with that for a minute.

Zach Taylor (01:03:10):


Okay. So he has just accepted your invitation to go to this dorsal place, and he knows the way, clearly.

Deb Dana (01:03:21):


Yes.

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Zach Taylor (01:03:21):
He describes it using words, "dark," "scary," "I got to watch out," "I'm withdrawn." "It's too much
sensory overload." Is this pretty typical language for someone in a dorsal state?

Deb Dana (01:03:37):


Yes. And he identifies being in a cave. A cave is often a metaphor that people go to, or a hole, or a
landscape that is barren. That's the flavor of dorsal. There's nothing alive there, nothing going on, yes.
And he does know that place, you can tell. He knows this place really well. This was his survival place
growing up, yes.

Zach Taylor (01:04:03):


And I think important to recognize we're not just going there cognitively.

Deb Dana (01:04:09):


No.

Zach Taylor (01:04:09):


His nervous system is there in some ways. I don't think it's a switch, but his nervous system is there in
many ways, and you can feel it.

Deb Dana (01:04:19):


You can feel it, yes. And-

Zach Taylor (01:04:23):


And you... yes, go ahead.

Deb Dana (01:04:24):


I was going to say, you can feel his nervous system there, and you can feel that he's not been hijacked by
it.

Zach Taylor (01:04:29):


Yes.

Deb Dana (01:04:29):


You can feel it, not hijacked by it, yes.

Zach Taylor (01:04:35):


And do you think that has to do with you doing all this preparatory work, to be connected with him in a
safe way?

Deb Dana (01:04:43):


Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Zach Taylor (01:04:45):

PsychotherapyNetworker.org Page 34 of 59
Do you think that's part of why he's able to do this?

Deb Dana (01:04:47):


I think at the very beginning of the clip, you saw that we went back, we really anchored on that bench
first.

Zach Taylor (01:04:53):


Yes.

Deb Dana (01:04:53):


We had that reminder of, here, I truly can embody this and be here. Then we went quickly through
sympathetic because we make that stop there because that's the hierarchical journey, quickly through,
and then to dorsal.
And so he still had a memory of, oh ventral is there and, oh, there's this other energy that's here
with me that I've allowed connection with. It feels safe. And we did a lot of adjusting of that co-
regulation, during-

Zach Taylor (01:05:26):


Yes. You were doing a lot of co-regulation. So not only are you anchored in ventral, you made sure he
really had a taste of that, that could kind of sit in his pocket while he traveled there, that he could pull
out when he needed or something.

Deb Dana (01:05:43):


Yes.

Zach Taylor (01:05:44):


And you're there. And this co-regulation you're doing, you ask him where you should be-

Deb Dana (01:05:56):


Right.

Zach Taylor (01:05:56):


Several times.

Deb Dana (01:05:57):


Yes.

Zach Taylor (01:05:58):


"Should I be outside the cave? Can I go with you?"

Deb Dana (01:06:01):


Right.

Zach Taylor (01:06:01):

PsychotherapyNetworker.org Page 35 of 59
And he tells you, very clearly, you're over there.

Deb Dana (01:06:06):


Exactly.

Zach Taylor (01:06:07):


What's happening here? What's he doing? And why is this important?

Deb Dana (01:06:10):


It's important, because, again, if we go back, this is choice. This is his nervous system having choice. I'm
not going to say, "Okay, so I'm going in with you." Because I don't know if I'm invited.
And so, really just saying, "Where do you want me? How about if I move back a little, is that
better?" And you notice when I moved back a little, "Oh, that's better."

Zach Taylor (01:06:31):


Yes.

Deb Dana (01:06:31):


It was that sensory overload. "Oh. So I'm just going to move back a bit," and it's like, we're doing this
together in the cave. You probably have the image of us standing in this cave. That's what it feels like. I
say, "I'm going to move back a bit." I can feel myself moving back a bit in this cave.
And at one point he said there was a sense of more coming up, And I saw myself leaning closer,
saying, "Oh, I'm here." That reminder, both in proximity, because the proximity of nervous system sends
that message, and then my words.
And then when there was this... a bit too much, I noticed, proximity, I sat back a bit-

Zach Taylor (01:07:10):


Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Deb Dana (01:07:11):


... to give the nervous system a little bit of space as well as saying, "Oh, okay. So, how about this? When
I move back a little, how is that."

Zach Taylor (01:07:19):


Yes.

Deb Dana (01:07:20):


So it's an interesting dance of finding just the right degree of connection that will support moving
forward this work, rather than going into too much of a survival. Yes.

Zach Taylor (01:07:36):


Finding just the right amount.

PsychotherapyNetworker.org Page 36 of 59
Deb Dana (01:07:38):
Yes.

Zach Taylor (01:07:39):


And then that just takes a lot of intuition and a lot of testing. A lot of [crosstalk 01:07:48].

Deb Dana (01:07:46):


Yes, it is... my nervous system is giving me cues. So I'm curious about those. And then it really is asking
the question. Somebody said, "Well, how do you know?" I said, "Well, I kind of just ask the other
nervous system." Right. Better or not better? I've learned never to make an assumption.

Zach Taylor (01:08:03):


Yes.

Deb Dana (01:08:04):


I think we therapists need to be more explicit in asking those questions. Is this better? Where do you
want me?

Zach Taylor (01:08:12):


Yes. You end this clip with a pretty active intervention again-

Deb Dana (01:08:17):


Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Zach Taylor (01:08:19):


... of asking him to notice. So you've taken him there and just gone into his experience, his old
experiences, his habitual experience. And then you add this new thing-

Deb Dana (01:08:30):


Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Zach Taylor (01:08:31):


... and that you ask him again in a slightly different way than you did in sympathetic, "Do you notice the
bench?"

Deb Dana (01:08:38):


Right. Yes.

Zach Taylor (01:08:42):


You know, it kind of impacted him because he says, "This is such a foreign idea."

Deb Dana (01:08:47):


Exactly.

PsychotherapyNetworker.org Page 37 of 59
Zach Taylor (01:08:49):
"I've never thought that, felt that."

Deb Dana (01:08:51):


Exactly. Yes.

Zach Taylor (01:08:52):


What are you doing here? And because it looks powerful.

Deb Dana (01:08:57):


Yes. It is powerful. That's that sense of the interrelationship between states that we lose when we get
pulled into a survival response and lose all contact with ventral.
And so, again, because I know Steven, I know that he loves the neuroscience bringing in the
architecture of the actual biology of this one nerve, because ventral endorsements are part of the same
vagus nerve.
Just sort of putting that in there and seeing how does that land in your... that there's energy
flowing between these. Might not have worked, it Was fine, but it was like, "I'm going to try this and
see." I use that one a lot because people kind of get that, oh, biologically, these aren't separate. They
are connected.

Zach Taylor (01:09:43):


Yes.

Deb Dana (01:09:43):


And it makes it easier to feel that. Yes. And it was a sweet moment when he said, "Oh." It was that
surprise, sort of the, "huh." I love those moments. You can see them-

Zach Taylor (01:09:52):


You can almost see the gears turning.

Deb Dana (01:09:56):


Yes.

Zach Taylor (01:09:56):


To not even knowing this is possible. And I think what you did here actually sets him up in this next clip
for quite a dramatic shift in how he experiences his dorsal state.

Deb Dana (01:10:10):


Yes.

Zach Taylor (01:10:11):


And we'll see that next, let's go.

PsychotherapyNetworker.org Page 38 of 59
Deb Dana (01:10:17):
Let's do it.
So let's just really resource the resource and say, "That exists," and it's always there. That one
nerve sending that energy. Just stay with that for a minute, and feel it, and notice what happens when I
recognize that?

Steven (01:10:35):
It's like you stood up.

Deb Dana (01:10:51):


Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Steven (01:10:54):
Like it doesn't have to stay there.

Deb Dana (01:10:55):


So there's a sense that it's not stuck there, don't have to stay there. Nice. So what wants to happen
now?

Steven (01:11:06):
Mixed.

Deb Dana (01:11:08):


Absolutely. Yes.

Steven (01:11:09):
One aspect wants to leave the cave.

Deb Dana (01:11:12):


Yes.

Steven (01:11:12):
The other one is not so sure.

Deb Dana (01:11:16):


Right. Yes.

Steven (01:11:20):
But, standing up.

Deb Dana (01:11:22):


Okay. So standing, just to remind you, standing is a more autonomically, challenging experience than
being-

PsychotherapyNetworker.org Page 39 of 59
Steven (01:11:22):
Yes.

Deb Dana (01:11:32):


... than being stuck and collapsed-

Steven (01:11:34):
Definitely more active.

Deb Dana (01:11:36):


More sympathetic mobilization, that mobilizing energy. So as you stand, just notice what happens.
[inaudible 01:11:44] Uh-huh (affirmative), till you're on your way.

Steven (01:11:49):
Yes. The thought wants to go, now I have to go with one of the talkers.

Deb Dana (01:11:54):


So it's interesting, because that standing and that feeling of mobilizing energy is your system's version of
going through the talkers.

Steven (01:12:03):
Yes.

Deb Dana (01:12:04):


So just play with that for a minute, because as you're standing and you're feeling that energy of
engagement, the next thing is vagal break comes on to help pull you back up. You're the edge, the sails
are really closing in. As the sails, as you let them out a bit, you can begin to come up. Just play with that.

Steven (01:12:28):
The sense of having some control over it.

Deb Dana (01:12:36):


Exactly. Yes.

Steven (01:12:38):
Yes.

Deb Dana (01:12:40):


Yes. And you didn't have that when you were a kid because you didn't have options.

Steven (01:12:44):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

PsychotherapyNetworker.org Page 40 of 59
Deb Dana (01:12:45):
The system took you to that collapsed cave because that was the only option.
And now you're saying, "I can go there. I have some options. I can begin to regulate my nervous
system."

Steven (01:13:00):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Deb Dana (01:13:04):


Mm-hmm (affirmative). So where are you now?

Steven (01:13:05):
Oh, this idea of not being trapped there, being able to leave-

Deb Dana (01:13:05):


Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Steven (01:13:12):
Being able to go back. Yes. Both ways.

Deb Dana (01:13:13):


Yes.

Steven (01:13:14):
Yes.

Zach Taylor (01:13:17):


Okay. So we've just witnessed quite a shift in his nervous system where, before he was in this dorsal
cave, and he says to you quite spontaneously, he just stood up.

Deb Dana (01:13:36):


Yes.

Zach Taylor (01:13:37):


What's going on here?

Deb Dana (01:13:38):


Yes. Which is so lovely, isn't it? "I stood up," which we then tie to some mobilization, which is that
beginning to be able to move out of that dorsal, vagal collapse in a safe way. And that sense of not being
stuck, which is the key for this kind of work to help a client understand they may go to the dorsal cave,
but he's not stuck there. He can find his way back.

PsychotherapyNetworker.org Page 41 of 59
And I loved it when he said "I have to go through the talkers." Well, we don't really have to go
through talkerville because your mobilization by standing is your nervous system's version of going
through talkerville.
And then we can keep going up to the ventral. And again, if you have a vagal break metaphor in
place-

Zach Taylor (01:14:31):


Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Deb Dana (01:14:33):


... easy time to use it. Oh, so we're coming... in your vagal break. As you begin to let out the sails it's
going to pull you the rest of the way up the ventral.

Zach Taylor (01:14:43):


Yes. A good reason to have that vagal break metaphor at the ready-

Deb Dana (01:14:49):


Yes.

Zach Taylor (01:14:49):


... for when the client is ready to leave dorsal. And maybe as he said, "A part of me wants to leave here,
but a part of me just wants to stay," that reminding him of the previous journeys you've taken...

PART 3 OF 4 ENDS [01:15:04]

Zach Taylor (01:15:00):


Reminding him of the previous journeys you've taken through sympathetic, back to ventral, and that this
vagal break will pull you.

Deb Dana (01:15:00):


Right.

Zach Taylor (01:15:09):


This is not, it doesn't have to be completely-

Deb Dana (01:15:13):


Right.

Zach Taylor (01:15:14):


Painful-

Deb Dana (01:15:16):


Right.

PsychotherapyNetworker.org Page 42 of 59
Zach Taylor (01:15:16):
Or you don't have to get stuck. It will pull you through. All the way.

Deb Dana (01:15:20):


And then the piece around, really reminding him that, because he said, "It's a foreign concept to think I
might have options. I might be able to not be stuck here.", to sort of remind him that, as a kid, when this
was brought on board as an adaptive survival response, you didn't have a choice. Right? Your nervous
system took you here because that was the survival choice. And now you're leaning to say, "Oh, I might
be able to operate my system differently."

Zach Taylor (01:15:54):


What an important concept. And you do bring up his childhood here, which I think is the only time you
bring up his past-

Deb Dana (01:16:02):


Right.

Zach Taylor (01:16:02):


Particularly in a particular way to create that contrast between... When you learned this, that you were
stuck here, you really might've been.

Deb Dana (01:16:11):


Right. Right.

Zach Taylor (01:16:12):


And now...

Deb Dana (01:16:13):


Yeah.

Zach Taylor (01:16:14):


You don't have to be, you're an adult now.

Deb Dana (01:16:16):


Right. And it's interesting... You will see throughout this demo that we don't hear his story at all.

Zach Taylor (01:16:16):


Yep. No.

Deb Dana (01:16:24):


We don't know his childhood experience. We don't know his life experience because we don't need to.
Right? That reference there to, "Oh yeah, this is a familiar response. And when it was brought on board,
it saved you." It was a survival response that was necessary. So, yeah.

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Zach Taylor (01:16:40):
Mm.

Deb Dana (01:16:41):


Yeah. Yeah.

Zach Taylor (01:16:43):


Great. So we're going to begin to wrap up this session with just two more clips and there's a nice close
here that sort of solidifies his changed experience and relationship to his dorsal state. So let's jump into
that.

Deb Dana (01:17:00):


Great.
So we want to go down and up again so that your system gets that template inside and you can
feel, "I'm not stuck here."

Stephen Porges (01:17:13):


It's interesting, when you said that there wasn't that initial sense of going back there and being stuck in
my sense of being able to...

Deb Dana (01:17:21):


Uh-huh (affirmative).

Stephen Porges (01:17:21):


Come, go.

Deb Dana (01:17:24):


I love that.

Stephen Porges (01:17:25):


Be there, not be there.

Deb Dana (01:17:27):


Exactly. So let's do that. Let's go back, however you're going to do it. Whether you're going to trim the
sails to go in sympathetic and then down... to the cave. Looking in the cave. Look around this time.
Right. You're not stuck there.

Stephen Porges (01:17:49):


Yeah. You can come in.

Deb Dana (01:17:52):


Can I come in?

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Stephen Porges (01:17:52):
You can.

Deb Dana (01:17:53):


All right. I'll come in there. That's a great, yeah. You can show me around this place that was your
protected place.

Stephen Porges (01:17:59):


I can do it.

Deb Dana (01:18:01):


Yeah. It's kind of dark and empty.

Stephen Porges (01:18:03):


Yeah.

Deb Dana (01:18:04):


But it was your survival space for a long time.

Stephen Porges (01:18:07):


Yeah.

Deb Dana (01:18:07):


Yeah. So we just want to honor that. Really appreciate that.

Stephen Porges (01:18:07):


Yeah.

Deb Dana (01:18:10):


Yeah. Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Stephen Porges (01:18:12):


Yeah. Sadness is the only word-

Deb Dana (01:18:22):


Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Stephen Porges (01:18:23):


That comes to mind, but it's this, it's this relief sadness.

Deb Dana (01:18:25):


Ah, yes. Yes. A different quality to that.

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Stephen Porges (01:18:25):
It is, yes.

Deb Dana (01:18:27):


Yeah, yeah.

Stephen Porges (01:18:27):


It is. Not feeling alone.

Deb Dana (01:18:32):


Mm-mm (negative). You're not alone. Yeah. I'm there with you.

Stephen Porges (01:18:43):


Yeah.

Deb Dana (01:18:51):


Just see if there's anything more we need to learn from that space right now.

Stephen Porges (01:19:05):


Yeah... Just need to know, like... I'm hearing that I can let people in there.

Deb Dana (01:19:10):


Mm...

Stephen Porges (01:19:10):


But there's a part of me that says you need to know you can make them leave.

Deb Dana (01:19:15):


Perfect. So play with that. So you invited me in, you can ask me to leave. You want to ask me to leave?

Stephen Porges (01:19:15):


No... This is part of... I don't want to -

Deb Dana (01:19:27):


So I tell you what. You can ask me to leave, and then ask me to come back. So I'm there with you.

Stephen Porges (01:19:31):


Will you?

Deb Dana (01:19:32):


I promise I will. So you're going to ask me to step outside for a minute?

Stephen Porges (01:19:39):

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Go into that entry way.

Deb Dana (01:19:39):


I'm back in the entry way.

Stephen Porges (01:19:39):


I'll [inaudible 01:19:42].

Deb Dana (01:19:44):


No... I'm in the entry way. Do you want me to look out or look in?

Stephen Porges (01:19:47):


You're looking in.

Deb Dana (01:19:48):


I'm looking in. So I still see you. You can see me and then you can invite me to come back closer.

Stephen Porges (01:19:56):


Yeah. I'm going to ask you to come back.

Deb Dana (01:19:58):


And I'm coming right back in then. Are you sitting with me or...?

Stephen Porges (01:20:00):


Yeah. Well when you go out-

Deb Dana (01:20:00):


Yeah.

Stephen Porges (01:20:00):


I go right back.

Deb Dana (01:20:04):


Ahhh. Yes, yes. Yeah.

Stephen Porges (01:20:04):


I'm back to just being... hoveled, and... Yeah.

Deb Dana (01:20:11):


Yeah. And then when I come back in, what happens?

Stephen Porges (01:20:11):


I'm standing again.

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Deb Dana (01:20:15):
Beautiful. So we're standing together. Shoulder to shoulder.

Stephen Porges (01:20:15):


Maybe not so close.

Group (01:20:19):
[Group laughter 00:05:28]

Deb Dana (01:20:26):


A little distance.

Stephen Porges (01:20:27):


Yeah.

Deb Dana (01:20:27):


We're looking out or in?

Stephen Porges (01:20:30):


We're looking out.

Deb Dana (01:20:31):


Looking out. All right. So we're standing there together looking out?

Stephen Porges (01:20:31):


Yeah.

Deb Dana (01:20:32):


Beautiful. I'm happy to do that as many times as you want. And I wonder if I can go to the doorway and
stay in contact, in eye connection with you, and see if the collapse doesn't need to happen. I don't know.
Let's play with it. So I'm wondering... And this really is a wonder around your system, if it feels like it
would be helpful to make the trip one more time.

Stephen Porges (01:21:11):


Yeah. Yeah.

Deb Dana (01:21:13):


Okay. Great. Let's do that. I've got your sails in my head, so [inaudible 01:21:21] on the sails. But come
through that mobilization, back into the more lack of energy, back into the cave. That's a place you can
visit now and bring me, too, with you. Just put us out. That might feel a bit different.

Stephen Porges (01:21:48):


Yes... I'm not collapsed, not sitting down.

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Deb Dana (01:21:55):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Stephen Porges (01:21:57):


I'm contemplating, going out.

Deb Dana (01:21:59):


Mm...

Stephen Porges (01:22:00):


Contemplating what it's like out there.

Deb Dana (01:22:01):


Oh...outside the mouth of the cave?

Stephen Porges (01:22:04):


Yeah.

Deb Dana (01:22:04):


Oh...

Stephen Porges (01:22:06):


Not like run out, sprint out there, but-

Deb Dana (01:22:08):


No but go to the doorway and peek out...

Zach Taylor (01:22:14):


So quite a dramatic ending to this session. We have one more clip that's very brief, but this is really a
moment. Just 20 minutes before he was in that dorsal cave alone and lying down or sitting down. Now
you invite... I should have set this clip up, that you actually invited him back to the cave. You'd taken him
out. We didn't show that part. That you invite him back to the cave and this time is different. He's
standing up.

