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15 Hour In-Person & Live-Online Course
Monday - Friday: 9:00a.m. - 12:30p.m. EDT / 30-Minute Break Daily
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Course Description
The autonomic nervous system is at the heart of daily living powerfully shaping experiences of safety and influencing the capacity for connection. Operating outside of conscious awareness, autonomic circuits assess safety and initiate actions to help us navigate the challenges of daily living. Polyvagal Theory, through the organizing principles of hierarchy, neuroception, and co-regulation, has revolutionized our understanding of how this system works. We now know that trauma interrupts the development of autonomic regulation and shapes the system away from connection into patterns of protection. With an updated map of the autonomic circuits that underlie behaviors and beliefs, we can reliably lead our clients out of adaptive survival responses into the autonomically regulated state of safety that is necessary for successful treatment.
A Polyvagal Theory guided approach to therapy begins with helping clients map their autonomic profiles and track their moment to moment movement along the autonomic hierarchy. With this foundation, the essential clinical questions address how to help clients interrupt habitual response patterns and find safety in a state of engagement. Polyvagal Theory gives therapists a guide to becoming a co-regulating resource and concrete ways to help clients find, and savor, experiences of safety. Working from a foundation of Polyvagal Theory, therapists have practical ways to effectively help clients identify and interrupt their familiar response patterns and strategies to shape their autonomic nervous systems toward safety and connection.
In this experiential workshop participants will first learn the basics of Polyvagal Theory and then work with practices designed to bring the power of Polyvagal Theory directly into clinical work. Working individually and in dyads, participants will experiment with multiple ways to map autonomic responses, skills to safely explore patterns of action, disconnection, and engagement, and techniques to build autonomic regulation and resilience. The workshop will bring Polyvagal Theory into practical application with a roadmap to help clients safely tune into their autonomic states, reshape their nervous systems, and rewrite the trauma stories that are carried in their autonomic pathways.
Monday
The Science of Connection
Understanding the organizing principles of Polyvagal Theory
The neurophysiology of safety and survival
How the nervous system shapes physical and psychological experience
The challenge to “notice and name”: An introduction to autonomic mapping
Creating a personal profile map
Tuesday
Patterns of Connection and Protection
Neuroception and how it guides us
Evolution of the Social Engagement System
Sending cues of safety
Tracking autonomic state shifts
Identifying Triggers and Glimmers
Wednesday
Navigating Autonomic Pathways
Anchoring in the ventral vagal system
Recovering from dorsal vagal collapse
Safely moving through sympathetic mobilization
SIFTing and Savoring
Building co-regulating skills
12:45-2:15pm: Clinical Demo Session with Q&A
Thursday
Resetting the Nervous System
Regulation through the Social Engagement System
Exercising the vagal brake
Autonomic portals of intervention: Breath, movement, touch, sound
Rupture and repair through the lens of the autonomic nervous system
Exploring the autonomic challenges of play and intimacy
Friday
The Power of a Polyvagal Perspective
Nuts and bolts of a Polyvagal informed therapy session: Demonstration and discussion
Getting comfortable teaching Polyvagal Theory to clients
From micro to macro: Polyvagal Theory across multiple domains
How does Polyvagal Theory change the way you practice? The responsibilities of a polyvagal-informed therapist
What Alumni are Saying...
"Deb is a gifted teacher. She is so skilled at taking complex concepts and making them applicable and real." - 2022 Participant
"Deb is a Master Clinician and a phenomenal teacher who is able to translate and demonstrate complex scientific findings into usable clinical tools." - 2022 Participant
"Deb Dana is an incredible human being! What a treat to have spent the week with her. She so beautifully and fully embodies what she teaches. My favorite CE experience so far!" - 2022 Participant
"I was pleasantly surprised at how engaged I was as an online participant. I believe the breakout rooms helped in addition to Deb’s style and pace of presenting the material." - 2022 Participant
"Fantastic online experience. Smooth transition between speaker and break out rooms and answers to questions." - 2022 Participant
Learn more about the Cape Cod Institute from former participants
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