Deb A. Dana - Polyvagal Exercises for Safety and Connection

Advance Praise

This book is a beautiful example of the notion that sensing, naming, and identifying what is going on inside is the first step to recovery. Deb Dana lucidly guides you to travel deep inside of yourself to become aware of how your internal surveillance systemthe safety settings of your autonomic nervous systemis the foundation of the way we feel, act, and think. This is a valuable manual to help you address your inner physiology and thereby create the necessary conditions for safety and connection.

Bessel A. van der Kolk, M.D., President, Trauma Research Foundation, Professor of Psychiatry, Boston University School of Medicine, author of NYT #1 Bestseller The Body Keeps the Score:Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

Whether or not you are familiar with Polyvagal Theory, I highly recommend this invaluable resource and guide. Deb Dana eloquently explains the physiology of fight/flight/freeze responses and offers creative strategies to increase self-awareness while simultaneously providing resourcing for re-grounding, self-soothing, resilience, and the capacity for safe connection with others. Step-by-step guidance for incorporating breathwork, guided imagery, somatic resourcing, journaling, art modalities, and movement provide a terrific roadmap for healing work that can be achieved both in and out of the therapists office.

Lisa Ferentz, LCSW-C, DAPA, trauma therapist, consultant, educator, and author of Treating Self-Destructive Behaviors in Trauma Survivors: A Clinicians Guide, Letting Go of Self-Destructive Behaviors: A Workbook of Hope and Healing, and Finding Your Ruby Slippers: Transformative Life Lessons From the Therapists Couch

Written with great intelligence and clarity, Deb Danas Polyvagal Exercises for Safety and Connection provides clinicians with everything they need to help clients become adept at managing the dysregulating survival responses of their nervous systems. Clients can immediately learn to implement a wealth of precise and practical tools, within and beyond the therapy room, to respond to and recover from the challenges of daily living with competence and courage.

Linda Graham, MFT, author of Resilience: Powerful Practices for Bouncing Back from Disappointment, Difficulty, and Even Disaster

Deb Dana has given a very clear, illuminating guide for therapists to help their clients embody deep healing. This essential book has excellent, user-friendly, and practical interventions that support polyvagal-informed treatment based on Stephen Porges research, which validates the success underlying all somatic therapies. She gives therapists relevant insights that help us facilitate a process from fear-induced threat responses towards healthy relational social engagement following natural physiological pathways and sequences. This book is a must-read for any therapist working with trauma and interested in efficient and effective treatment.

Diane Poole Heller, Ph.D., SEP, LPC, Developer of the DARe: Dynamic Attachment Re-patterning experience therapy model, author of Crash Course, Healing Your Attachment Wounds, and The Power of Attachment

A NORTON PROFESSIONAL BOOK

POLYVAGAL
EXERCISES
FOR SAFETY
AND
CONNECTION

50 CLIENT-CENTERED
PRACTICES

DEB DANA

FOREWORD BY STEPHEN W. PORGES

A NORTON PROFESSIONAL BOOK

Note to Readers: Standards of clinical practice and protocol change over time, and no technique or recommendation is guaranteed to be safe or effective in all circumstances. This volume is intended as a general information resource for professionals practicing in the field of psychotherapy and mental health; it is not a substitute for appropriate training, peer review, and/or clinical supervision. Neither the publisher nor the author(s) can guarantee the complete accuracy, efficacy, or appropriateness of any particular recommendation in every respect.

Copyright 2020 by Deborah A. Dana

All rights reserved

First Edition

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Cover design: Lauren Graessle

Cover art Alexandre Bardol / EyeEm / Getty Images

Production manager: Katelyn MacKenzie

The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

Names: Dana, Deb, author. | Porges, Stephen W., writer of foreword.

Title: Polyvagal exercises for safety and connection : 50 client-centered practices / Deb Dana ; foreword by Stephen W. Porges.

Description: First edition. | New York : W.W. Norton & Company, [2020] | Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019050472 | ISBN 9780393713855 (paperback) | ISBN 9780393713862 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Autonomic nervous system. | Psychic traumaTreatment. | Affective neuroscience. | Clinical psychology. | Client-centered psychotherapy.

Classification: LCC QP368 .D358 2020 | DDC 612.8/9dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019050472

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To my fellow travelers on this autonomic journey...

CONTENTS

As a professor whose research career has spanned five decades, I have had ample time to contemplate personal goals. During my career, I have observed the trajectories of my colleagues as they matured and transitioned through the academic ranks. Some welcomed becoming emeritus and continued to be actively involved in their science through research, writings, and presentations. Others seamlessly left the academic world and retired.

Being a professor is a demanding position that includes managing laboratories, teaching undergraduate students, mentoring graduate students and junior colleagues, writing grants and generating resources for research, networking within a discipline, welcoming professional tasks such as reviewing colleagues, manuscripts, and grant proposals, and serving on committees within institutions. Some of us also have served in administrative roles within institutions and professional societies, while others have built liaisons with government agencies and industry.

This complex portfolio of experiences has given me insight into how I developed and accepted the specific benchmarks that define my personal goals. As I observed my colleagues, I realized that many professors were frustrated at the end of their careers. They seemed to feel that they were not successful and had not accomplished anything meaningful. This self-evaluation was often structured by their institutions encouraging them to retire, their sense that they had not received the recognition that they felt that they deserved. They felt that no one remembered them and their contributions. My colleagues had spent decades defining themselves in terms of the structure of academic evaluations, and when they were no longer able to fund their research through federal grants, they felt abused and neglected. Basically, from a Polyvagal perspective, the academic world with its chronic evaluation strategies had triggered the bodies and minds of my colleagues into a chronic state of defense. For many who did not have a positive transition narrative, the experience of being a professor ended up abusive and isolating. Consistent with Polyvagal Theory, these experiences of vulnerability and chronic defense would retune autonomic state, leading to mental and physical health issues. Thus, we see that the experience of being a professor shares many attributes with abusive families and relationships. However, there is an important distinction: the experience of being a professor provides a powerful skillset that may be applied outside the university. Thus, if the professorial experiences are internalized as preparatoryenabling the scientist to deal with the challenges of the world outside of the universitythen the personal narrative changes from one of abuse to one of adaptive resilience. This resilience is associated with autonomic states that may lead not only to better mental and physical health, but also to bold expansive thinking and rewarding social interactions.