Deb Dana (01:22:46):


Mm-hmm (affirmative). Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Zach Taylor (01:22:47):


And he invites you into the cave.

Deb Dana (01:22:49):


I know. I know.

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Zach Taylor (01:22:52):
And you're both standing there. He's not shielding his eyes as he was before. It's not overstimulating.
He's actually looking out with you by his side.

Deb Dana (01:23:03):


Yeah, yeah.

Zach Taylor (01:23:03):


What... how did, in just 20 minutes, did you take him from experiencing dorsal one way to experiencing
dorsal in this extremely powerful way?

Deb Dana (01:23:16):


I think what we're seeing here is two things. The power of his system to have a bit of ventral in it when
he goes to dorsal, and the power of me being there with them. So the co- regulating experience of my
ventral being a predictable place, a predictable anchor for him. Yeah.

Zach Taylor (01:23:39):


And he says sort of his cognitive learning here, that's sort of a result of his experience, is that I'm
learning I can let people in.

Deb Dana (01:23:51):


I know...

Zach Taylor (01:23:51):


And I think the second part of that, he didn't say, I may be assuming, is that I'm learning. I can let people
in and still feel okay.

Deb Dana (01:23:58):


Right.

Zach Taylor (01:23:58):


Or still feel somewhat safe.

Deb Dana (01:24:00):


Yeah. So there's that safety piece I'm learning that I can let people in, and then we're playing with that
because we're not quite sure yet how that's going to play out. But isn't that a beautiful first experience?
And that's the power of having a little ventral. All of a sudden there are options. Right?

Zach Taylor (01:24:00):


Yeah.

Deb Dana (01:24:19):


The story is very different. Right? We honored the way that that cave was his survival place as a kid. And
we stopped for a moment to honor that, because now there's a new story emerging about his adult

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experience around dorsal. So yeah, it was a really lovely, powerful moment. And that shift can happen
so quickly because his biology is supporting the difference.

Zach Taylor (01:24:52):


I love how you just said that he can experience this change so quickly because his biology is supporting
the experience. It's not just a, I'm assuming, you're saying it's not just a thought, it's not just a nice idea
or a inspirational quote on the internet.

Deb Dana (01:25:06):


Right, right.

Zach Taylor (01:25:06):


This is a new experience for him. And you could actually see it in his body. I don't know if you noticed.
The moment he was talking about how he's standing there with you at the mouth of the cave, looking
out. I almost see him just looking out over the landscape.

Deb Dana (01:25:22):


Yeah. Yeah.

Zach Taylor (01:25:22):


He takes this big breath...

Deb Dana (01:25:26):


Yes. Yeah.

Zach Taylor (01:25:26):


And you see his shoulders come down for the first time.

Deb Dana (01:25:30):


Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then that exploring, checking out the connection. Right? Can your system
trust that I'm a predictable presence?

Zach Taylor (01:25:41):


Ah...

Deb Dana (01:25:41):


Right? And that's so important. I loved his question... Will you come back?

Zach Taylor (01:25:50):


Yes!

Deb Dana (01:25:50):


Right? Isn't that beautiful? That's a nervous system, checking out the strength of it. Will you come back?
I will. Right. Yeah.

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Zach Taylor (01:25:58):
This happened once. But if we did this again, would you be there next time?

Deb Dana (01:26:03):


Right, right.

Zach Taylor (01:26:04):


Yeah. Or would I feel alone again? Yeah.

Deb Dana (01:26:06):


Right, right, right. Yeah.

Zach Taylor (01:26:08):


There's so much, we could just savor in this clip.

Deb Dana (01:26:08):


Yes!

Zach Taylor (01:26:12):


But I want to go ahead and wrap up this module of the masterclass. Just a beautiful note, Deb. We just
have one more clip where you're, and I think, really the work is done, but in this last clip, what I almost
see you doing, and maybe correct me if I'm wrong, just anchoring in, what did you learn today? Kind of,
what we would call in most therapies, a meta-processing clip.

Deb Dana (01:26:40):


Right, right. It's creating the way to keep this going. Yeah. Absolutely.

Zach Taylor (01:26:44):


Yes. Correct. Well let's check out how you do that in your own polyvagal informed way.

Deb Dana (01:26:50):


Beautiful.
Yeah. Right, right. So let's see if we can stand at the mouth of the cave together, again, just
looking out. Knowing from all of that, I can do from a ventral place. It's safe.

Stephen Porges (01:27:04):


Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Deb Dana (01:27:04):


It's this.

Stephen Porges (01:27:04):


Mm-hmm (affirmative).

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Deb Dana (01:27:07):
And let's just put it the distance and let's just look at it. And just know that we don't have to do anything
with it right now. We just know it's there.

Stephen Porges (01:27:07):


Boy, I'm back.

Deb Dana (01:27:07):


Ah...

Stephen Porges (01:27:07):


Back on the floor.

Deb Dana (01:27:09):


So how far away do we have to put it so that we can stand in the mouth together? Or is there a
plexiglass? What all we have to put up or do we have to have the bubble? What do we need for enough
cues of safety so that we can just look at it?

Stephen Porges (01:27:45):


You know, the bubble's sort of like a mobile cave.

Deb Dana (01:27:49):


Yeah. True. Yeah. Yeah.

Stephen Porges (01:27:54):


So I guess if I'm in my bubble I can go to the door.

Deb Dana (01:28:00):


So let's go to the door in the bubble. And how about me? Can I stand next to your bubble?

Stephen Porges (01:28:00):


Yeah you can be in the bubble.

Deb Dana (01:28:09):


I'll be in the bubble with you. Beautiful. Love it. So we're in your bubble. Thanks for inviting me in, by the
way. Thank you. So we're in the bubble and we're looking out.

Stephen Porges (01:28:15):


Yeah.

Deb Dana (01:28:17):


We can just see whether there is out there to do anything with it.

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Stephen Porges (01:28:21):
See the scary stuff.

Deb Dana (01:28:23):


Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Stephen Porges (01:28:23):


Scary people.

Deb Dana (01:28:23):


See all those connections waiting to happen. And just as you look out...

Stephen Porges (01:28:23):


[inaudible 01:28:31].

Deb Dana (01:28:30):


I know... It's a little overwhelming. So just feel your bubble. And the bubble is a kind of shadow ventral
that we can bring with us. Ventral gives you a choice. Okay? So you brought choice with you. You have a
choice. Connect or not connect. Move forward, move back. You have a choice.

Stephen Porges (01:29:02):


Novel concept.

Deb Dana (01:29:04):


Mm-hmm (affirmative).Yeah. So let's play with that for a minute. Cause that's what your ventral brings
you. Options. Choice. There's no should or have to in ventral.

Stephen Porges (01:29:19):


Oh there is. Oh... In ventral.

Deb Dana (01:29:22):


In ventral. Mm. That's the piece that was missing when you had to go into this survival response. Right?

Stephen Porges (01:29:29):


Right.

Deb Dana (01:29:30):


Right.

Stephen Porges (01:29:30):


Right.

Deb Dana (01:29:34):

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Right now your system is learning, "I don't have to do this, the survivor response anymore. I can bring
my ventral nerve energy down. I have choice. I can look out there and see all those possible connections
and say, not today. And that's perfectly okay."

Stephen Porges (01:30:12):


Yeah. It's like...I... The disconnection, no problem. I know how to do it.

Deb Dana (01:30:18):


I know.

Stephen Porges (01:30:20):


I know how to do it, sort of with ventral. It's like I could do this again. It's the being connected and
engaged. I feel like kindergartner. I have no freaking clue. I mean, I do.

Deb Dana (01:30:42):


Mm-hmm (affirmative). You do. You do. Stop there for a minute. Say, "I do."

Stephen Porges (01:30:47):


Yeah. There are people out there who hurt.

Deb Dana (01:30:51):


Absolutely. Yeah. So if we look at connection from dorsal, through the eyes of dorsal, in that cave,
what's the story of connection there?

Stephen Porges (01:31:07):


You get hurt.

Deb Dana (01:31:08):


You get hurt.

Stephen Porges (01:31:09):


You get hurt.

Deb Dana (01:31:11):


Yeah.

Stephen Porges (01:31:11):


You're going to lose... just devastated again.

Deb Dana (01:31:15):


Right. Again. Yes. So if we come to that sympathetic place, you know that maybe that talker place,
what's the story of connection there?

Stephen Porges (01:31:29):

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People want stuff from you. You're going to disappoint. You're going to get mad. You're going to get in
trouble.

Deb Dana (01:31:37):


Yeah.

Stephen Porges (01:31:38):


Get in trouble.

Deb Dana (01:31:39):


I'm going to get in trouble. That hit home somewhere. You're going to get in trouble.

Stephen Porges (01:31:42):


Yeah.

Deb Dana (01:31:45):


Okay. So we have the story of Doris Hall. Dangerous. Disappointed again from sympathetic. You're going
to get in trouble. Come to ventral, come to the bench. Feel the safety and connection. And what's the
story of connection from ventral?

Stephen Porges (01:32:10):


It's really good.

Deb Dana (01:32:11):


Mm

Stephen Porges (01:32:12):


It's really worthwhile.

Deb Dana (01:32:14):


It's good. It's worthwhile.

Stephen Porges (01:32:16):


Yeah.

Deb Dana (01:32:17):


Yeah.

Stephen Porges (01:32:17):


It's really valuable.

Deb Dana (01:32:17):


It's valuable.

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Stephen Porges (01:32:19):
It's what you've wanted.

Deb Dana (01:32:22):


It's what you've wanted. Yeah. Yeah. So just soak that in for a minute. Your nervous system, state, each
state has a very different story, right?

Zach Taylor (01:32:34):


So what a dramatic conclusion to this session. You got a little more educational here and you could tell
the session was wrapping up and you were trying to summarize a few things. He was sort of... You're
encouraging him to sort of learn how to leave dorsal in a safe way. And he gets in this bubble and he
says, this is kind of my mobile cave. I love that. And so how are you trying to close up this session with
him? What's your goal here for him to take away?

Deb Dana (01:33:09):


Yeah. And before I go to my goal, I love that he invited me into his bubble.

Zach Taylor (01:33:13):


He did. Yes, you are there with him.

Deb Dana (01:33:14):


Really lovely, that experience. Oh, we're in this together. So now we've got connection in a safe way,
even if we're using the bubble to perhaps not be so connected to all of the other people out there. I
thought that was really important. And I think I even said at one point, thanks for inviting me in. And you
know, it's a lovely moment. Right? With another nervous system... Joining in that way. And then, yeah, I
like to end sessions with what are we taking with us from the work we did today? Which is often an
actual question I do ask clients to find out what's important and how can we make it into a homework
assignment? How can we make it into something that keeps going? Because that's important.
What we did in the session... Now you can feel that his nervous system has reorganized. In some
way. You can see it in his body. You can hear it in the words he's saying. And so now we want to bring
that into really more explicit awareness. What I call we're doing a bit of restorying by hearing what the
story of each of those states is. Each state has a very different story, right? And that story from dorsal,
where it's dangerous and I disappoint people, right? That's all of the story we need to know. That's the
autonomic story that is held there and then moving to sympathetic. What's the story here? And you
could see that he took a little while longer to land on the exact words that, that fit. He had a bunch, but
getting into trouble seemed to be the place that he landed.
So you give a little time, you let the nervous system kind of find what is the experience? So
getting into trouble. And then we came back to the bench and, in this work, you always want to traverse
the hierarchy in that way. You always want to end anchored safely in ventral, and then hear the story.
And that was a beautiful place he was in, in ventral where there's possibility now. There's-

Zach Taylor (01:35:31):


I think he said it was all worthwhile.

Deb Dana (01:35:34):

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All worthwhile. Yeah.

Zach Taylor (01:35:35):


The story in ventral is that it's worthwhile.

Deb Dana (01:35:38):


Valuable. It's what I wanted. Yeah.

Zach Taylor (01:35:42):


What I want. Yes. It's what I wanted. Yes.

Deb Dana (01:35:43):


Yeah. Yeah. And so to land there and then savor that for a moment. Take that in. Right? And really let's
just be in that together. Let's celebrate that together for a moment. It's important. I probably, at the end
of this session, wrote something down for Steve, because that is my habit of writing something on a
card for a client about the work that we did so that they have a reminder of it and what they're going to
keep playing with. And again, it reinforces that connection, nervous system to nervous system. That co-
regulation that I'm writing what they have told me is important and then giving it to them. So, yeah. It
was just a very sweet session that I think in total was probably, I don't know, 55 minutes, maybe.

Zach Taylor (01:36:40):


Yeah.

Deb Dana (01:36:40):


You know, we show pieces of it, but you know, it is what can happen when you are listening to the story
of the nervous system.

Zach Taylor (01:36:48):


And so much happened. We saw before our eyes, his, him having a new experience of all the states of
his nervous system. We saw what you described in the beginning, turning neuroception into perception,
making the implicit explicit, which is such a part of many therapies, but you just do it in a very
psychophysiological way through polyvagal language.

Deb Dana (01:37:11):


Yeah.

Zach Taylor (01:37:13):


Meta-processing. Anchoring in. Giving him some psychological flexibility to move through. What,
wherever... Almost to learn to trust his nervous system to take him there and take him out. He... You
could tell he's leaving the session feeling more empowered. And what a beautiful way to leave just this
one single session with you.

Deb Dana (01:37:44):

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Yeah. That's a lovely way to put it. That empowered to, not just be at the mercy of my nervous system,
but to actively engage with my nervous system is a very different experience. You know?

Zach Taylor (01:37:57):


Yes! Well, thank you everyone for making it all the way to the end. You did it. And so we hope that this
was extremely useful to you as you work with your clients here at Psychotherapy Networker. We want
this to be a place where clinicians can gather and grow with some of the most inspiring and innovative
clinicians in the world. And I think this session just... Deb helped us demonstrate that today. So thank
you, Deb, for being here and offering this to the world of clinicians. I hope that you'll join us for two
more sessions in this masterclass. And then we'll wrap up at the end with Stephen Porges commenting
and providing his own analysis of Deb's work. So, and there we go. So thank you all. And we'll see you
right back here again in the next module.

PART 4 OF 4 ENDS [01:39:00]

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Module 3: Using Polyvagal Theory with Anxiety, Fears, & Phobias from Past
Experiences
Deb Dana, LCSW

Zach Taylor (00:18):


Well, welcome, everybody, back to Psychotherapy Networkers masterclass series on Polyvagal Informed
Therapy with none other than Deb Dana, who is our guide. And I am our cruise director here. And
today's session is kind of a do-not-miss session because it deals with a very specific problem of driving
phobia, particularly riding in a car while others are driving, I should say. It's always fun to learn from
sessions that are based on very specific problems because I think it really captures and emphasizes the
techniques Deb is using in a very clear way. So I think today's session is very clear.
Again, I want to honor the person who's also a clinician, who was in Deb's training, who took
time to do this demonstration. So if you haven't watched the introduction video and you feel like you
need a refresher on the concepts, you can go back to the slides or the downloadable handouts. You can
also check out the introduction video where Deb and I go through the main concepts of the three parts
of our nervous system, the vagal brake, the hierarchy, and all the little concepts that we're going to see
today.
Now, this client, we should mention, we're going to jump right in after she's already done her
personal profile map, which is available as a download in your handouts, as well as we reviewed this in
the introduction video. So she's already done her personal profile map and mapped out her ventral
sympathetic and dorsal systems. So she's got that. She's already done the metaphor for her vagal brake
system, which again is available in the downloadable handouts, which you're going to hear in the
session. And she's already done one day of training with Deb in a live training series. So, Deb, go ahead
and paint us a picture of this session and what we're about to see.

Deb Dana (02:30):


Yeah, great. Yes. This was a woman that I met early that morning as she was a participant in the training.
And really I asked for volunteers to do a recorded demo, and she got the lucky number. She was chosen.
And about five minutes before this video starts, we really sat down to actually have a few minutes to get
to know each other, let our nervous systems begin to find their way to connection. So I had no idea what
the session was going to be. And when we started, she identified she had this phobia of being a
passenger in the passenger side seat driving in a car. So that's where we went.
The thing I love about the session is that it really does show that you can work with an issue that
a client brings to you without knowing the story that's behind that. We know very little about this
participant's story, and yet we were able to successfully work with the phobia that she was wanting to
work with.

Zach Taylor (03:42):


Great. We're going to jump into this session. We're going to drop right in. I just want to say that we cut
out the first couple of minutes where Deb does this technique of positioning. Could you just describe

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again? We showed this with the last session, but we clipped it for this one just because it was repetitive.
But could you just describe what you do there?

Deb Dana (04:04):


Yeah, and it's interesting because this session, we're in a big hotel ballroom, and we have two chairs set
off to the side, and there are lots of participants sitting out of view watching, people that neither the
participant or I know very well. So there's a lot of interesting energy in the room. And the participant
and I, and my colleague, the clinician and I took time to really put our chairs exactly where she wanted
them to be. The question that I ask is where does your nervous system want us to be right now to do
this work?
It took a little while for us to get the angle and the distance, and get it just right. And you don't
see, but one of the things that happens is we got in position, and then she said, "Oh, this is good." And I
always say, "Well, how do we know?" "Well, let's play with it a moment." So we play with it and then we
ended up really in what was good for her nervous system. And you can see that it really was a distance
that supported the work of this session.

Zach Taylor (05:11):


Very important, I think, to recognize that when we engage with a client, our nervous system is getting to
their nervous system space, and that we need to kind of be given permission to be at a certain distance
to be at a certain angle even. And I know that's something you emphasize in your work. So I wanted to
point that out, even though we don't show it. If you'd like to see an example of it, go back to the last
module and you can see how Deb engages clients in this way.
All right, so we're going to drop right in to the beginning of the session on a passenger or driving
phobia.

Deb Dana (05:50):


Let's see where we might go today.

Speaker 3 (05:52):
Okay.

Deb Dana (05:53):


Do you have any sense of what you'd like to work on?

Speaker 3 (05:58):
There's experiences of anxiety that I have often, related to driving, due to a history of some serious car
accidents that still happen occasionally. I'd like to be able turn down the volume on that.

Deb Dana (06:15):


Beautiful. Beautiful. So when you say anxiety and you think about driving, does that map to your
sympathetic nervous system in the map we did today?

Speaker 3 (06:23):

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Yes. So there's a map for, if I am driving, and then there's a map if I am passenger and my husband's
driving.

Deb Dana (06:31):


So tell me about those two different maps.

Speaker 3 (06:34):
For me, when I am driving, there's a sense of control because I'm behind the wheel and I'm choosing the
paths that I can take to get to my destination. The sympathetic nervous system feels not as
overwhelming. It feels like it can stay, like keep doing this, like in a more manageable level.

Deb Dana (06:54):


So here does it feel like your vagal brake is still engaged a bit?

Speaker 3 (06:58):
Yes, yes, yes.

Deb Dana (06:59):


Okay. All right. So now we got that. Great, great. So I like this. This is when your driving. Vagal brake is
released, but still there.

Speaker 3 (07:08):
Yes, definitely.

Deb Dana (07:09):


Okay.

Speaker 3 (07:10):
Thank you for putting that language to it. Yes. That's what it is.

Deb Dana (07:12):


Beautiful. Beautiful.

Speaker 3 (07:14):
Then if there's other extenuating things, it may shift or change, but-

Deb Dana (07:17):


Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (07:18):
When I am passenger, because I don't want to put all this on my husband, when I am passenger, there's
not that control. The sympathetic nervous system starts to feel over-

Deb Dana (07:30):

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Like it's in control.

Speaker 3 (07:32):
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And so, the logical brain may be telling the story of judging this experience, and it
doesn't matter what my logical brain is saying.

Deb Dana (07:41):


No. Right, right, right. I liked that this was when you were driving, and this was when your husband's
driving.

Speaker 3 (07:49):
Yeah. I know, right?

