The Polyvagal Theory
The autonomic account of safety and threat. Widely taken up, and still debated.
This volume gathers Stephen Porges's laboratory research into a single account of how the mammalian autonomic nervous system regulates physiological state. He argues that the vagus carries two distinct branches, a phylogenetically newer, myelinated pathway supporting calm engagement while older circuits govern mobilisation and shutdown. He introduces neuroception, the body's continuous, pre-conscious reading of cues as safe, dangerous, or life-threatening, and ties felt safety to the capacity for social connection.
For the psychodynamic clinician, it offers a physiological vocabulary for states already met in the consulting room: the patient too activated to reflect, the flatness that follows overwhelm, the way a voice or a face can steady or unsettle an hour. It locates the regulating effect of the frame in bodily process, and gives a way to hold rupture and repair alongside interpretation.
Widely adopted in trauma work, the theory has also drawn sustained scientific challenge: Grossman and Taylor (2007) and Grossman (2023) contest its evolutionary and physiological claims, and Porges has answered in print.
About the author
Stephen Porges
Stephen W. Porges (born 1945) is a psychologist and neuroscientist based at Indiana University and at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he is Professor of Psychiatry. He originated polyvagal theory, a framework describing how the autonomic nervous system regulates physiological state, emotion and social behaviour. He set out this work in The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-Regulation (2011). His wider research covers psychophysiology and the study of stress and trauma.
Details
- 2011
- English
- W. W. Norton
- W. W. Norton, 2011
- 347
- 9780393707007