Deb Dana (07:51):


I wonder for a moment it might just play between moving between this and this, and then back to this.
And just moving between those at whatever rate you want, because your vagal brake's there, and then
it's gone, right. And then it re-engages. And just see if you can notice that in your system as you're...
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (08:23):
Giving myself permission to explore it this way, I can notice my system settling-

Deb Dana (08:29):


Beautiful.

Speaker 3 (08:29):
... just in the experimentation.

Deb Dana (08:31):


Beautiful. Beautiful.

Speaker 3 (08:33):
So even doing this compared to this, the sympathetic nervous system's not reacting to-

Deb Dana (08:40):


Oh, nice.

Speaker 3 (08:41):
... to either of this.

Deb Dana (08:42):


Nice. Nice. You have more ventral oversight. Beautiful. Beautiful.

Zach Taylor (08:50):

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This is an interesting way of assessing a client's problem. The first thing that jumped out at me was that
she told you she'd had a series of car accidents and now she's developed kind of a fear of driving a little
bit, but mostly if you're riding in the car. And rather than asking her, "Oh, when were the accidents? Tell
me about what happened," getting into the story, you didn't do that at all. You just asked her what it felt
like right now. Tell us about your decision making here and the way you assess this problem.

Deb Dana (09:28):


Yeah. That is the general way of working when you're working in a polyvagal informed way, is that we
really don't care about the story, and need to say that in a way that sounds compassionate. But it's not
the story of what happened that is what we're going to be working with. It's what was your nervous
system's response to what happened. So I don't need any of the details of the story. I simply need to
know, so what happens in your nervous system?
And so, as she's remembering or thinking about what happened, she's giving me these two
maps that the sympathetic, more or less active, depending on if she's driving or riding. And you'll see as
we go through this session, we never really do hear any of the cognitive story with, but we really get to
know her autonomic nervous system story,

Zach Taylor (10:22):


Which is kind of a foundation for ever even working with the narrative and the cognitive piece, from
what I understand.

Deb Dana (10:29):


Right.

Zach Taylor (10:31):


Yeah. So very interesting. A lot of the times when you do your work and you help map a client's nervous
system, you're using words and images or metaphors. But in this case, you caught her moving her hands
just naturally like this. And when she's in sympathetic, it's fast, and when she's feels more in control,
feels more safe, it's slower. And you picked up on that really quick. Tell us about what you're doing here.

Deb Dana (11:02):


Yeah. Really, she's showing us her vagal brake in action. And she's showing us when her vagal brake is
really engaged and she's doing this, and there is a lovely rhythm to it. And then as her vagal brake begins
to disengage and the fear comes, it's more of this. And so, for her, this movement is a clear
representation of her vagal brake and the release and re-engage of it. And then we play with that,
because really polyvagal informed therapy is about bringing flexibility back to a nervous system. And so,
moving between this and this and back to this is flexibly exercising her vagal brake. And you could see
her response. She started to say, "Oh, I feel different already simply by bringing into explicit awareness,
this action of her vagal brake."

Zach Taylor (11:59):


It was clear this movement was connected to different states of our nervous system because she said as
soon as she starts moving her hand differently, she said, "I notice the system settling just in doing this
experiment, just in doing this." So you've obviously picked up on something that's already connected,

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and you've already started to help her move between the states and know what those movements feel
like.

Deb Dana (12:23):


Right. And you'll see that in your clients when you start to look for... Their nervous system is showing
you how it's representing itself, and how to connect with it. So you don't have to guess, you don't have
to make anything up. The nervous system is going to show the way.

Zach Taylor (12:39):


Great. We're going to continue in clip number two, just a little more assessment as you try and unpack
the landscape of her nervous system.

Deb Dana (12:50):


So let's play with this again a little bit, the sense of sympathetic fight flight that comes when someone
else is driving. Is that a familiar experience to you beyond the driving, or is it...

Speaker 3 (13:05):
It feels really focused and honed in on being in a car. Front passenger seat of the car. So I can be
passenger in the back seat, right?

Deb Dana (13:17):


Yeah.

Speaker 3 (13:17):
And the experience is very, very different.

Deb Dana (13:20):


What's the experience, passenger in the backseat?

Speaker 3 (13:23):
I'm much more calm.

Deb Dana (13:26):


Beautiful. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (13:27):
It's the more manageable, like this, right?

Deb Dana (13:30):


Yeah.

Speaker 3 (13:31):
It's the-

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Deb Dana (13:31):
Yeah. So when you're driving or when you're in any other seat besides front side passenger, this.

Speaker 3 (13:36):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Deb Dana (13:37):


Okay.

Speaker 3 (13:38):
Yeah. Typically, this is...

Deb Dana (13:38):


Yeah. Nice. Yeah. This is more typical of you, is that right? The ventral with some sympathetic energy in
your system.

Speaker 3 (13:49):
As far as related to the experience of driving particularly or...

Deb Dana (13:52):


Yeah, and more generally in your life, where are you?

Speaker 3 (13:55):
Yeah. More generally in my life, I think this is where I like to be. And there's some sympathetic energy
mixed in. There have been times in my life where maybe it's not been like that. I've been more
collapsed. Right?

Deb Dana (14:09):


Yes.

Speaker 3 (14:09):
But yeah, and this is where I like to be.

Deb Dana (14:13):


Okay. Good.

Speaker 3 (14:14):
I feel alive there.

Deb Dana (14:15):


Alive?

Speaker 3 (14:16):

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Yeah.

Deb Dana (14:16):


Yeah. Yeah. And then passenger side...

Speaker 3 (14:20):
Passenger side-

Deb Dana (14:21):


Breaks that.

Speaker 3 (14:22):
Yeah. And it's not the whole time. It may be speed, it may be traffic, it may be high rate, maybe
weather. There's these other-

Deb Dana (14:32):


All these cues of danger.

Speaker 3 (14:33):
Yes. Thank you. Yeah.

Deb Dana (14:35):


That come in, and not enough cues of safety.

Speaker 3 (14:37):
Yes. Yes.

Deb Dana (14:38):


Okay. Okay. Are there any cues of safety when you're in the passenger side seat?

Speaker 3 (14:44):
This isn't necessarily a cue of safety, but I'm aware sometimes I want to close my eyes, where I'll look
down or try to look out the window at the passing landscape. I think it's my attempt to ensure some
sense of safety. I don't know that it's really a cue of safety. I don't know. I don't know what a cue of
safety... Distance, how much traffic is on the road. That's a cue of safety for me. I think distance
between cars.

Deb Dana (15:13):


Between cars. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And your husband, is he a cue of safety or not when he's driving.

Speaker 3 (15:19):
He is a cue of safety. He really, really is. And he's a competent driver. So he will talk or, "Oh, look at that
going down the road." And then like, "Please..." that's telling my system you're not paying attention to
the road.

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Deb Dana (15:36):
Right. Right. So your system gets a little activated in the story is-

Speaker 3 (15:40):
Yes. The story picks it.

Deb Dana (15:41):


... this is dangerous, you're not paying attention to the road. Okay.

Speaker 3 (15:44):
And then for him he's saying he is. Yeah.

Deb Dana (15:46):


Right. Right. All right. So-

Speaker 3 (15:48):
Then the stories start going back and forth.

Deb Dana (15:50):


Of course. We have dueling stories because we have dueling states.

Speaker 3 (15:53):
Exactly. Exactly.

Zach Taylor (15:57):


Okay. In this clip we're continuing to assess her nervous system, not necessarily the story about her
driving phobia. And you ask her, is this sort of slightly heightened state of sympathetic, a more general
experience for you or is it just in a situation of being in a passenger seat? Why do you ask if she has this
experience outside of this particular phobia?

Deb Dana (16:25):


And that question, is this familiar to you, is a typical question I ask because I'm trying to get to know my
client's nervous system, not simply in the experience we're working with, but more as a, what's your, I
sometimes call it your home away from home. Where is the place that your system feels comfortable?
And her system likes a little bit of sympathetic activation. So that's giving me cues that, okay, so more in
that place. This is not unusual for her.
Since I only met her like eight hours before this, I don't have a lot of information about her
system. This is a way to quickly get that information, and lets me know that unlike another demo that
you're going to see, there's not a lot of dorsal vagal pole in her system. So I don't have to really worry so
much about that coming in. So it's helping her articulate explicitly what happens for her and it's giving
me some outline that helped me feel more confident in where we're going.

Zach Taylor (17:30):

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Yeah. It's interesting because since she's a little more comfortable in that slightly activated stay, does
that mean her vagal brake is pretty good at working in that slightly heightened state? And is that why
you're a little more comfortable that she's not going to collapse into dorsal very easily?

Deb Dana (17:50):


Yeah, it feels, when she talks about... She talked about, oh this, I feel alive here. And alive is a ventral
word. So it's not, "I feel I'm anxious, but I know it." It's, "I feel alive here." So we have the sense that her
vagal brake releases a bit and allows some sympathetic in and that's where she likes to live. That's her
place that feels good. Yeah.

Zach Taylor (18:11):


Good. Another thing you're doing here in your assessment is looking for cues of safety and cues of
danger. Sometimes what I've heard you call triggers and glimmers. Triggers and glimmers, triggers being
cues of danger, glimmers being cues of safety. And one thing I've learned is that these are unique to
every single person and very, very different. And we actually see that here very clearly. What are some
of her cues of safety and danger you're picking up on, and why is that surprising to you?

Deb Dana (18:40):


Yeah. It's interesting because when she talks about... She said, "I don't know if these are cues of safety,
but here's some of the things I do." What her nervous system is telling us is, here are some of the ways
that sympathetic energy is attempting to manage the situation. So they're not really cues of safety, but
they're ways of helping to manage the energy. She talks about distance between cars as a cue of safety,
which that truly is a cue of safety, but not something that you can really control. You don't know how
many cars are on the road.
Then I love it when she talks about her husband. It was interesting to say, "Is your husband a cue
of safety?" Because we're trying to get sort of the lay of the land of this driving experience. She's in the
back seat, she's fine. She drives, she's okay. But passenger seat, husband driving. Is he a cue of safety?
And she so sweetly, that smile doesn't want to put this on her husband, but says, "When he tries to talk
to me, I get feeling like he's not paying attention to the driving." So for her that's a cue of danger. He's
trying to send her a cue of safety and her system takes it in as a cue of danger, which is often what
happens between couples.
One is trying to send a cue of safety. We can imagine that he is more ventral and is able to really
talk and navigate the road safely, and trying to let her know that. But her system has too much
sympathetic and is feeling that as a cue of danger.

Zach Taylor (20:12):


I think, what a great moment to see that because how often as clinicians do we try to send cues of
safety that our client may be picking up as a cue of danger, and her husband seems to have unwittingly
found himself in this situation. Great.

Deb Dana (20:29):


Right. Yes.

Zach Taylor (20:31):

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There's one phrase you said at the end of this clip that I think is just worth pulling out. "We have dueling
stories because we have different states." This goes back to the personal profile map, how depending on
what state you're in, you have completely different narratives about how the world is and how you are.
Can you just kind of unpack that a little more and how you used it here?

Deb Dana (20:58):


Yeah, yeah. To really normalize for my client what was going on because you can see throughout this
demo that she truly loves her husband, and, and she's not blaming him for her passenger side phobia.
So, to help her really bring, again, the awareness of, "Oh, because your state is one of sympathetic
activation, your story is going to be very different than the story your husband has, because his state is
in a more ventral place. We're imagining anyway from what she says. And again, whenever you give
clients language and you start to speak the language of polyvagal theory, and they begin to see their
world through that lens...
She begins to think, "Well, I'm not blaming my husband. It's simply that, of course, we have
these different ideas about whether he should talk to me or whether he should pay attention to the
road," because it makes sense biologically.

Zach Taylor (21:57):


Good. So in the next clip, we are going to see how Deb helps her map her ventral state, and we are
going to begin going through this ventral sympathetic dorsal in succession. And here is Deb and how she
works with a client mapping their ventral state.

Deb Dana (22:18):


When we played this morning with ventral and we kind of got the experience of ventral, what is ventral?
How does it come alive for you in your system?

Speaker 3 (22:28):
That's a great question. At the end of the continuum, far end of the continuum, there's an
expansiveness, and a joy, and openness.

Deb Dana (22:42):


Beautiful.

Speaker 3 (22:43):
Very relaxed, and alive-

Deb Dana (22:45):


And alive.

Speaker 3 (22:45):
... at the same time.

Deb Dana (22:46):


And when you just have a flavor of ventral, what's that?

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Speaker 3 (22:50):
When I just have a flavor of ventral are the cues that I get that indicate that that's what's turning on and
coming in. My breath, I will notice, that will be one of the things on there. This is my breath seems to
have a nice rhythm to it.

Deb Dana (23:04):


Beautiful. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (23:06):
I'll notice ease up as a slight smile.

Deb Dana (23:09):


Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Speaker 3 (23:11):
They're often the indicators for me.

Deb Dana (23:13):


Yeah. So I wonder if we could bring that alive right now just here. And my ventral is very much engaged
and sending you signals. And so, see if your system can receive those.

Speaker 3 (23:27):
Yeah. In that moment, I felt like I could feel that. I could feel an awareness of some gratitude in my eyes
or your presence.

Deb Dana (23:35):


Nice. Nice. So I'm firmly anchored in ventral.

Speaker 3 (23:38):
Okay, good.

Deb Dana (23:40):


I'm going to stay right there anchored in ventral, and then travel with you as we journey to the other
parts of your nervous system, okay?

Speaker 3 (23:46):
Okay.

Deb Dana (23:47):


And so, let's get a foothold anyway in ventral, anchor there. Yeah. And if we're at the top of the
hierarchy, which for me is a ladder, but I'm going to invite you to see what would that be for you. If
we're in ventral, are we at the top of a hill, or are we on a mountain?

Speaker 3 (24:10):

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Where are we?

Deb Dana (24:13):


In a beach? Where are we that we can then navigate to the other states?

Speaker 3 (24:19):
It's interesting. A couple of places would speak to me, the beach with the ocean. And there is something
though about standing on a mountain or hill and just taking in the vista, that really speaks to me too.

Deb Dana (24:37):


It feels like that resonates.

Speaker 3 (24:38):
Yeah, it does.

Deb Dana (24:39):


Yeah. All right. Well, let's try that.

Speaker 3 (24:41):
Sure.

Deb Dana (24:41):


Let's stand on the top of this hill and take in the vista, and really feel this ventral vagal energy that we're
sharing there. And you're firmly anchored in yours as you stand at the top of the hill and look out.

Speaker 3 (24:56):
Yeah, it's an openness in my breath and around my lungs.

Deb Dana (25:02):


Beautiful. Yeah.

Zach Taylor (25:05):


So here you are asking her, how does ventral vagal energy come alive for her? How does her feeling of
safety manifest in her body? What's interesting about this is you don't do this in a really cognitive way.
You're not only helping her go through it cognitively, you're making sure she experiences it right here
right now. And you asked her what are some of those cues, how does it look, how does it feel for you?
And she mentions breathing changes, and I kind of smile a little bit. So what are you picking up on here
as she's talking to you about these ventral states?

Deb Dana (25:43):


This is a lovely sort of narration of, "Oh, here's how I know my ventral is alive and online." She's saying it
out loud both for her own awareness, because when you name it in that way, it comes alive and you can
hang onto it. And then, also for me, because I can then look for breath and smile as we're doing the

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work of signs that, oh yeah, she really is anchored or has a foothold in ventral. And an important
experience for clients to be able to say, "Oh, here is how it comes alive for me."

Zach Taylor (26:21):


Good. You made this curious statement that, "I'm anchored in my ventral and kind of sending it to you.
Can you feel it from me?" Just talk about why you asked that question.

Deb Dana (26:38):


Yeah, thanks. Important question. It's important to check both ends of that connection. I'm anchored in
ventral. So I know that my system is sending that out into the world. And then, my question is, can you
feel it? So I'm saying, "I'm sending it to you, can you feel it?" And she was very able to say... She stopped
and said, "Oh yes. I felt that when you brought my attention to it." So it's again bringing into exquisite
awareness, this process that is happening that we therapists are doing, we're holding our clients in that
ventral place. It's bringing it alive into explicit awareness, and then also checking, can my client receive
it? Are they receiving it?
Oftentimes, clients will say, "I can't feel it." Or it may be, "It's too much. It's too strong for me.
So my job on my end is to send my ventral energy and just the way my client's system needs it, wants it,
and can receive it. It was easy with this client. She stopped and you could see, "Oh, yes I do. I feel it." It
was lovely.

Zach Taylor (27:45):


Good. Okay. So we're going to jump into the next clip and we're going to go... If you have your hierarchy
in front of you, you know we're probably going to be mapping from ventral to her sympathetic state, her
state of mobilization, which she kind of likes to stand that edge there with just a little bit of sympathetic
and you're going to see what it's like in some of the more intense moments where she doesn't quite feel
as safe in sympathetic. So let's watch.

Speaker 3 (28:13):
Okay.

Deb Dana (28:15):


Okay. Like one with you. So let me go with you, and let's travel down to that sympathetic place. Okay?

Speaker 3 (28:15):
Okay.

Deb Dana (28:25):


So how are we going to get down there? Are we walking down a trail or are we repelling down the side?

Speaker 3 (28:32):
Yeah. It feels like a drop, so something that... So I don't know whether it is repelling or... It feels there's a
suddenness to it.

Deb Dana (28:41):

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It's a sudden drop. So before we make that sudden drop, we want to figure out, how are we going to
stay anchored in ventral and drop down to sympathetic. So what does your system bring you for a
solution to that? What would you like?

Speaker 3 (28:57):
That's a great question. I'm drawing a blank at the moment.

Deb Dana (29:01):


So just go to ventral and stay there for a moment. Just see it, and then just bring into awareness. We're
going to drop to sympathetic and we need a way to also be able to get back to ventral and stay
connected.

Speaker 3 (29:17):
So going back to when you were saying repelling, when I closed my eyes. In my mind's eye, I could see
sort of a harness-

Deb Dana (29:23):


Oh, beautiful.

Speaker 3 (29:24):
Right?

Deb Dana (29:24):


Yep.

Speaker 3 (29:24):
And being attached to some strong tree or something, so that-

Deb Dana (29:28):


Beautiful. Beautiful. I love it. I love it. All right, so let's be in ventral and let's attach that harness to that
strong tree that's anchored in ventral. Okay?

Speaker 3 (29:37):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Deb Dana (29:39):


And then, let's make the drop to sympathetic and just...

Speaker 3 (29:42):
Okay, we're going to do it together, right?

Deb Dana (29:43):


Yeah. I'm going with you.

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Speaker 3 (29:44):
Okay.

Deb Dana (29:45):


Yep. So let's go.

Speaker 3 (29:46):
All right.

Deb Dana (29:50):


Tell me when we're there.

Speaker 3 (29:53):
Yeah, I can feel the edges of it.

Deb Dana (29:57):


The edges of it. Good. Okay. So we're on the edges of it, which is good. Yeah. So as we're on the edges
of it, let's also feel this strong rope connection to the tree in ventral. Let's feel that energy that came
with us. So we didn't leave ventral, we brought ventral down with us to sympathetic.

Speaker 3 (30:15):
Yeah. Holding on to the sense of feeling that strength and around my-

Deb Dana (30:21):


Or a harness den and we can feel it.

Speaker 3 (30:21):
Yeah. Right.

Deb Dana (30:23):


Okay. So let's really feel that, that ventral strength.

Speaker 3 (30:28):
Okay.

Deb Dana (30:29):


Maybe we can drop a little bit more into sympathetic now that we're in that.

Speaker 3 (30:33):
Okay. A little bit of a slip, right?

Deb Dana (30:36):


Yeah. Just a little. Yeah. Now let's feel what it's like there when we bring ventral with us.

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Speaker 3 (30:42):
There's this, and it doesn't feel as erratic as I when sharing about it before.

Deb Dana (30:54):


So ventral brings a little bit regulation to it.

Speaker 3 (30:54):
A little. Right.

Deb Dana (30:56):


It's still there.

Speaker 3 (30:57):
Right. But it's still there with this kind of like, "Oh, it's like-

Deb Dana (31:00):


Oh, what's happening?

Speaker 3 (31:01):
Yeah. Right. Right. Right.

Deb Dana (31:01):


There's something new. It's a different experience. Okay. So let's just stay with that autonomic
experience that feels a bit different. We're in that. We've repelled down, we've dropped into
sympathetic. And just feel it for a minute. And then I'm going to invite us to come back up to ventral for
a moment.

Speaker 3 (31:01):
Okay.

Deb Dana (31:21):


So do we climb? How do we get back?

Speaker 3 (31:26):
Yeah. Yeah, no, I think it's a climb, some footholds in the pooling.

Deb Dana (31:30):


So let's do that. Let's feel ourselves.

Speaker 3 (31:33):
Okay. Kind of just really pulling myself back up, and-

Deb Dana (31:37):

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Yep. Beautiful. And now we're back in ventral because we just want to remind your nervous system it
can do this. We can drop to sympathetic and come back to the safety of ventral. Just notice that feeling
now.

Speaker 3 (31:52):
Yeah.

Deb Dana (31:52):


Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (31:54):
Yeah. The smile comes with it.

Deb Dana (31:56):


It did. I know, I know. It's lovely.

Speaker 3 (31:56):
Right.

Deb Dana (31:56):


It's lovely.

Speaker 3 (31:59):
Yeah. This is...

Deb Dana (32:04):


So this might feel a little bit more stable and strong because we just came back to it. So we reminded
your nervous system, Oh, it knows the way back, right?

Zach Taylor (32:15):


Okay. So you've taken this client to her sympathetic state, or you've invited her to go there. And she just
has this beautiful imagery of dropping down in this harness. What might be interesting to point out is
how much you make sure that she feels safe going here, by asking her, "How do we stay connected to
ventral? Even though we're walking over here, going down here, how do we remember that ventral's
just right here and we're connected to it?"
And for her, being so body-based, she says, "There's a tree and I'm in a harness, and there's a
rope connecting us." Is this pretty typical for you, you ask a client to go to ventral? Oh, I'm sorry, to
sympathetic.

Deb Dana (33:09):


Yeah, yeah. She talked about a drop. So the drop is that experience of being untethered from ventral
and just dropping into sympathetic. We want to make sure that we don't do that because that's the
familiar experience of dropping into survival. So, for this, we're helping a client understand, how do I

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stay connected to ventral and take some of that ventral energy with me as I gently descend and see
what's here in sympathetic?
So the first experience of that really is, so how do we? Concretely, what's the image that keeps
you connected to ventral? And for many clients, there is some sort of a tether, a rope, an energy
channel, something, because it is not that we're leaving there and know how to get back. It's that we're
taking the pathway with us. This is a pathway between ventral sympathetic that keeps some of that
energy there, and I'm going with her. You could see that, that thought, "Are you coming with me?" Yes,
I'm going with you because what's our client's experience of going to these dysregulated states? They're
on their own. They're alone. They're in survival. And so, this is a very different experience of using that
principle of co-regulation and going with. So the client is having a new experience of what is it like to be
there? Yeah.

Zach Taylor (34:38):


Yeah. It's almost like there's two things that you're making sure are happening. And again, going back to
this co-regulation, or I'm sorry, neuroception of within yourself, within the other, and between, you're
making sure she feels connected to her own ventral state, and also making sure she feels connected to
yours. Is that right?

Deb Dana (35:02):


Yes. And knows that I am trustworthy, that I can be anchored in ventral and safely accompany her. I
mean, that's the other piece, is helping a client know that I know how to get us back and I'm going to
help you figure that out. And you could see when we said, "So how are we getting back?" Because the
goal is to go there and come back, not to go there and get stuck, to go and come back. How are we
going to get back? When she was able to take a moment and let her nervous system show the way, if we
did this, climbed back up. It was lovely.

Zach Taylor (35:40):


Yeah. And you continue to use that climbing back up as kind of a trigger for her nervous system to know,
"Hey, we're going back to safety. We never left, but we're connected to it.

Deb Dana (35:53):


Right, right.

Zach Taylor (35:54):


Wonderful. So in the next clip, we are going to practice this going to sympathetic, back to ventral, to
sympathetic. And I think what you described as sort of working her vagal brake, helping her go to these
different more difficult states and yet feel safe when she goes there. I'm curious, this is such a different
way of working with a fear of riding in cars. Normally you would take more of an exposure-based model
or give her a lot of homework, completely different. You're actually doing it in a hotel ballroom and
taking her... You've mapped her to that state and now you can take her there and bring her back almost
doing... Is this a kind of exposure therapy in a way?

Deb Dana (36:48):


It probably is, in a way, because it's helping her get to know her nervous system differently. It's helping
her have the right degree of challenge for her nervous system, is what we call it, so that we can safely

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explore sympathetic but not to get hijacked by it. So yeah. And I liked what you said, that we're working
with the driving phobia, but we've sort of forgotten that we're working with it. It's like we could be
working with anything, which is the beauty of this way of working, that we are not simply working with a
driving phobia. We're working with her nervous system, which will then, as you'll see at the end, help
with this driving phobia. But also has benefits beyond the driving phobia.

Zach Taylor (37:33):


Right. Great. Okay, let's jump in to the next clip.

Deb Dana (37:37):


So let's drop to sympathetic again, the two of us.

Speaker 3 (37:41):
Okay.

Deb Dana (37:41):


The two of us-

Speaker 3 (37:41):
Eyes got wide.

Deb Dana (37:42):


We go together. I know, I saw that. I was like, "Oh, really?" Yes. Yes, let's do it together.

Speaker 3 (37:47):
All right. You're going to go with me?

Deb Dana (37:48):


I'm going with you.

Speaker 3 (37:48):
All right. Thank you.

Deb Dana (37:50):


Yeah, absolutely. And let's just remember we brought ventral with us to sympathetic.

Speaker 3 (38:02):
Okay. It feels a little deeper. Not as noisy.

Deb Dana (38:08):


So from this place where it feels a little less noisy, see if you can listen in for a moment. What does
sympathetic need you to know? What's held there? What happens when you get in the passenger side
seat? What is sympathetic telling you?

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Speaker 3 (38:30):
I want to be safe, safe enough.

Deb Dana (38:35):


Right.

Speaker 3 (38:35):
And so, then the voice maybe is, "I'm not feeling safe enough."

Deb Dana (38:42):


So we know sympathetic is trying to keep you safe. It's working in service of your safety. Right. Right. So
let's just send a bit of gratitude for that, right?

Speaker 3 (38:54):
Yeah.

Deb Dana (38:54):


Yeah. Yeah. What happens?

Speaker 3 (38:58):
I can feel the gratitude. I feel tears stinging behind my eyes. Yeah.

Deb Dana (39:01):


Yeah. Yeah. So let's just stay with that for a minute. We're really bringing ventral compassion and
gratitude to your sympathetic system that's trying so hard to keep you safe.

Speaker 3 (39:13):
Yeah. Works really hard.

Deb Dana (39:15):


It does work really hard. I know, I know. Yeah. Yeah. So now I'm wondering if we might tell sympathetic
we'll be right back.

Speaker 3 (39:32):
Okay.

Deb Dana (39:32):


We're just going to go to ventral for a moment.

Speaker 3 (39:34):
Okay.

Deb Dana (39:35):

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Yeah. So let's climb back up to ventral. Find our place under the tree.

Speaker 3 (39:43):
Right. So again, it's this sense of, there's something about feeling the strength-

Deb Dana (39:43):


Yeah, it's the strength.

Speaker 3 (39:47):
... in my arms, right?

Deb Dana (39:48):


Yeah, I could feel it. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (39:50):
To pull myself back up.

Deb Dana (39:51):


Yes.

Speaker 3 (39:52):
It's empowering.

Deb Dana (39:53):


It is empowering. Yeah. And your system knows just how to be there with you as you come back to
ventral. So just notice that now.

Speaker 3 (40:04):
Yeah.

Deb Dana (40:05):


And now we've done it twice and your system may be beginning to say, "Oh, I remember this. I know
how to do this." Yeah. So from ventral for a moment, just think about sitting in the passenger seat.

Speaker 3 (40:23):
Okay.

Deb Dana (40:24):


What happens?

Speaker 3 (40:27):
I want to say grounded and shimmer. Shimmer.

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Deb Dana (40:32):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (40:33):
Shimmer of the sympathetic nervous system, right?

Deb Dana (40:35):


Beautiful. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (40:37):
And it's interesting because more towards my back than my front.

Deb Dana (40:41):


Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So just notice that, yeah, and just invite that in. That yeah, there's some
sympathetic shimmering going on here. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (40:52):
Yeah.

Deb Dana (40:54):


Yeah.

Speaker 3 (40:56):
I can definitely feel the energy, and I can be with it.

Deb Dana (41:01):


So let's be with it. That's beautiful. So be with that shimmering energy that you feel in your back perhaps
now, and just listen to it for a moment.

Speaker 3 (41:18):
Again about safety and feeling empowered.

Deb Dana (41:23):


Feeling empowered. Nice.

Speaker 3 (41:24):
Feeling agency maybe. Agency is the word.

Zach Taylor (41:29):


So here you take her back to the sympathetic state, which she seems a little nervous to going back and
do this again. Kind of like, "I already did this once." You take her back again, you go with her. And this
time, she says it's a little less noisy this time. And she talks about how she feels more empowered in this

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state, which is very interesting. What is going on here that she comes here again and it's a different
experience than the first time?

Deb Dana (42:01):


Right? We want to repeat this pattern several times because the first time was this new experience of,
oh, going there in a safe way, in a titrated way with someone else. And so, we want to do that again.
And the second time we do it, her less noisy experience, means that we have a little more ventral that
we've brought with us. It feels a little more regulated. She thinks she can manage to do this. She's
beginning to have some power over it to be with it.
And then, it's always curious to me when I ask a client to just, "Okay, so now we're feeling safely
regulated. Can you listen and ask sympathetic what it wants you to know?" Because there's some
reason the sympathetic system has been bringing you that response. And she hears, "It's just trying to
keep me safe." You can't hear that story unless you have ventral in your system. You can't hear that
lovely, "Oh, it's just trying to keep me safe." And then we can send back some compassion. We can
honor the ways that sympathetic has been, as she said, working hard, working really hard in service of
your safety.
That is always what's happening. Nervous system is working in service of survival. And so, when
she gets that message because she has enough ventral in her system, she can be with that and really
honor that. Yeah.

Zach Taylor (43:31):


Something you said before, that this is the picture of a nervous system that's reshaping.

Deb Dana (43:38):


Yes. Yes.

Zach Taylor (43:39):


It's subtle here, but you can see it, in that the last time she went to sympathetic, it was a pretty
distressing experience. And when she got in the car, she would just try to distract herself a lot. Now she
refers to the sympathetic experience as a kind of shimmering energy, I think is the phrase she used. She
said, "This is just my system trying to keep myself safe." A completely different story and experience of
the same state.

Deb Dana (44:11):


Yeah. And that shimmering energy is just so lovely. You can feel it when she talks about it, how different
that is for her. And I loved it when she said... the word was agency. I have agency, which again, that her
nervous system is telling you, "Oh, I'm reshaping so that I'm beginning to have more ventral regulation."
Yeah.

Zach Taylor (44:35):


Great. So now we're going to jump into the next clip and let's see what we see.

Deb Dana (44:45):


So let's think of the story of being in the passenger side seat in the car, and let's anchor and ventral first.
Okay.

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Speaker 3 (45:06):
Okay. Okay.

Deb Dana (45:06):


So let's make that plunge to sympathetic for just a moment. We're there together and just listen in.
Now, what's the story from sympathetic as we bring our ventral energies to be with sympathetic?
What's the story now?

Speaker 3 (45:26):
I'm safe enough. I can trust myself, and I can trust my husband, poor guy.

Deb Dana (45:32):


Yeah.

Speaker 3 (45:34):
We'll figure it out together.

Deb Dana (45:35):


Beautiful. Beautiful, beautiful.

Speaker 3 (45:39):
Not a separation. We're coming together.

Deb Dana (45:41):


A coming together. We'll figure it out together. I love that. Yeah. So come back to ventral for a moment
and bring that story with you. Just see where it lands in your system. I'm safe enough. I can trust my
husband. We'll figure it out together.

Speaker 3 (46:06):
Yeah. It's a ventral experiences, is the best way that I can describe it, just in the embodied openness. My
shoulders relax.

Deb Dana (46:19):


Yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel that.

Speaker 3 (46:21):
The openness in my chest.

Deb Dana (46:22):


Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (46:24):
Less tension.

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Deb Dana (46:34):
So as you move ahead and you're going to test this out, let's just create a way to really bring this with
you as you leave here and go out into the world and actually get in the passenger side seat of a car.

Speaker 3 (46:49):
Yeah, right.

Deb Dana (46:50):


Right? Yeah. Right?

Speaker 3 (46:51):
Happens quite often.

Deb Dana (46:52):


I can imagine. Yes. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (46:52):
Okay.

Deb Dana (46:55):


So what's a way we can anchor this and bring this with you?

Speaker 3 (47:00):
I think, for me, I'm a little surprised. Then I think, for me, the visual component of taking that with me,
knowing those, exploring those spaces from that visual image where it feels some support of...

Deb Dana (47:23):


Beautiful.

Speaker 3 (47:24):
Yeah. Yeah.

Deb Dana (47:25):


So you have a visual reminder of the power of your ventral vagal to regulate the other systems.

Speaker 3 (47:32):
Yeah. It's like I know where to go. There's the map.

Deb Dana (47:34):


The map. You can find your way on the map. I love that. I love that.

Speaker 3 (47:39):
Versus feeling lost.

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Deb Dana (47:40):
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's lovely. Yes. So you have your map-

Speaker 3 (47:40):
I do.

Deb Dana (47:46):


... and you're not lost, and going to invite you to talk with your husband about the nervous system and
how it works to keep you safe, so that he could understand these states too.

Speaker 3 (48:04):
Yeah.

Deb Dana (48:05):


And he can even track his states. Yeah. Yeah. That you then have the shorthand that you're in a
[inaudible 00:48:11] with him, right?

Speaker 3 (48:12):
Yeah.

Zach Taylor (48:14):


So what a kind of dramatic ending to this session. I want to just point out that we cut out her experience
of going to the dorsal state. Not because it wasn't important for her session and her work, but because it
was extraneous to working with a specific phobia, because almost all of the phobia for her happened
while she was in the sympathetic state. So we didn't show that to you, but we want you to know that
Deb did that work with her.
Interesting takeaways from this clip here, that she kind of pointed out, "You know what? Now I
kind of have a map to do this and I don't feel so lost." What happened as you wrapped up this clip?
What kind of changes did you see?

Deb Dana (49:06):


Yeah, I love when clients say, "Well, I have a map," because I think the map is so important. She has a
map of her nervous system, is what she's telling us. She has a map of her system, which she's then going
to go try out with driving in a car. But it's also a map of her system that applies in life for her. She
doesn't feel so lost because she knows how to find her way back, how to bring ventral with her when
she goes to her other states.
You could feel the change in her. You could feel the way she talked about her experience. I
thought it was interesting. She's a movement-oriented person, and yet her takeaway... And I always ask,
how are you going to take this with you in some concrete way? Because we want to have it explicitly
named in that way so that you can go use this and practice it. And for her, it was the imagery. It wasn't
movement. It was the imagery that she was [crosstalk 00:50:06]-

Zach Taylor (50:06):

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You started as imagery with this, and all of this, and kind of climbing back to ventral with our hands, and
now with the image.

Deb Dana (50:17):


Yep. Yeah. And then we ended with image because, as she went through... And that's this lovely
reminder as clinicians to never make an assumption about our client's nervous system. Because if from
the beginning you might have wanted to emphasize movement. But if you simply ask in the end, how do
you want to take this away, what does your nervous system need to hold on to it, is she came up with
image, which I think is so beautiful. And she was taking those images of her state and her ventral
anchored in the tree with her, which I think is really lovely.
And then, my invitation for her to share this with her husband, which is something I do with all
of my clients. It's lovely that she and I know her nervous system in this way now. We have this sort of
intimate experience of her states. It's important that her husband also understand her nervous system
in these ways. And then, the invitation, how about if he understands his nervous system in these ways,
so that they begin to have a conversation in a different way. They can talk about neuroception cues of
danger, what state are we in? And it brings a different level of connection to their partnership, which I
think is lovely. So, yeah.

Zach Taylor (51:40):


Now she said something to you after the cameras turned off. What did you all talk about?

Deb Dana (51:45):


She did. She was so lovely because her husband had driven her to the training. And she looked at me
after the cameras are off and she said, "I cannot wait to go get in the passenger side seat of the car with
my husband driving and try this out." She was so excited. You could feel that ventral vagal enthusiasm
for going to try it out. It was really lovely. It was lovely. This was a lovely, sweet, short session. I love it
when sessions are efficient and get where you need them to go.
This is not unusual when you're working with a nervous system story, to have a client at the end
say, "Let me go try this out." It's just a lovely thing because they're feeling autonomically resourced,
which is a very different experience from thinking, "Oh I have these tools I can go use." The nervous
system is feeling resourced and shaped, and they want to go see how that feels as they move through
the world. Yeah.

Zach Taylor (52:47):


Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you, Deb, for sharing your work, letting us be students looking in on actual
sessions. For everyone participating, you made it through the second client demonstration. We have
one more ahead, and then we're going to do a post game analysis with Deb Dana and Steve Porges
together. So be sure to check that out where Steve and Deb will be commenting on the entire course. So
make sure you watch all the sessions, and then see what Steve Porges, the developer and founder of
polyvagal theory has to say about Deb's work.
I think it's very interesting to get Steve's take as a researcher, watching his theory in action. And
he's just so excited about your work. So, for everyone, be sure to check out the bonus materials and
download the handouts. There are some that you can use right in session with your clients. The whole
goal of this is to make something that is practical and useful for you, that's focused on improving your
client outcomes. So please let us know how you like this, what you're getting out of it.

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You can email us directly or call customer service. Just let us know what you think. We're always
wanting to hear this feedback. We hope you learned a lot today, and we'll see you again very soon, as
soon as you choose to start the next video in the next module. Thanks everyone. Thanks Deb.

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Module 4: Polyvagal-Informed Therapy with Clients in Crisis: Working with Grief &
Loss
Deb Dana, LCSW

Zach Taylor (00:00:19):


Well, welcome everybody, back to Psychotherapy Networker's master class series on polyvagal-
informed therapy. My name is Zach Taylor, director of continuing education, and I'm here again with
Deb Dana, one of the psychotherapists who's really pioneered the use of Polyvagal Theory in
psychotherapy. So Deb, welcome back again.

Deb Dana (00:00:42):


Thanks. Great to be back.

Zach Taylor (00:00:45):


Okay. So, we are on our third and final demonstration session, and this is a raw session. So we're going
to take a few extra minutes to set this up today because we are going to drop into a difficult moment in
a person's life where, quite unexpectedly after this recording was scheduled, she found out that her
dog's life was nearing its end. Her dog's name was Novia. So Deb, how did this all come together?

Deb Dana (00:01:21):


Yeah, we had scheduled this recording with this person. My colleague is a participant in my long-term
training series, and so she had volunteered to record a demo for this master class and we had had this
day scheduled for a long time. When I showed up at the door, she welcomed me and said, "Oh, I'm so
glad you're here. I know just what we're going to work on," which is not the usual experience with the
client. A client will come in and you'll say, "Where do you want to go today?" and they'll explore that,
but this was one of those ... It would be as if your client showed up and said, "This is what I need to do. I
have a traumatic moment happening and I really need some help with it." So it was around her dog,
who's been in her life for nine or ten years and was very sick and was likely going to die that evening. So
that was the experience that was presented, and so that's what we worked with.

Zach Taylor (00:02:19):


So this particular demonstration session is quite raw, quite real, and quite in the moment. I just want to
let our listeners know that you will hear her dog in the background sort of whimpering, and just be
aware of your reactions as you listen through this session. But we do want to let you know that this
client reached out to Deb after the session, and Deb, just to give our listeners a sense of how this all
turned out before we watch it, what did she say to you?

Deb Dana (00:02:56):


Yeah, she sent me an email late that night and, in fact, she had taken Novia to the vet ... a lovely,
wonderful vet who was very able to help my client with Novia's ending ... and what she told me was that

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because of the work we had done, she dipped into dorsal for moments of time during this ending with
Novia, but she was able to keep coming back to ventral and be present and be with Novia for this ...
what she described as a really beautiful transitioning of Novia from here to wherever she was going
next. So yeah, it does have that beautiful ending to it that I do want listeners to hear.

Zach Taylor (00:03:46):


Right. So we want to honor this client and her courage to be a part of this course and to bring this very
raw moment. Rather than canceling her session, she came in, so we want to honor her as well as honor
Novia for being a part of this session.

Deb Dana (00:04:03):


Yes. It's lovely. Yeah.

Zach Taylor (00:04:05):


So getting into the clinical content of this session, our last demonstration session was with someone
who had a lot of anxiety and fear around riding in a car, and most of that problem took place in what we
call our sympathetic nervous system. She had a little more trouble going to the dorsal place, or the
problem that she wanted to work on wasn't really located in her dorsal system. This session is
completely opposite, whereas she talks about how she's kind of sympathetic fatigued. She's tired of
being hypervigilant and trying to manage this crisis, and almost immediately when you begin talking to
her, she so easily drops into that dorsal shutdown state. So tell us a little bit about what you saw in this
session in terms of that dorsal state.

Deb Dana (00:05:01):


This session is very different from the last session. This session is not uncommon in our clinical work. We
have clients who are more shaped towards dorsal as their adaptive survival response and others who
are more shaped towards sympathetic mobilization. This particular client, you'll feel the difference
because, as I said, she was a participant in my long-term training series, so we had an ongoing
trainer/participant relationship. She's very much in the polyvagal community, learning and using, so you
could feel how that was really ... made it a lot easier to be doing this work, sort of like you would have
with a client who you had a long-term relationship with. It would be this sort of feeling.

Deb Dana (00:05:59):


This client, also, her nervous system is much more sensitive to dysregulation, which is not uncommon
with our trauma survivor clients. She would be fine in me describing her as a long-time childhood
developmental ongoing trauma survivor, and her work with her system has really been to bring more
regulation. And you really can see how sensitive it is to moving out of ventral into dorsal.

Zach Taylor (00:06:34):


Great.

Deb Dana (00:06:35):


I guess the other thing I would ask viewers to watch for is that ... So because of that, there's an
increased emphasis on co-regulation on my nervous system really showing up for hers in an explicit way

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and engaging my ventral in a more active way to support her, and something to just look at as we go
through the clips.

Zach Taylor (00:07:05):


Yeah, so the more dysregulated clients who may be in crisis, long-term trauma survivors, are probably
going to rely on you a bit more in those moments as the therapist to kind of ... I think you used the term
borrow your ventral state, in some ways, or look to your ventral state in some ways.

Deb Dana (00:07:25):


Yeah. I'm telling my clients, "I am anchored in ventral, and I can go with you wherever we need to go."
That comes from a ... That's my words, but it's also my nervous system sending that energy in a way that
my client's nervous system feels it and can lean into it and trust it. So I have enough ventral for both of
us is really what I'm saying, and then as theirs come online, we join with it.

Deb Dana (00:07:57):


Again, I think the other thing I'd like people to notice in their own systems as they're watching ...
because we do spend a fair amount of time exploring dorsal ... just notice in your own system what
happens because for therapists, we need to be really comfortable going to dorsal, being with a client in
dorsal. Anchored in our ventral, but being there. Often, I find therapists want to pull a client out of that
really fast because it's a very scary, uncomfortable place, and really, this way of working is to go be with.
Make that experience safe for the client and have them have a different experience of their dorsal. So
again, just something to pay attention to as we go through.

Zach Taylor (00:08:42):


Okay. Well, let's pay attention and jump right in.

Deb Dana (00:08:48):


So it's been a challenging day, so I'm glad you're doing this today.

Speaker 3 (00:08:53):
Yeah, me too. I think it's the universe holding me, taking care of me, bringing me here.

Deb Dana (00:09:01):


Yeah. So I'm just going to ... It's been nice to have a few moments to settle in with you and to kind of see
your house. Maybe we just take a moment and just let our nervous systems find their way into
connection. Yeah. So I'm just going to remind you that I'm here holding ventral, firmly anchored in my
ventral for you.

Speaker 3 (00:09:34):
Thank you.

Deb Dana (00:09:36):


Where are you right now?

Speaker 3 (00:09:37):

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I'm dropping into dorsal.

Deb Dana (00:09:40):


Okay. Oh, sweetie, yeah. So before we do that, let's find a bit of your ventral through an anchor.

Speaker 3 (00:09:49):
Yeah, I feel it. I feel it. I feel-

Deb Dana (00:09:53):


How do you feel it? What happens?

Speaker 3 (00:09:55):
Well, the language I've had this morning is, "It's okay."

Deb Dana (00:09:58):


It's okay.

Speaker 3 (00:09:58):
It's okay.

Deb Dana (00:09:59):


So that comes from your ventral.

Speaker 3 (00:10:01):
Okay. Good to know.

Deb Dana (00:10:02):


It's okay. And where do you feel that ventral energy?

Speaker 3 (00:10:06):
Oh, gosh. It's so weird, but I feel it right here.

Deb Dana (00:10:12):


Oh, yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:10:16):
My smile sort of feels ... I can feel it. And I can feel my heart, too.

Deb Dana (00:10:22):


In your heart. So let's just anchor here, smile, and here. Yeah. Let's anchor there together.

Speaker 3 (00:10:33):
Yeah.

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Deb Dana (00:10:38):
I know your ventral, I know how strong it is.

Speaker 3 (00:10:39):
Yeah, it is. It's very strong.

Deb Dana (00:10:42):


Yeah, I know.

Speaker 3 (00:10:43):
And my dorsal has weakened around this subject.

Deb Dana (00:10:46):


Well, yeah-

Speaker 3 (00:10:47):
I don't know if that's the right language.

Deb Dana (00:10:49):


Yeah. Maybe it's just that we have more dorsal so that you can go be with ...

Speaker 3 (00:10:54):
I'm not as afraid of dorsal as I used to be about this particular subject.

Deb Dana (00:10:59):


Yeah. So let's explore it together. Let's anchor in ventral, and then how do we get to dorsal so that we
bring some ventral with us? What's the pathway?

Speaker 3 (00:11:15):
It immediately comes down and I just ... I'm just going to miss her so much.

Deb Dana (00:11:20):


I know. I know. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:11:23):
I can be really grateful for so many things she's brought to my life, but the enmeshment that I have with
her ...

Deb Dana (00:11:32):


Oh, the co-regulation. That's a tool you have, I know.

Speaker 3 (00:11:33):
Oh, gosh. The co-regulation. It's ridiculous.

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Deb Dana (00:11:36):
Yeah. I know, I've heard about it for months now.

Speaker 3 (00:11:39):
Oh my gosh.

Deb Dana (00:11:39):


It's just so lovely.

Speaker 3 (00:11:41):
I'm so in love.

Deb Dana (00:11:42):


I know, I know.

Speaker 3 (00:11:43):
And she's in love with me.

Deb Dana (00:11:44):


I know.

Speaker 3 (00:11:47):
She's suffering, and I can cognitively ... I don't know, in a ventral way or not, but I can very peacefully
offer her her next life and do what I need to do for her. And then ...

Deb Dana (00:12:07):


Yeah, and then.

Speaker 3 (00:12:08):
... shot to hell, right down the black tube of hell of being without her.

Deb Dana (00:12:15):


Right, right. Yeah. I know we've sort of visited this in anticipation a couple times, but it feels more real
today.

Speaker 3 (00:12:24):
Yeah, it sure is.

Deb Dana (00:12:26):


Again, let's connect our systems, my ventral to yours. I'm sending it to you. Can you feel my ventral?

Speaker 3 (00:12:38):
Immediately.

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Deb Dana (00:12:39):
Good. Good. So it's there for you, whatever way you need it.

Speaker 3 (00:12:44):
I just want to hold it.

Deb Dana (00:12:46):


Yeah. Well, I'm sending it and you hold it.

Speaker 3 (00:12:52):
I feel like for dear life kind of hold it.

Deb Dana (00:12:55):


Yep. You're welcome to hold it for dear life.

Zach Taylor (00:13:00):


Well, what a session already. Who hasn't as a therapist had a session with a client who just comes in and
it's just all right there. You don't have to probe, you don't have to go digging, it's just there. And here it
is, and what an example of how you handle these kind of situations. Tell us about what's going on for
you in this moment.

Deb Dana (00:13:28):


For me in this moment, and even just watching that clip, I could feel my system responding again. You
can feel the compassion that comes up for the client in this session. So for me, it's about really being
anchored in ventral, not getting pulled into the dysregulation, to be with my client so we can both be
with her distress, and that can only happen if I am really firmly anchored in ventral. And then, to make
the session safe for the client to explore where she needs to explore, I have to make sure that she gets
that, that she feels my ventral and can connect to it in a way that her nervous system needs in that
moment. So at some point, I said, "So I'm sending. Are you receiving?" or something like that. That's
really what we're always doing. I send. Is my client receiving, and are they receiving in a way that they
can use it?

Deb Dana (00:14:31):


I loved it when she said she wanted to hold on for dear life. "You're welcome to hold on for dear life,"
letting your client know, because that's the nervous system talking. "Hold on for dear life," is the
nervous system. And so I try to tell the nervous system in its own words, "You can do that. Hold on for
dear life." Yeah.

Zach Taylor (00:14:53):


I could see how it could be very easy for a clinician to get in that situation and just really fall into that
dorsal state with them and allow that client unknowingly to just get stuck in a dorsal state just by saying,
"Okay, let it out. Let's hear it. Just tell me all about it." But you don't do that. You really hold back and
make sure, "Before we do that, I want to make sure that you feel a sense of ..." what in polyvagal you
call your ventral energy. That's that safe, connected social engagement system ... and that she feels
yours so that if she loses hers, yours is right there for the taking.

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Deb Dana (00:15:38):
Exactly. Exactly. That's that co-regulation that is exquisitely important in this session, throughout the
whole session. Excuse me. And there was one point where she said she's so enmeshed with her dog, and
I said, "No, co-regulation." But again, it's that ... Because enmeshed, it has a very different feel than co-
regulation, right? So even in those moments whenever you can think, "Oh yes, co-regulation," to bring it
back to ... That's a mammal-to-mammal experience that has been going on for a long time with you.
Yeah.

Zach Taylor (00:16:16):


Yeah, and this sort of anchoring that you did and reframing that you did as co-regulation didn't take
long, four or five minutes or so. So in this next clip as we jump in, you have worked with her a few more
minutes and we're going to jump back into the session when you're ready to explore that dorsal state
with her. So, let's watch.

Deb Dana (00:16:38):


Great. So let's see if we can bring this connection we have. Is it okay if I go with you when we venture
down to that dorsal place for a moment?

Speaker 3 (00:16:54):
I said yes, but my system said, "No, don't do that to her."

Deb Dana (00:16:58):


Oh, oh.

Speaker 3 (00:16:58):
"Don't do that to her."

Deb Dana (00:16:59):


So, can-

Speaker 3 (00:17:01):
"No, it's too bad down there." It's awful.

Deb Dana (00:17:04):


Yeah. So can I speak to your system to a minute from mine?

Speaker 3 (00:17:08):
Please.

Deb Dana (00:17:09):


Just let your system feel my system right now. Let your system listen to what mine is sending to you,
that I can travel safely there with you.

Speaker 3 (00:17:27):

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Yeah. I hear, "It's going to be okay."

Deb Dana (00:17:28):


It's going to be okay. Yeah. Yeah. So does it feel okay to go together now?

Speaker 3 (00:17:34):
Yeah. It feels better.

Deb Dana (00:17:36):


Beautiful. Let's go together. So we move down from our ventral. We travel down that pathway. Going
through sympathetic, whatever that feels like as you go through. Stop there for a moment and just
notice.

Speaker 3 (00:18:02):
There's an emptiness. I feel like I'm sympathetic fatigued. It's likely from the mourning. [crosstalk
00:18:10]

Deb Dana (00:18:10):


Yes, yeah. So your sympathetic has said, "I can't manage this challenge right now."

Speaker 3 (00:18:17):
Yeah. And I got some answers, too. From the vet, I just have some clarity about what's going to happen.
That uncertainty was ... Oh my God, my sympathetic. My heart was pounding out of my chest. I
completely lost the ability to be reasonable, and the fear just got me.

Deb Dana (00:18:41):


So getting some information helped calm the system.

Speaker 3 (00:18:45):
Yeah, it did. Yeah, it actually ...

Deb Dana (00:18:47):


Beautiful.

Speaker 3 (00:18:48):
Just like that.

Deb Dana (00:18:48):


Good.

Speaker 3 (00:18:48):
Like a window shut.

Deb Dana (00:18:52):

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Yeah, how nice.

Speaker 3 (00:18:52):
The curtain just goes down from the wind.

Deb Dana (00:18:54):


Yeah. So sympathetic says, "I've been working hard all day."

Speaker 3 (00:18:59):
Yeah, "I'm done."

Deb Dana (00:19:01):


"I need a break." Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:19:02):
"I'm done." And ventral's like, "Okay, good, because you also have lovely things in your life and it's going
to be okay." I'm in dorsal.

Deb Dana (00:19:13):


So let's take that ventral trust, that ventral information with us as we go to dorsal.

Speaker 3 (00:19:21):
That's a hard one.

Deb Dana (00:19:22):


I know.

Speaker 3 (00:19:22):
That's just a hard one. I want it to go and it just won't. Just as soon as you said it, it's like, "No thank
you."

Deb Dana (00:19:30):


"No thank you."

Speaker 3 (00:19:31):
"No thank you. I'm all set."

Deb Dana (00:19:33):


All right. So, I'll tell you what. We're at the top of the hierarchy and I'm going to hold you in my ventral
and we'll go down in my ventral together.

Speaker 3 (00:19:45):
Okay. Got a deal.

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Deb Dana (00:19:46):
Okay. So let's go. Let's go to dorsal.

Speaker 3 (00:19:49):
Oh, God. I'm like, "No."

Deb Dana (00:19:55):


So you know what we'll do? We'll dip down and come back up.

Speaker 3 (00:20:01):
Okay.

Deb Dana (00:20:02):


So let's dip down ...

Speaker 3 (00:20:03):
Yeah. I can do this.

Deb Dana (00:20:04):


... into dorsal for just a moment. It's there, and now let's go back up to ventral, right back up. We're
exercising the vagal break. We're letting your system know it knows how to get back to ventral.

Speaker 3 (00:20:18):
My whole body just relaxed.

Deb Dana (00:20:19):


Good. And I'm happy to be your guide.

Zach Taylor (00:20:27):


Okay, so for the first time in this series, we really see a client who is fairly terrified of going to this dorsal
state. It helps that this client is also already very steeped in polyvagal terminology, so she has a kind of
background here. So she kind of has an understanding of what this dorsal place is like for her, and in this
moment of crisis, says, "No. I don't want to go." And you do a lot of adapting, a lot of just feeling your
way through. Tell us what's going on for you here as she starts by saying, "I don't want to go to dorsal
because I can't do that to you. I can't take you there. It's too bad. It would hurt you."

Deb Dana (00:21:18):


Right, right. And isn't that something we've heard from all of our clients? Our clients think they're too
broken, too toxic for us to be in connection. With this client, I love that she could name that so then we
could work with it. That's her brain's story that's saying, "This is too much for you. I don't want to do
that to you." So again, you'll notice we left the cognitive story and I asked her to listen to my nervous
system. Let her nervous system listen to mine, and what is it hearing? Because those cues are coming.
Remember, we go back to neuroception. My system is sending cues of safety and welcome and she can

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feel how anchored I am in ventral and how unwavering that energy is for her and that it's perfectly safe
for us to go visit dorsal together. Again-

Zach Taylor (00:22:12):


Very interesting. [crosstalk 00:22:13]

Deb Dana (00:22:12):


I was just going to say, we have a clinical relationship. We have an ongoing relationship, which you can
see. Participant/trainer, but you can feel it in the ... That adds that ability for her system to read and
trust.

Zach Taylor (00:22:28):


Yeah. I could see it being very easy to just reassure her in that moment and say, "No, it's actually fine.
I'm going to be fine. You don't have to take care of me," and just stay in that cognitive realm. But you do
this differently. Not that that's always wrong to reassure, but in this moment, you do it very differently.
Rather than do it cognitively using words alone, you ask her to just allow ... Or you invite her nervous
system to listen in to yours and to ask her what her nervous system is feeling from you. And almost
immediate effect. She was willing to take the next step with you.

Deb Dana (00:23:08):


Right. Right. Yeah. And that's that real belief that the nervous system is where the information begins,
and by the time it gets to the brain that makes up a story, it's been changed in some way. And so if we
just go to the nervous system and hear what the nervous system wants to say back to me, it grounds
you in that place. And it's finding the right degree of connection and challenge so that we can take that
really important next step. You can feel ... You said you can see how terrified she is to go to dorsal, and
yet that's where the work is for this session because she's told us and her nervous system has told us
that her terror is she's going to go to dorsal and get stuck there when this event happens.

Zach Taylor (00:24:02):


So you know that's where the work is, so you continue to find ways to do it safely. It seems like you're
not willing to do it unless you can do it in a way she can feel safe. So you try a few things, and eventually
you end this clip by saying, "Okay, let's go down using my ventral state, just my own system as the
anchor." Tell us about this interesting technique.

Deb Dana (00:24:32):


Yeah. She really struggled to find a way for her own ventral to be there on its own, and yet she could be
with me. And my ventral is strong enough for both of us. Whatever your image is when we're doing this
... she and I both had an image and we did talk afterwards, the same image. She went like this. We dive.
Yeah, we just would go in together. "My ventral is encircling you and we are going down in this energy
together, and we're only going to stop there for a micro moment." Land, come back. Because that's the
terror. We're going to go there and, even though I'm with her, we're not going to get out. Land and
come back. That's the work.

Zach Taylor (00:25:19):

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Yeah. And when you mentioned ... Other clients you just take there and you stay there a while, but you
made this clinical judgment that we're just going to dip the toe in, we're just going to go there and
bounce right back. She was able to do that and she ended this clip with this kind of sigh and everything
sort of released. What did that tell you?

Deb Dana (00:25:46):


I love you noticed the sigh, because sighing is a sign that the nervous system is resetting in some way. So
it's a lovely thing to look for in the work to notice. So when that happens, it's like, "Oh, that was a
moment that something different happened." Right? "We went together. You weren't alone." That's
number one. And, "We went and came back." That's number two. So we're beginning to set this new
template for the nervous system.

Zach Taylor (00:26:13):


There's so much more in that clip, but let's move on. She's sort of touched that dorsal place and had this
moment where she may be willing to do it one more time. So in this clip, you try one more time.

Deb Dana (00:26:29):


So let's wander back to dorsal for a minute. Let's see what's there.

Speaker 3 (00:26:38):
Just empty. Just empty.

Deb Dana (00:26:44):


Yeah. So let's see if we can feel into that emptiness safely. I'm holding you in my ventral. I've got you.

Speaker 3 (00:26:57):
It's not so bad.

Deb Dana (00:26:57):


You're not alone.

Speaker 3 (00:26:57):
No.

Deb Dana (00:27:01):


Yes. It's empty, but you're not alone. We're there together.

Speaker 3 (00:27:05):
And things change. Or life goes on. There's something there.

Deb Dana (00:27:10):


Stay with that for a minute and just explore that. What is that? Something about transitions, maybe, of
which you've had a lot recently. Yeah.

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Speaker 3 (00:27:24):
Yeah. Transitions were a real problem for me as a kid. They were very dangerous.

Deb Dana (00:27:30):


Yes. They were dangerous. There you go.

Speaker 3 (00:27:33):
They were dangerous.

Deb Dana (00:27:37):


Yeah. And so you had to be in survival mode all the time.

Speaker 3 (00:27:41):
Yeah.

Deb Dana (00:27:43):


So just recognize that and feel into the difference. Yeah. She's adding her voice.

Speaker 3 (00:28:02):
It just feels different instantly. Well, because it doesn't make sense anymore. There's nothing dangerous
about honoring my dog's life. And practically speaking, there is a new baby in the family. There's a
seven-month-old baby that's going to be climbing on top of me, getting me into ventral. But that
dangerous part, it's like, "I won't get off the couch."

Deb Dana (00:28:32):


So there's some story in there that says, "We'll be stuck in dorsal."

Speaker 3 (00:28:38):
Yeah. Oh yeah. Yep.

Deb Dana (00:28:40):


Okay. Okay. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:28:43):
Yeah. It's the same. It's the same thing around dating or having a relationship. The breakups just ruin
me, even though they're well intended and kind and even loving. It's just the endings are just dangerous
and just floods me and ... collapsing.

Deb Dana (00:29:07):


Right, right. So it's a good map of your system you just gave us, right?

Speaker 3 (00:29:14):
Yeah.

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Deb Dana (00:29:15):
That even though you do it from a regulated place, the aftermath takes you right to dorsal.

Speaker 3 (00:29:20):
It's exhausting.

Deb Dana (00:29:21):


It's exhausting.

Speaker 3 (00:29:21):
It's exhausting. And it's just me. Or it has been just me.

Deb Dana (00:29:28):


Yeah. So stay with that for a minute. It has been.

Speaker 3 (00:29:30):
It has been just me, yeah.

Deb Dana (00:29:33):


Yeah. And just let your neuroception feel into this present moment.

Speaker 3 (00:29:37):
It just feels like a different story.

Deb Dana (00:29:52):


So stay with that.

Speaker 3 (00:29:58):
I can feel literally my system doing the changing.

Deb Dana (00:30:03):


Beautiful.

Speaker 3 (00:30:05):
There's easy. There's flowers in my heart right now.

Deb Dana (00:30:09):


Oh, lovely.

Speaker 3 (00:30:11):
It's painful, but it's not scary and dangerous.

Deb Dana (00:30:14):

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Right. So let's ...

Speaker 3 (00:30:15):
Yes. I see that.

Deb Dana (00:30:17):


Let's feel that and discern that difference. Right. It used to be life threatening, take you to dorsal. Now
it's painful, but it's not dangerous. Because the flowers in your heart go with you to dorsal. Which we
talk about that deep grief that lives in dorsal, and this allows you to be there with it in a safe way.

Speaker 3 (00:30:48):
It's so different.

Deb Dana (00:30:56):


Let's just be with that. Really take in the difference.

Speaker 3 (00:31:04):
It's literally life altering because it's really hard to carry around scary and dangerous all the time.

Deb Dana (00:31:13):


It sure is. It's exhausting.

Speaker 3 (00:31:15):
It's exhausting to constantly look for safety, constantly looking for cues of safety when all you know is
cues of danger. And everything looks like cues ... It only looks like danger all the time, so it's hard to go,
"Retrain, retrain, retrain, retrain."

Deb Dana (00:31:31):


Yeah. We're set up that way, aren't we? To see the cues of danger and miss the cues of safety.

Speaker 3 (00:31:37):
Totally.

Deb Dana (00:31:38):


And you, for very good reason, had to pay exquisite attention to those cues of danger growing up.

Speaker 3 (00:31:45):
Yep.

Zach Taylor (00:31:47):


Okay. So now in this clip, you invite her to go back with you to the dorsal state. The last clip, she could
only sort of touch and come right back out. But in this clip, she spends almost four or five minutes sort
of there with you, and she seems to be more comfortable ... not entirely, but more comfortable and
almost to my eyes begins to feel safe enough to look around and see what this state has been about for

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her all her life, which for her, part of it is around the danger of transitions. What are you seeing in this
clip here?

Deb Dana (00:32:28):


I think that's a great description. Going together, again, and it's easier to go the second time, so that's
always a key moment to say, "Oh yes, so this is easier. Something different is happening." My co-
regulation still. My ventral is holding us as we do this, and take a moment and look around or listen in,
whatever the case may be, and see what's here. Because her dorsal habitual response pattern was
created for a reason ... for a very good reason. It's an adaptive survival response, and she's able, because
we're there together, to sort of begin to tell me a bit of that. Not the details of a story. We don't need
those, of the concrete what happened, but, "Oh yeah, because it was so dangerous." And transitions
always brought danger. So of course transitions are going to bring the habitual survival response, which
for this client is dorsal.

Deb Dana (00:33:38):


Then I love the moment when she talks about how it's different. She can feel the difference. She says
she can feel her system reorganizing. It's a fascinating thing that often happens with clients. There's this
visceral something that they feel. Yeah.

Zach Taylor (00:33:55):


Something to get curious about. Then she uses this imagery for the first time about flowers in her heart.
What's happening here?

Deb Dana (00:34:05):


So when she does this, "I feel flowers in my heart," there's her ventral. There's a moment of her
connection to her ventral. Not just my holding us in ventral, but there it was for her. "Oh, yes, flowers in
your heart." And then we talked later about how when she goes to ventral ... and I don't remember
what we put together, the danger and pain or transition and something ... that the flowers in your heart
go with you, so it's different. That's saying, "Your ventral is going with you," but using her nervous
system's language. Your nervous system is telling us this flowers in the heart is ventral.

Zach Taylor (00:34:42):


Yeah. Wonderful. So that was your second sort of trip to this dorsal state. It was different than the first.
We're going to see it one more time in this next clip.

Deb Dana (00:34:56):


Great.

Zach Taylor (00:34:56):


Let's watch what happens this time.

Deb Dana (00:35:00):


So as you travel down sympathetic then down to the black hole of dorsal, remember you know how to
come back up from sympathetic back to ventral.

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Speaker 3 (00:35:17):
It's not going any further. I'm not triggering a move.

Deb Dana (00:35:28):


So just for a moment, let's go down that hierarchy. Let's go to sympathetic, make a stop there, and then
let's go to dorsal and feel the energy of that black hole, and then let's come back to sympathetic,
mobilizing, and return to ventral. Nice. What was that like?

Speaker 3 (00:36:04):
That wasn't so bad.

Deb Dana (00:36:05):


Okay. Is there an image that goes with that for you as we went down and up, or was it just simply
energy, or what is it?

Speaker 3 (00:36:12):
Yeah, so I literally sort of imagined my chakras.

Deb Dana (00:36:18):


Nice.

Speaker 3 (00:36:19):
And then there literally is ... There's a floor that's black, and then there's a tube that, like ...

Deb Dana (00:36:26):


Yep, we go right down. How do we get back up that tube?

Speaker 3 (00:36:32):
I didn't go down the tube this last time.

Deb Dana (00:36:35):


Oh, good.

Speaker 3 (00:36:38):
I was in the tube at the beginning, and now I just went to the floor and it was like a ballerina, just
landing, pliéing, and ... we're going to go back up.

Deb Dana (00:36:49):


Oh, I love that. Let's do that again.

Speaker 3 (00:36:53):
Okay.

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Deb Dana (00:36:58):
We'll be the ballerina. We'll leap and we go down through sympathetic and we find the floor of dorsal,
and then we rise.

Speaker 3 (00:37:07):
My ballerina wants to now hip hop and roll around on the black floor ...

Deb Dana (00:37:13):


Oh, nice.

Speaker 3 (00:37:14):
... because she knows she's like, "No, this ... can't just leave that there."

Deb Dana (00:37:19):


Beautiful.

Speaker 3 (00:37:19):
"You've got to experience this sadness."

Deb Dana (00:37:24):


Let's do that.

Speaker 3 (00:37:25):
And then she's going to come up again.

Deb Dana (00:37:27):


So it feels like she knows she's not stuck there.

Speaker 3 (00:37:30):
Yeah, I guess so.

Deb Dana (00:37:31):


So she can visit it and do what she needs there.

Speaker 3 (00:37:33):
Yeah, I guess so.

Deb Dana (00:37:34):


So let's do that. Let's feel that. We take the leap and we end up on the floor and stay there knowing
you're not stuck. So that ballerina comes from ventral and brings some of that beautiful energy with her
down to dorsal where you can be with the grief safely and not be stuck there, not get immobilized there,
not be on the couch not moving.

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Speaker 3 (00:38:18):
It feels more flexible. More doable.

Deb Dana (00:38:25):


Beautiful. So it's that flexibility that we're looking for, not to not go to dorsal. That's not the goal, but to
go and return.

Zach Taylor (00:38:42):


All right, so in this clip, you invite her to go back to the dorsal place anchored in ventral, and yet again,
it's this new experience each time you go back. This one feels more full, more playful, creative. Suddenly
a ballerina's down there and a dancer and she's rolling around on the floor kind of feeling like, "Hey, this
isn't so bad." That painful but not dangerous kind of story is coming to light. What are you seeing here?
Is this what you would have expected?

Deb Dana (00:39:21):


I love what I'm seeing, and I never know what to expect, which I think is the lovely part of doing this kind
of therapy, is that I'm going where the nervous system is telling us we need to go, and we're making it
safe enough to do that. And whatever comes is fascinating, right? So this particular client is very much
an energetic client, which is why I asked, "Is there image or energy?" And here we have image, and we
have this image that is in transformation from the ballerina who pliés to the hip hopper who's rolling
around on the floor. You can feel the reorganization happening because all of the sudden, she's got
some of her own ventral that is available to her so that as she goes to dorsal, she's not hijacked by it.
She is with it and she can begin to explore what's there. And however that emerges for clients is always
really fascinating to be with, and that's what we're looking for. That's what we're looking for.

Zach Taylor (00:40:26):


Right. Well, now that you've got her to having done this work and she feels a bit safer to go to this place
with some sense of safety to stay anchored in her ventral, you kind of move into moving her in how is
she going to take this outside of the session. You begin to wrap this session up, so let's see what you do
next.

Speaker 3 (00:40:56):
It'll be so interesting and profound, I think, for me to be away from her because my system is, "Where's
Novia? How's Novia? Where's Novia? How's Novia?" for nine years.

Deb Dana (00:41:14):


I know. I know. I know. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:41:14):
"Where's Novia? How's Novs?" So there's a bit of relief, right?

Deb Dana (00:41:22):


Sure.

Speaker 3 (00:41:23):

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Where it's like I'm not chained to anything. And then there's, like, "No."

Deb Dana (00:41:29):


There's both, yeah. So stay with that both and. There's some relief that the worry's not there and that
she is safely somewhere, and then there's the missing. So go back for a minute to the both and, some
relief and some knowing that Novia is in a place where she's okay.

Speaker 3 (00:41:55):
Yeah. I just love that, the place that she's okay, because she's rarely been okay.

Deb Dana (00:42:04):


I know, I know.

Speaker 3 (00:42:05):
And it's been on me to make sure she's okay and I've chosen that. But you're never really secure about
that. I think that's where the relief is, just knowing. Knowing that she's okay. Yeah, that's going to be
weird.

Deb Dana (00:42:20):


I'm noticing how your system is going to a new shape around that, which we don't know yet.

Speaker 3 (00:42:25):
No. I have a feeling that it's going to collapse a little bit, right?

Deb Dana (00:42:30):


Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Speaker 3 (00:42:32):
It's going to collapse a little bit, and I don't think I'm going to really understand that everything can be
okay in my life and that there's no danger.

Deb Dana (00:42:41):


So let's play with that, because we really want to make sure that that's [crosstalk 00:42:46]

Speaker 3 (00:42:45):
That's incredible. I don't know what that is. I've learned a little bit.

Deb Dana (00:42:51):


You're learning it, yes.

Speaker 3 (00:42:52):
I am. There's no doubt about it. But boy, wow.

Deb Dana (00:42:56):

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I remember the last time we did a session in the training and it was this really new idea around, "Wow,
I'm choosing a transition and it's a safe one."

Speaker 3 (00:43:07):
It's going from one good thing to even a better thing. When's that happen? That's crazy.

Deb Dana (00:43:13):


So that's wired in, and now this is going to become wired in. Yeah. That transitions can be safe. Sad and
painful, but still safe.

Speaker 3 (00:43:28):
Yeah, that's interesting. Sad, painful, and safe. I don't think I've ever said those three words together.

Deb Dana (00:43:36):


Well, let's hold those three together. We'll feel them in your ...

Speaker 3 (00:43:38):
We just saw. They're cut off. There ain't no tube down there anymore.

Deb Dana (00:43:44):


Nope. Nope. No tube. So we can safely go to that dorsal sadness and pain and still be safe because you
take ventral with you when you go there, which is a new experience for you. You used to leave ventral
totally.

Speaker 3 (00:44:02):
Oh, God. Right. Yeah. And I was alone. There's such a big thing about ... That tube is not big enough for
anyone but me.

Deb Dana (00:44:13):


Right. You were the only one.

Speaker 3 (00:44:14):
I was the only one.

Deb Dana (00:44:15):


Trapped in there.

Speaker 3 (00:44:16):
And I had to wait until my system would be like, "All right, [Chewy 00:44:19]. Pull up your bootstraps.
Let's do it again. Now I don't have to do that alone. There's no tube.

Deb Dana (00:44:28):

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There's no tube, so you're not stuck in there alone. And look around your world inside there and see the
people who are there with you. Just let your nervous system connect with other nervous systems and
feel that safety. With mine, with the people from the training, with your friends.

Speaker 3 (00:44:51):
Oh God, I love them.

Deb Dana (00:44:53):


It's a different experience when you're not alone there, isn't it?

Speaker 3 (00:44:56):
It's totally different.

Deb Dana (00:44:57):


Yeah. Just-

Speaker 3 (00:45:00):
There's movement, so it brings me to sympathetic.

Deb Dana (00:45:02):


Yes. And then from there, you come back to ventral and you make that journey over and over.

Speaker 3 (00:45:07):
Yes. Oh, definitely. Definitely. I think, yeah, that happened this morning when I called a friend and told
her what was happening, and it just ... her being there. Nothing got solved in that phone call, but just
her being with me.

Deb Dana (00:45:21):


So let your nervous system really hear that and let it tell you the same, that this isn't about solving a
problem. This is about knowing you're safe and safely connected. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:45:39):
That's just so different to move through life in that way. It feels so much less risky. Right?

Deb Dana (00:45:50):


Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yep.

Speaker 3 (00:45:53):
There just is.

Deb Dana (00:45:55):


Yeah. So I want to just celebrate that for a moment, that sense in your system that this is so less risky
now. That's a huge reshaping that's happened.

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Speaker 3 (00:46:06):
Yeah, totally. Yeah. A lot of my Buddhist principles are showing up for me, as well.

Deb Dana (00:46:23):


Great.

Speaker 3 (00:46:24):
Impermanence, and death and dying is just part of the path.

Deb Dana (00:46:31):


Yeah. Just hold all of that together. Just notice how your notice system can support you with great
wisdom inside. All three states there to serve you. Nice.

Speaker 3 (00:47:11):
I love my system.

Deb Dana (00:47:13):


I love your system, too.

Speaker 3 (00:47:15):
She's so good. She's just there for me.

Deb Dana (00:47:18):


Well, let her hear that. You really recognize that nervous system has worked hard for you, kept you
alive.

Speaker 3 (00:47:31):
She's so grateful that I have this simple map, because it just doesn't only make sense. It's just I can
literally feel the visceral changes in my body as you're guiding me. And like my porch swing, I just want
to stay there.

Deb Dana (00:47:56):


So just remember this is a place you know how to get back to. You've shaped your system so that you
can do this.

Speaker 3 (00:48:03):
May it be so.

Zach Taylor (00:48:06):


Well, again, so much here. But what's very interesting to me is that while we're working with this
situation with her dog, Novia, it's tied to this larger pattern that is in her nervous system around
transitions. And it's not like you're asking her about, "Tell me about all the transitions that were painful
in your life." It's just this pattern is emerging around the stories around transitions and she's bringing up

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all these different situations. Very interesting, this way of working with the nervous system rather than
the specific stories or events. What do you see emerging here around transitions?

Deb Dana (00:48:52):


What you see is her nervous system is beginning to reshape and she no longer gets hijacked by dorsal.
She can be with dorsal and begin to recover from that. She talks about going down and back up the
hierarchy, and as that flexibility comes into the system, the system then holds the space for different
experiences and different stories to emerge. So what made sense before no longer fits with the new
nervous system experience. You'll find that often as people do this kind of work. As the nervous system
reshapes, new stories come in and you begin to hear how this will branch out to beyond Novia's dying
process to all these other experiences she's beginning to talk about in her daily living. Yeah.

Zach Taylor (00:49:55):


And she makes an interesting comment. Not only does the story change, the image changes. There was
in the last clip ... We didn't really mention it, but there was this tube that led her to dorsal, and that tube
was only big enough for her. And so representing that when she went to dorsal, she was alone. Now she
says, "I don't have to be alone. The tube isn't there anymore." And you really highlight that. What are
you noticing here in the change in this imagery?

Deb Dana (00:50:26):


Yeah. It's a tube big enough for one that went ... right down to dorsal. It was sort of that experience that
she's had in her life where the world is dangerous and everybody in it has been dangerous, so a tube for
one seems pretty reasonable, a survival response for that. And now the tube's gone, right? She said it
was cut. The tube's no longer there. Now there is room to safely connect to other people. There's room
to let in others because it's not such a dangerous place, and that can only happen because she now has
access to her ventral and can hold and anchor in ventral when these other states are also coming alive.
So yeah, it's a pretty lovely thing to hear, and you'll hear this pretty predictably with clients as the
system begins to reshape. The images change.

Zach Taylor (00:51:25):


It's really amazing how you really didn't teach her any of this. You just kind of understand the language
of the nervous system, how it's organized, the hierarchy of it. You know where the work is that needs to
be done and you help her feel safe enough. And once the system ... it seems that she feels safe enough
there, it can have the space to reorganize. And it almost does it on its own. It takes a very skillful guide,
of course, but it almost seems to do it on its own.

Deb Dana (00:51:56):


I love that you notice that and mention that, because I really do believe that, that the nervous system
inherently knows how to do this, that there's great wisdom in our nervous systems. When I'm working
with a client, it's my job to hold the pathway, to hold the ventral, to help them connect with that
wisdom, and this is what happens. It reorganizes and helps them begin to see the world in a different
way. It's really lovely to watch, isn't it?

Zach Taylor (00:52:27):


It is. So we're going to watch one more clip. This is the final clip of this session, so let's watch.

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Deb Dana (00:52:36):
Before we end, what do you need to be able to hold on to this tonight, tomorrow? Just explore that.
What would help to stay anchored in this knowing?

Speaker 3 (00:52:52):
I feel full, and I was planning on doing some journaling this afternoon and making sure that I really just
savor time with my little girl. It's playing with all her friends for a few days and I wanted to really connect
with Nov ...

Deb Dana (00:53:16):


Beautiful.

Speaker 3 (00:53:16):
... and be in my system and write in my journals and bawl my eyes out and just do whatever feels right.

Deb Dana (00:53:25):


And you have some ... See if there's ... Is there an image that your nervous system really holds onto
around this?

Speaker 3 (00:53:40):
Just cuddling Novia.

Deb Dana (00:53:41):


Yes. Beautiful.

Speaker 3 (00:53:42):
Just being on the couch and really cuddling.

Deb Dana (00:53:44):


Beautiful.

Speaker 3 (00:53:45):
We do face to face.

Deb Dana (00:53:46):


Oh, I love it.

Speaker 3 (00:53:47):
So whether her face in my ... it doesn't matter.

Deb Dana (00:53:50):


I love it. I love it.

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Speaker 3 (00:53:50):
We're just face to face.

Deb Dana (00:53:52):


Beautiful.

Speaker 3 (00:53:52):
We also hold paws.

Deb Dana (00:53:53):


Aw, I love it.

Speaker 3 (00:53:54):
I know, it's ridiculous.

Deb Dana (00:53:55):


I love it. So just see if there's anything else that has to happen inside there before we come back here.

Speaker 3 (00:54:20):
I wish for myself to be grateful for myself and proud of myself that I did everything I could and have
been a good mom.

Deb Dana (00:54:31):


Oh, you have been a magnificent mom.

Speaker 3 (00:54:33):
Because I've been really hard on myself around that.

Deb Dana (00:54:34):


I know.

Speaker 3 (00:54:38):
And I hope that comes up. I want to give myself a break.

Deb Dana (00:54:45):


So remember that that belief that, "I've been a really good mom," emerges from your ventral energy
because from your sympathetic or dorsal, you're going to get the other story.

Speaker 3 (00:54:58):
Yeah. Okay.

Deb Dana (00:55:02):


So when you anchor in ventral, you know you have been a really great mom.

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Speaker 3 (00:55:09):
Yeah. I've got to work on that doubt. It's so stupid.

Deb Dana (00:55:19):


Is it a sympathetic self criticism that comes, that doubt? "I haven't done enough-"

Speaker 3 (00:55:25):
I don't know. I think it's sort of like, "You're not good enough," doubt, but I just don't buy into that.

Deb Dana (00:55:30):


Yeah. But somewhere in there ...

Speaker 3 (00:55:32):
Somewhere.

Deb Dana (00:55:32):


... there's some flavor of that that's coming up. So just go there for a moment. Find out where is that.

Speaker 3 (00:55:42):
You know what? That's just very, very old stuff wanting some approval and saying that I'm a good kid.

Deb Dana (00:55:51):


Yep. Right, right. Yeah, sure.

Speaker 3 (00:55:55):
Yeah. That's old stuff.

Deb Dana (00:55:56):


So as you notice that, name it. Turn towards it. Just let it know, "I hear you." Something old that still is
left in there for another day. So again, when you're anchored in that wonderful regulated ventral
energy, all of that is right there for you.

Speaker 3 (00:56:14):
Yeah, that felt totally like ventral. Yeah. That love for her, yeah.

Deb Dana (00:56:22):


So your job over the next couple days is to really ... How do you anchor in ventral where you hold on to
that?

Speaker 3 (00:56:28):
Yeah.

Zach Taylor (00:56:32):

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So Deb, this is a great example of closing up a fairly complicated and raw session, and you close it out by
asking her a few questions. Number one, how are you going to take this with you? What are the
takeaways here? Let's discuss that a little bit.

Deb Dana (00:56:54):


Yeah. In this way of working, I think it's really important to anchor in some sort of a, "What are you
going to do? What are you going to take from this session and actually do over the next ..." If you were
seeing this client regularly, "Between now and the next session." For this client, "What are you taking
with you that's going to help you manage this really difficult experience that is coming?" And when you
work with the nervous system ... and you could feel throughout this system all of the ways her nervous
system reorganized ... we really want to bring some of that into explicit awareness and hold onto that.
So that's really the focus of that question, "What can you take with you?" She had an image of cuddling
with Novia. Image for her is wonderful. She was going to journal. These are the ways that she's going to
anchor this in.

Zach Taylor (00:57:47):


Yeah. She's also going to take away some beautiful new imagery and just this experience with you. She's
going to take an image of you away, I would imagine, as well, and the safety of feeling connected.

Deb Dana (00:58:02):


Yeah. And I do think that's worth noting for ... We know that we and our clients become intimately
connected. We know that we're woven into our stories together. When you work nervous system to
nervous system, it really is on a very deep autonomic level that this happens, and so our systems have
been in communication for this whole session. Yeah.

Zach Taylor (00:58:28):


The second question you ask her is, "What else needs to happen?" That's an interesting ... It seems to be
opening up a lot of new doors. What is behind that question?

Deb Dana (00:58:38):


Right, and that is a question I pretty typically ask at the end of a session, "Is there anything else that
needs to happen?" And you'll notice that she did have some things that came up that were still in there.
And if you give a little time and space for those so that your client can really notice them, bring them
into awareness and name them, then they can become the focus of future sessions. What I've found is
sometimes, a client will notice something as this client did, and you can pretty easily just spend a
moment with that. Because if you don't ask the question, it gets hidden somewhere. Whatever that is, it
gets hidden and then it begins to dysregulate the system again. If you invite in, spend a moment with
that. See what's there. I'm not going to do a whole piece of work with that, but I'm inviting it in, letting it
know we hear it, we see it. And, oh yes, we can mark this for future, "Don't dismiss." Yeah, it's
important.

Zach Taylor (00:59:41):


Do you have any comments about this session as a whole before we close the chapter on this one?

Deb Dana (00:59:50):

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Yeah. I'm glad that we included this session in the series. I think it was a powerful session, and it really
shows how working with a client who is a complex trauma survivor can go in lots of different directions
and can have dysregulation, regulation, some humor, some intense emotion, everything all rolled into
one, and can end in a place that feels safe and regulating. So however long the session was ... an hour or
something in total ... a lot happened, and client is taking away ... is now inhabiting a new nervous
system, a nervous system that is shaped in some new way. Yeah.

Zach Taylor (01:00:38):


You ended the session by saying, "Your job over the next couple of days as you manage this is to stay
anchored in ventral." Not to stay in ventral, but to stay anchored there. As we mentioned at the
beginning of this module, she wrote you a message afterwards that said she was able to do just that and
had a very positive experience from this session that was very meaningful for her. So we want to thank
her and her dog, Novia, for joining us. We want to thank you for your courage. This was supposed to be
just a typical scheduled recording session, and here you were. So thank you. I just want everybody to
just ... I just want to acknowledge for everybody just the work it takes for you to do this and to create
these recordings and to put yourself out there and your work. It's brave and you're changing the world
of psychotherapy and we're happy to be a part of it with you.

Zach Taylor (01:01:46):


So everybody, thank you for watching this demonstration series. We really hope that you enjoyed it.
We'd love to hear your feedback. We'd love you to check out the magazine, our podcast. Come to
Symposium and you can meet Deb. She's there very often teaching live workshops. We want to
encourage you to reach out to Deb, and all of Deb's contact information will be a part of this course in
your course portal. Don't forget the bonus videos and the handouts, and our wonderful conversations
with Steve Porges and Deb Dana. The very next module, which is a part of the CE portion of this course,
we'll be sitting down with Steve Porges to get his take on Deb's three sessions that we just watched. So
we're very curious. We've not done that recording yet, so we're very excited to see what he has to say in
the next video. So check it out, and we're so glad that you joined us today. Thanks for being here.

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Module 5: A Re-Cap and Analysis of the Three Polyvagal-Informed Therapy
Sessions
Deb Dana, LCSW and Steve Porges PhD
Zach Taylor (00:18):
Welcome everybody to our final session of the Psychotherapy Networkers Polyvagal Informed Master
Class. And I'm so delighted to be here this morning with Deb Dana, who has been guiding us through her
sessions as well as Steve Porges, the originator of the Polyvagal Theory. Steve and Deb, welcome to both
of you, welcome back.

Steve Porges (00:45):


Thank you.

Deb Dana (00:47):


Great to be back.

Zach Taylor (00:48):


Great. The purpose of this module is simply to dive a little deeper into some of the mo ments that we
missed, that we didn't get to spend much time on as we would have liked while we were watching the
demonstrations. We also wanted to bring Steve in to get his take on some of the moments in the
sessions as well. Let's jump in. I think one of the big questions that therapists may have, who may be
new to Polyvagal, and have watched Deb's three sessions, they might be going, "Wait a second, Deb,
you didn't really work directly with the problem that they brought it. At first it was a social anxiet y, a
difficulty connecting with others. The other one was a fear of riding in cars, the other one was working
with grief and loss around impending death of a pet. And in none of those sessions, did those things
really come up all that much. There were no direct interventions to try to get her to be more
comfortable in the car necessarily." What would you say to those therapists? When do you actually get
to the problem they're brought in to you?

Deb Dana (02:14):


It's true. And you do see it. And you also see in the process of the session that the issue that they did
come in with, their presenting problems so to speak, does begin to come into their experience in a new
way. What I do is I invite my clients to let me know a bit about why are they here, what is it that we're
going to work with today. And then to put that over here next to us. And I will tell clients sometimes,
"Just put it here on the table next to [inaudible 00:02:54], you can grab it whenever you want to. It's
right here, we're not ignoring it. We're just going to set it over here, so that we can begin to regulate
your nervous system and find the pathways between ventral sympathetic dorsal and back again.
Because once we've done that, then as we look at this problem that we've put over here to the side on
the table, it's going to look different, feel different. You're going to have access to different experiences
around it. And you're going to be able to meet that moment in a different way."

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It's interesting with clients in the beginning, because they might look at you like, "No, no. That's
not what I want to do." You have to use the trust in the therapeutical relationship to invite that to
happen. But I think, as you saw in the demos, as soon as you start diving into that, a client is really
curious about how their system works. And they forget about that problem as they begin to explore
their own system. And then, as the problem comes back into view, it's very different. It's a very different
experience for them. I would just encourage therapists to give it a try. And I think you'll see that it's a
pretty ... I don't like to say magical. But it has that feel to it sometimes, that wow, something very
interesting has happened.

Steve Porges (04:23):


I could give an even more simplistic explanation of what's going on. And I would reflect and ask the
therapist to ask the client, "What is it that really is bothering you?" And what you'll find out, it's the
feelings, the experience, it's not the event. I think so much of our therapy and so much of our human
documentary is based on events. And not a sufficient amount on our responses or our feelings. And
Polyvagal Theory shifts that, it says, "It's your feelings that we're witnessing, it's your feelings that we're
respecting." And in the sense, all of us have learned about this when we talk about asking people to
calm down or asking people why they're so agitated. Especially as parents, we would want a child to be
calmer before they would learn or at a moment of learning or [inaudible 00:05:15] reprimanded for
doing something inappropriate.
But as psychologists, people learn about intervening variables. A variable that occurs be tween
the stimulus and the response. In Polyvagal theory, the emphasis is on an inconvenient variable and that
inconvenient variable is your physiological state. And it's based on this assumption and it's a powerful
assumption. And it really reflects our own personal experiences, that when we're in certain physiological
states, we're reacting to stimuli. When we're in other physiological states, we're resilient to the same
stimulus. What I believe that it's trying to convey, is that when we learn to get control over that
physiological state by visiting it, by being observant and self aware, then the stimuli start having
different levels of potency. And that becomes the emerging property of understanding more about
physiological state and being able to regulate state as the foundation of therapies. It doesn't preclude or
displace working with the event, but it says once you get that physiological state out of the states of
defense, then you can talk about these things. Then you can build different strategies. And then the
stimuli, the event, when it's discussed, it no longer has it's potency as a trigger.

Zach Taylor (06:40):


Mm-hmm (affirmative). One of the things I've heard you say Steve is that this is building off of the
traditional stimulus response learning theory. That some theories in psychotherapy are based on
habituation and extinction and association. But what you're saying, I think I heard you say, this is an SOR
model. Is that right?

Steve Porges (07:09):


Yeah.

Zach Taylor (07:11):


Could you unpack that a little bit, because I think that's really important that some more cognitive,
event based models of therapy are simply based on stimulus response. And if we change the stimulus or
the response, we'll get a new behavior, we'll get something new through exposure therapies, extinction
therapies, those kinds of things. But you're saying, we've got to work with the organism's state first.

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Steve Porges (07:35):
Physiological state. And I'm saying that, even if we [inaudible 00:07:39] and have a real commitment to
learning theory as our basis for therapy, we have to incorporate physiological state in the model. I would
say the most obvious one would be something like behavior modification. And you have to ask questions
with what population is it least effective. It's least effective when people have severe behavioral
regulation issues, meaning that their physiological states that are not responding to punishment or
reward. And that is a true SOR model. If behavior modification incorporate an understanding of
physiological state, it would work ... the first mode of intervention would be onto the physiological
state. And this does not mean pharmaceutical manipulations of physiological state, it means co-
regulation, cues of safety, enabling the body to go out of a state of defense.
Once the body is out of that state of defense, then the portals are open for S-R relationships to
be built. The issue with trauma, is a really, I would say very difficult and profound one, because the
conditioning or learning is so visceral that it's a ... I like to equate it to single trial learning and the ones
that people might know about are taste aversion. You eat something once and you're nauseous. And it's
very resistant to extinction. Trauma has some of these same features, because they're very adaptive in
survival. And we have to understand that if we can go in manipulate the physiological state through a
co-regulation, through breathing, through cues of an awareness of one's own body, then the S -R
relationships become much more malleable. And that's really part of what therapy is about. I don't see
Polyvagal Theory as contradictory to learning theory, I see it as a way of informing and optimizing S-R
relationships.

Zach Taylor (09:46):


Right. There was a lot there. And I'm wondering if we could just summarize what we just said. I'm going
to take a stab at it here that essentially what we're saying is that our clients can change their behaviors
only if and when they can regulate their physiological state.

Steve Porges (10:07):


Let me qualify what you said. I would say they can change their behaviors more efficiently and more
effectively. This doesn't preclude that a lot of S-R training or behavior modification doesn't change
behavior. What we're saying is, what can we do more efficiently that would be consistent with how our
nervous system would like to learn. [inaudible 00:10:30] the value that our nervous system loves to
make associations when it's in certain physiological states. The issues is, can we get that physiology out
of a state of defense. And I see that as the primary goal of therapy, get the physiology out of a state of
defense. Then you have access to all these higher brain structures they're going to build these positive
relationships, in a sense, what we would call understanding, compassion, whatever we want to call it.
Connectedness. Those are going to be higher level in our nervous system, but they're only going to occur
when the body is not the state of defense. In a state of defense, we have no friends. We have no
relationships.

Zach Taylor (11:15):


Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. Okay, let me shift gears a little bit here to something Deb said over and
over and over again, in these demonstration sessions. She would very rarely say you, or your symptom,
or your problem. She would say your system is saying, or your system knows how to do this. The syst em
is saying what to you. What is your system feeling? It's a subtle, but I wonder if there's more than meets
the ears here. Deb, what's going on in your reframing from you to your system?

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Deb Dana (12:04):
For me, when I'm working with clients, I'm trying to help them stay really connected to the autonomic
nervous system. And understand that this is their biology that is enacting a response, is sending them a
message, that we want to listen to the system. And you'll find when clients begin to connect with their
system, in that way you might even hear some of them talk that way. In the demos, they talk about their
system. They catch on fairly quickly to that, that there's a real release of shame and self criticism that it
becomes a biological response, an adaptive survivor response, a system response, rather than
something that they're choosing to do, a cognitive experience.
And for me, working in this Polyvagal informed way, keeping the focus of attention on the
nervous system is the important piece. Then, clients begin to look through the lens of the nervous
system and they begin to talk about their system and hear the story their system is telling them. Then,
they connect with their system. Just as in many of the demos, you saw that their system and my system
were in connection and yes, my client and I are in connection. But, our systems are in connection, which
is a different embodied experience. And I think that was important to bring out as well in the sessions.

Steve Porges (13:42):


I totally agree with what Deb is saying that she's shifting the intentionality of the behavior from the
person to an adaptive, almost reflexive, level of the body. In fact, what many survivors of trauma say is,
once I understood that my reactions were reflexive, I understood it better. I lost the shame and sense of
blame. And what Deb is doing, she's emphasizing that there are certain neurophysiological patterns of
reactivity that were embedded in our nervous system for survival reasons. And in many ways, the body
is trying to do something good, it's trying to keep us safe. But, the cues may be misread, what I call
faulty neuro section, because it's more adaptive, more conservative to be reactive to everything if
you've been injured. Rather than missing some cues and get injured, the body's saying, "I'm not letting
anyone in." And this becomes part of that reactivity.
I think what Deb is doing, is really educating the individual about giving them an awareness of
their body. And that many of the bodily reactions that lead to these profound feelings that people have,
are really the emerging properties of adaptive defensive reactions that have been within the
evolutionary history of vertebrates. It's something that is part of who we are. And in a very, I would say,
simplistic way, I think what the theory is giving people is, in a sense, an instructional manual to try to
understand their reactions. Especially their defensive ones. And not to, in a sense, make too much of
them. In a sense, not to create this complex narrative of intentionality, but to have a better
understanding that the body does certain things to protect you.
It's like if you get nauseous and you regurgitate, that's a reflex, or if someone hits you in the
knee and you have a knee jerk reflex. These are wired into our system, some are more adaptive than
others. Some are ancient [inaudible 00:15:55], we inherited from ancient organisms and we don't really
use them. But, when we shift physiological state, we shift into different adaptive behavioral platforms.
We shift to a behavioral platform that is going to be defensive, protect us.
What Deb is saying is that these physiological shifts are more in the reflexive adaptive level than
in the intentionality. And through awareness, we can learn to understand what our body is doing and
not to read or create a complex narrative to justify why our body's doing that. Frequently, when we go
into defense, we create the narrative that someone deserves our hostility, or they triggered it. And
that's our smart and complex brains making sense of our [inaudible 00:16:49] feelings. But what's Deb's
therapy is doing is getting people to feel that bodily shift before they develop that narrative that justifies
an action.

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Zach Taylor (17:02):
That's good. That leads to my next question and that's something Deb's said, I think, in each session.
And she said before that story follows state. I think one way she put it, in one of the sessions, we have
dueling stories because we have dueling states. I think that was in the third session. Let's talk a little
about this, because personally I continue to be amazed at how when I'm in a different state, I'm almost
a different person sometimes. And just to know ... there's so much shame wrapped around that
sometimes for some people. So much shame around, it's like, "Why can't I just behave the way I want to
behave, why can't I think the way I want to think and why can't I act the way I want to act right now? As
soon as I'm around that person, as soon as I'm in this situation, as soon as I'm triggered I think
completely differently, I act completely differently." Let's talk a little bit more about Deb, how you
remove shame and work with and teach clients about how they have different stories for different
states.

Deb Dana (18:21):


I think one of the ways is that very first personal profile map that you and I did and there's a [inaudible
00:18:30] on. Because those two sentences, the world is and I am, that you fill in from each state really
identify in stark contrast that the different ways we feel about who we are and how we're moving
through the world. That's a really simple way to begin to see that. And then really at all times, I think
with our clients, and you could see this in the demos as we move through states and listened in for a
moment to what are you hearing here? That we have at least these three stories all the time. We have
ventral, sympathetic and a dorsal story that's waiting there.
And really, where our energy is most active, where the state is most present, that's the story
that we're hearing and we're beginning to move through life with. Helping clients really remember that
there really are three stories and which one are you listening to now? Which state are you in? That's the
story you're hearing and can we at least dip into hearing the other two stories and see what might be
there.

Steve Porges (19:43):


That's beautiful. And you can see the overlap with other models of therapy like internal family systems
and people study identity disorders. And that's when those narratives, or those different states, become
rigid and the boundaries become less fluid. What Deb is saying, that this is part of who we are. And in a
very simple way, we are first of all in ventral, we co-regulate, we connect. We're aggressive and
aggressor and defensive when we're in a more sympathetically dominated state. And we become a
victim when we strike down and we become more dorsal vagal. We immobilize under threat, we
become submissive.
The interesting part is, those that do not have a good channel or route into that ventral vagal
social engagement system, are going to spend their life oscillating between aggressor and victim states.
And this is very common. Often, they will do things of, let's say, high risk behaviors to keep mobilized.
Because as long as they're mobilized, they can't go back down into that shutting down state. They will
develop their own adaptive strategies to keep the body moving. But it's still not a co-regulatory strategy
and this is where therapy comes in. And this is what Deb is doing. She's enabling ... Enabling is, I would
say, the magic word. She's enabling the client's nervous system to feel supported enough, to be
witnessed enough, to be co-regulatory to get that momentary experience of feeling comfortable in the
presence of another.

Zach Taylor (21:31):

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And the language Deb seems to use around that is, let's bring ventral with us. I've heard it a few
different ways, but let's see if we can bring some ventral energy to the sympathetic state. Let's see if we
can bring ventral to the dorsal state. I'm wondering, is this just language or what's going on
physiologically?

Steve Porges (21:56):


Let me respond to that. When I first started with the Polyvagal Theory, I started talking about three
states. The three types of emerging properties. One being social engaging, being the ventral vagal state.
The second being sympathetic fight flight. The third being shutting down ventral vagas. And then I said,
is that the world we want to live in? That's not the world we want to live in. We want to l ive in a safe
world. And when we're in a safe world, what do we do with these other components of our autonomic
nervous system? How do we co-op those defensive circuits and make them sociable?
If we keep the ventral vagal circuit onboard with us, we regulate their sympathetics. And what
we call that is play, or dancing and we [inaudible 00:22:45] the features of good play, or reciprocal play
and dancing, will have all the social engagement features of face to face, intonation of voice, social
referencing. Which is really, co-regulating, but while moving. And what do we do when we link the
ventral vagas with the dorsal? We're comfortable in the arms of another, we have moments of intimacy.
We have shared moments of intimacy. We don't need to look in the person's face, we can hear their
voice or we can feel their body conforming. We create these hybrid systems in which the ventral vagal
circuit is both the choreographer, the words I actually said in one webinar, I said the ventral vagas circuit
acts as a choreographer, but also a cheerleader. It says, "Let's get together and let's play. Let's get
together and feel good with each other."
It is, in a sense, the great organizer of the other components of the autonomic nervous system.
And that's how social interactions are helpful, not only for mental health, but they support physical
health. They help our body go into states of homeostasis, they help growth restoration. They're
supporters. If we get that ventral vagas and take it with us, we are now able to regul ate our body on
multiple levels.

Deb Dana (24:11):


And I think for me in the clinical world, rather than when a client goes to sympathetic or dorsal, just
immediately leaving that. And which gives a message that that's not a good place to be. I think when we
say, "Well, let's bring some ventral with us so that we can safely explore," it's a very different experience
for clients. Because as Steve says, the goal's not to only have ventral, only be in ventral. I like the
choreographer and the cheerleader, that's lovely. Let's bring some ventral with us as we dip into th ese
other places. And it's a different client experience. I call it this befriending the nervous system [inaudible
00:24:55] process that we're in. And that's the befriending when we can go bring some ventral, which
allows us to connect with sympathetic and dorsal.

Steve Porges (25:05):


That's an interesting part of our training, is that I think people have been misunderstanding the
sympathetic nervous system and thinking of it as a fight or flight system. But it's also an exuberant
system, it's an energy system. And we need to respect that. We need to know when we ne ed
sympathetic activation to feel good for our organs to work. Likewise, the dorsal vagas is not really
shutting down. It's a system that supports homeostasis in our visceral organs. We don't want to think
that our autonomic nervous system just evolved for defense, it evolved to keep us healthy and
interactive. The problem is when it goes into defense. And that's where therapy can be helpful as we re -

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educate individuals to become more aware of the bodily reactions and more respectful of both the
positive attributes that it gives to enable interactions. But, also these unique and powerful defensive
strategies that are wired into it, that often are lifesaving at times. It can interfere with co-regulation if
the system is literally stuck in these defensive modes.

Zach Taylor (26:12):


I think it's easy when you first hear about Polyvagal Theory to think that sympathetic and dorsal states
of our nervous system are in some ways just defensive and almost always bad. And you want to stay in
ventral. But what I hear you saying is, it's only when those states become defense mechanisms or you
get stuck there or get over activated that they can really trip us up.

Steve Porges (26:41):


Right. In a way, if sympathetics don't have a ventral component with them, that ventral vagas, then you
probably are moving into defense state. Similarly, if your body goes into a dorsal vagal state and you
don't have the social support, the loving person near you, even if you're very ill or you start moving into
coma or immobilization, then it's very possible that the body will not be able to get into it's homeostatic
mode. We are always reaching for a little bit of ventral vagas into our life. And Deb has beautifully
articulated that, in simple terms. I've learned, because I've been giving talks on Polyvagal Theory to
clinicians for over a decade now, it's more lIke 15 years. No, it's longer than that now. But I've realized
that there was initially this grabbing, people were grabbing onto sympathetics and dorsal vagal as bad.
There's a necessity to do a re-education of it's exchange by lectures. Because the lectures which
I thought were talking only about the defensive roles of the system, people were thinking that's
[inaudible 00:27:57] nervous system is for. No, your autonomic nervous system is for your health,
growth and restoration. It's for homeostasis. And we can operationally redefine stress by saying , we're
in stress when those responsibilities of the autonomic nervous system are compromised. When
homeostatic functions become dampened, that's stress. And that's measurable, it's not a psychological
construct. We can see this in changes in the feedback loops of how our autonomic nervous works.

Deb Dana (28:31):


I like to remind therapists that we're always telling our clients that it's not that we get pulled out of
ventral that's the problem, it's when we get pulled out and get stuck. Because we all come and go all the
time in big ways and small ways. I'm sure this morning, we've all had some nuanced movements where
we've had less ventral in the system and maybe gone to some dorsal disappearing for a moment. But we
come back. It's when our clients leave and can't find their way back to ventral and can't take any ven tral
with them. That rigidity in the system, that then brings suffering, both physical and psychological
suffering. And that ability to keep coming back to finding your way back to ventral, it's resilience. That's
the definition of resilience.

Steve Porges (29:23):


I would almost say that if you could share a metaphor with your clients, that is, do they trust? If they
have the moment of feeling trust, they have part of their ventral with them, because that's really the
part of our body that allows us to trust. We use terms like attachment and we talk about attachment
disturbances as a basis for certain types of pathologies. But attachment becomes confusing in terms of
what it really means. And I'm much more comfortable with saying, "Does your body trust being in
proximity with another?" I use the word appropriate mammal. It could be human, but it can also be a
dog. And what you often find out is that people can be comfortable with a dog but not with a human,

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because of their trauma history. And that's interesting in itself, it means that they can take part of the
ventral with them, but not with another human being because the associations. This is now a learning
theory construct of trust being violated by a human created such a profound retuning in their autonomic
reactivity and that they can be safe or trust. The core point of being able to take ventral with you, is the
construct of safety and trust.

Deb Dana (30:39):


And I think we saw in the demos, this talks about this co-regulation piece as well, but I always ask my
clients, "Can you feel me here with you? There's a lot of ... I'm here with you, I've got you, we're
together." And then that question, do you want me to go with you as we travel to the other states is
really bringing this trust alive. Which is what is the therapeutic relationship. That's what we all therapists
do. Am I a trusting and trustworthy person for your nervous system? Is my nervous system sending you
that capacity to connect with me in that way? And I just make it explicit by saying, "Do you want me to
go with you?" And, "I'm right here with you."

Steve Porges (31:25):


Deb, it sounds like trust functions like an eraser for shame [inaudible 00:31:33]. Giving an example, if
they trust or feel comfortable enough to take you there, what they're really saying is, they're not in a
state of shame. They're in a state of accessibility, maybe only for a little while, but they have that
capacity and that starts to expand. And so you're working with that accessibility, but you're also working
with something else. Many people come into therapy with numbness where they don't even feel the
body. You're getting them first to feel and then become accessible to feelings. There's not only a
[inaudible 00:32:13], there's a sequential movement of capacity, of in a sense, understanding our
bodies.

Zach Taylor (32:23):


It's really interesting to understand that these other states of our nervous system have multiple roles
and they're not just bad or defensive in nature. I'm thinking about the summer that I studied jujitsu. And
I'm not a martial artist, I learned that summer that I wasn't a martial artist. But, in that summer I learned
how to have aggression without anger. And I'm starting to think right now, that there's something about
being in a sympathetic state ... You mentioned that being in sympathetic with ventral is a play state. I
wonder if being in sympathetic without anger is a positive aggression like in martial arts where you are
aggressive, but you're not overwhelmed by [inaudible 00:33:10] You feel centered and safe in your
actions.

Steve Porges (33:18):


I would say absolutely, because what happens when people get too worked up, they go into a tantrum.
And a tantrum doesn't serve you well in martial arts. That's part of the theme. It's to be contained, it's to
recruit the sympathetics and mobilization, but to keep it contained. That container is part of the v entral
vagal circuit, because you're maintaining a degree of awareness of other, an awareness of self. Also,
you're detecting accurately risk, but not mistreating it.

Zach Taylor (33:53):


Yeah. Anyways, it's a fascinating realization in that moment, as your speaking.

Deb Dana (33:59):

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What I like to work with my clients with, which speaks to what you were talking about is, there's a
difference between being alert which has some ventral component to it and alarmed, which is your
sympathetic nervous system going into it's survival state. It's lovely to play with that subtle difference
and feel it.

Steve Porges (34:20):


I think the martial arts become a very interesting model because it starts off as play. That's part of how
you were trained. You're trained with using the social structures of co-regulation and then you've since
developed a skillset through all those exercises of maintaining that, potentially, under real threat. But
your body's not going into this hyper alert state where you can't control it.

Zach Taylor (34:48):


Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah, fascinating. Shifting gears a little bit, you mentioned sharing your nervous
system and co-regulation. I have learned watching Deb over three sessions how important this co-
regulation piece is. Let's move into that a little bit, particularly in the third session where the client is a
complex trauma survivor and now facing yet another crisis in her life, which is the loss of her dog of nine
or 10 years, which seems to be a attachment figure. A co-regulating figure for her. Corrected [crosstalk
00:35:27] completed my language there. Let's talk about this co-regulation piece. Because particularly in
that session, Deb talked a lot about, why don't you use my ventral system for now. Or, let me share my
ventral system. Are you feeling my ventral energy? Because the client couldn't really stay in her own.
She kept dropping into this dorsal, shut down state. And much of the session it was Deb holding her in
her ventral arms, if you will. And it was a fascinating session to watch. But, let's talk a little bit about that
co-regulation and the value and importance it is in a Polyvagal informed treatment.

Steve Porges (36:20):


I'll will start. Polyvagal theory really evolved from this whole notion of connectedness and co -regulation
that's unique to mammals I should say. Mammals as a collection of species, co-regulates. This starts with
the newborn coming out and having to be held in ventral state of the mother and comforted and
regulated in terms of thermoregulation, food and everything. What is Deb is doing when she's saying,
"Use my ventral state," she's saying in other words, "You can trust me. You don't have to be defensive."
She's, in a sense, throwing cues that a nervous system can't refuse. She's using prosodic voice, she's
using appropriate gesture and appropriate proximity to a person who doesn't have much resource.
What she's becoming is this appropriate witness, this appropriate support individual, who is
responding to, but keeping the individual in contact. The co-regulation or sharing the nervous system is
really, I would say, it's the goal of Polyvagal informed therapy. It's also a part of the therapy. When
people come into therapy, what are they really often saying? They're saying, "I really want to have a
relationship, I want to have friends, I want to have a lover, or I want to be involved with someone. But
my body, if I hug someone, retracts. I pull back, I'm not safe".
And in this case, Deb is working with someone who had a significant appropriate mammal, a
dog. A fully trusting dog, because dogs, that's the beauty of them in a relationship. They are a hundred
percent trustable. And so that became part of her life, that was her narrative of how she felt safe and
that was now removed from her. Her co-regulator was now not available. And now that is really a
traumatic experience. And Deb is saying to her, "Be safe with me. At least safe with me for a few
minutes and let's see how you can feel this feelings of trust and safety and where is your body going?
Can you deal better now with the loss that you experienced?"

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Deb Dana (38:44):
I think for me, when I do that it's really this offering my clients to have an autonomic experience that
they haven't had, or have not often had. That particular client talked about how everything is dangerous
growing up. Not a lot of autonomic connections that were safe, not a lot of experiences of feeling I can
trust this person that I'm with to keep me safe. Not only to not harm me, but to keep me safe. Both
experiences are needed. She probably felt that I was not a danger to her. But I also needed her to feel
that I was a safe restorative resource for her. And that was the nervous system to nervous system
experience. And then offering that experience, she got to taste what that was like. And you could see
that, her nervous system taking that in and beginning to shift in really interesting ways, just from tho se
moments of feeling that what I say is this predictable ongoing ventral holding of clients

Steve Porges (40:09):


This is quite wonderful. I've been in discussions with friends of mine who work with foster children. And
this gets at the root of what you're talking about, is if a child does not have any positive mental images
to reach for, they're very difficult to work with. I actually asked my friends, how do they deal with
children who are removed from their biological parents because of severe abuse? And of course the
initial reflexive response was, it's very difficult. Basically they can get little moments, this is exactly what
you're talking about, moments of which the child can feel safe enough to be interactive.
And often those safe enough moments result in a reflexive pulling back and protection of the
individual because of previous vulnerability of trust. But, through repeated interactions those windows
of co-regulations start to expand and then a relationship develops. What you're doing in a sense is a
neural exercise with the client. That, giving the client an experience of their bodily feelings ... they're
learning that their body can feel safe in the presence of another. And what does that feel like? What are
the emerging properties of that? How do they see the world? Which is how we entered into this
conversation. They would see the world more positive, they would see themselves as having a presence.
You start seeing those emerge in the client therapist interaction.

Zach Taylor (41:49):


There's one other concept that came up throughout the sessions and that's this concept of the vagal
break. This is a tricky one for me particularly. But, the vagal break in each session seemed to be tied to a
particular metaphor that was unique to the client. And I think in session one, the client's vagal break
image was that of adjusting sails. As a way of representing this action process in our vagus nerve that
can actually slow us down and pull us back up to a ventral state. Get us back regulated when it's
depressed. I think Deb talked about bicycle brakes, slowing you down and then you go down the hill. In
our demonstration, Deb and I did this together and my image that came of my vagal brake, was of skiing
and going down the slope. I can control how fast or how slow I go down that slope, by the way I use my
ski's. My ski's are my vagal brake.
I think in another session with the driving or riding phobia, the vagal brake was represented
through a hand movement. And then it was fast. Just refreshing people's memories after watching the
demonstrations, this concept of a vagal brake, I just want to pull that out and see if we can explo re that
a little more from a physiological perspective. Steve, what's really going on here with this vagal brake?

Steve Porges (43:33):


The vagus is inhibitory to our heart's pace maker, at least the ventral vagus is. And what that really
means is that if we pulled the vagus off the pacemaker, turn it off, our heart rates go up. Go up for most
people will be 90 to 120 beats per minute, if the vagus pulled off. But when the vagus is on, our heart

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rates are 60 to 80 beats per minute. It's more like a governor, it's keeping our heart at a slower rate, a
more comfortable rate, a more calming rate. But the vagal brake has this capacity to be removed
rapidly, instantaneously, which is how we could adjust our metabolic demands if we need to move
without stimulating the sympathetics. Because the sympathetics are in a sense a l ittle more sloppy, they
start recruiting their own chemical changes and we could functionally lose it. Meaning we go into
tantrums or get very angry. A person with a good vagal brake is both resilient and well regulated.
We have to think of this vagal brake as coming on and off as awe adjust to the demands of our
context. A person with a good vagal brake, a functional vagal brake, they're going to adjust the cardiac
output, their heart rate, primarily through that vagal brake through the whole day. And they won't have
the consequences of the sympathetic nervous system coming onboard.
In my research, we've also come up with another metric, which I call vagal efficiency. And that's
how effective and reliable that vagal brake is. You might have a strong vagal brake, but it may be very
unreliable. What we're looking at is a linear relationship between the expression of that vagal brake and
the heart rate. It's just telling us how efficient moving that brake on and off. Your metaphor of skiing and
adjusting it, in our own mind as you describe it, it sounds like a very efficient vagal brake.
A person who may be in Deb's clinic or office, may not have that efficient vagal brake because
they haven't really recruited it. And they haven't gone through the sufficient numbers of neural
exercises for the system to be working, because they really want to push it to the side and get into
defense. That's why it has to be done slower. The metaphors may be different. They may not be moving
down a ski slope,[inaudible 00:46:07] the sails, the winds, or the ability to pull a brake. And they have
this sense of confidence that it doesn't work and Stop.
But the vagal break is really how we keep calm. And it's also the mechanisms through which we
link the neuro regulation of our face and our voice to our heart. It's through that ventral vagal pathway
and when it's really communicating through the silent [inaudible 00:46:38] our heart slows up, calms us
down. If you go into other techniques like slow exhalation, that will recruit the vagal brake. And of
course when people get anxious, they take a deep breath where they push their diaphragm down and
they exhale slowly. And that enables that vagal break to be calmly. When people sing, they're exhaling
slowly.
We've also may find in a clinical situation, people may just start wanting to talk and keep talking
and talking and talking. But as they increase the duration of their phrases, they're using available break.
In a sense, the expelling of lots of words that may be meaningless, may have a very adaptive function in
calming the client. We need to witness not really what they're saying, but in a sense, the neuro
biological consequence of their expressions.

Deb Dana (47:38):


And because the vagal break is such a powerful piece of our biology and, and Steve really describes its
function beautifully, so articulately. I need to get better at that. But that's why I brought it into
movement and metaphor because it is a part of our biology that we can engage with and we can
practice and we can help it become more efficient. And in therapy we do that through imagery and
movement and then practice. Let's use that. And then let's imagine meeting a challenge, a slight
challenge and using your vagal break in that way. And then repeating that practice so when a client
comes up with their metaphor, their image or their movement ... and I love that part of it because
they're also different. I've heard thousands of different ways people feel, imagine their vagal break and
then to practice it, to use it, create skill in using your vehicle break and then your system becomes more
resilient.

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Steve Porges (48:47):
Well, there's another important point that is embedded in your response and that is visualization. And
we really haven't emphasized too much top down influence on the vagal break. But if we, in a sense, p ut
electrodes and monitor people's heart rates as they visualize events, whether they're safe exuberant
events or dangerous events, or even visualizing being on a roller coaster, which has a degree of safety
and also visual challenge, you'll get [inaudible 00:49:16] reaction. The top down as well as bottom up is
great in fact. And part of therapy is, in a sense, empowering the top down to be a container for this
physiological reactivity.

Zach Taylor (49:33):


Well, this has been an incredible journey. And everybody who's walked with us through this journey, I
want to congratulate you for making it this far. [inaudible 00:49:45] a lot of work being a therapist and
we know it's not always easy. And here at Psychotherapy Networker, we work every day to try to make
your lives better and help you do what you really want to do, which is improve client outcomes. And I
know Steve and Deb feel the same way so both of you thank you for being here. Thank you for being
part of this journey. We think that this polyvagal masterclass will be an incredible tool for the
participants. And really, really want to honor you and thank you for being a part of it and sharing your
wisdom, your knowledge, and a lifetime's worth of work so that other therapists can stand on your
shoulders, walk in your footsteps and go even further than any of us could imagine.
Thank you again. Thank you everybody for watching. Please make sure that you check out your
course portal, download the handouts which are useful with your clients, the personal profile map, the
vagal break handout, several others. Don't forget there's transcripts of every single module so that you
can follow along. If you want to go back and look up something, you'll be able to look in the transcripts
as well as the videos and we hope to see you back here joining us, The Psychotherapy Networker in
whatever way that is meaningful and useful to you in the future. So thanks again. My name is Zach
Taylor here at Psychotherapy Networker, with Deb Dana and Steve Porges, thank you all for going on
this journey with us. We'll see you next time.

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