The Polyvagal Backpack

Students learn best when they understand their own nervous systems.

The optimal state for learning is one of safety, connection, motivation, and engagement. Every student and teacher is different, but there’s one thing each has in common: a responsive nervous system ready for action. Whether it’s a fight breaking out on the playground, a difficult conversation with a parent, or an impromptu fire drill, understanding how the nervous system responds can help keep teachers and students on an even keel. Polyvagal Theory (PVT) has had a tremendous impact on the mental health field, shedding light on how the nervous system predictably moves between different states in response to changing situations. School consultant Debra Em Wilson introduces PVT to educators and shows how using PVT-guided strategies can help create optimal learning environments. When school staff understand the role of the nervous system in learning, they can better help students develop the skills leading to increased resilience, adaptability, and flexibility: essential qualities for social, emotional, and academic success.

The Polyvagal Theory is one of the most important contemporary theories when it comes to therapy and coaching as well as for personal self-development. It helps to understand yourself and your psyche in a much better way than ever before. It also explains how and why we relate to the world around us the same way we do. Every person applying this theory in life will get a far-reaching tool for regulating themselves and handling others. Never has there been another possibility of that kind. The origin from Stephen W. Porges is in parts hard to understand because it is solely scientific. After long research, the author has managed to craft a book that keeps the original valuable content and knowledge but makes it much easier to read and understand. Pictures and graphic works support essential points. This work is a profound primer for the Polyvagal Theory that includes all essential principles and understandably explains them.

This book is designed to educate sex therapists and mental health professionals on the power of using sand when treating sexual issues, providing guidance in accessing their clients’ unconscious to seek new ways of healing. Uniquely integrating sex therapy with sand therapy, Dawson describes how understanding and applying non-pathological theories and neuroscience to different modalities, such as Internal Family Systems and Polyvagal Theory, can help clients move forward from shame, sexual dysfunctions, and trauma. The book begins by introducing how therapists can use sand as a doorway into using metaphor and imagery in their practice, with information on how the nervous system keeps somatic experiences trapped in the body being explored. Written in an easy, accessible style, the book also includes handouts, belief cards, and case studies throughout to help therapists see the benefits of using sand with clients in practice. Including forewords by Dr. Lorraine Freedle and Doug Braun-Harvey, this book is geared toward mental health professionals, such as sex therapists and marriage and family therapists, who are working with individuals and couples seeking treatment from complex trauma and mental and sexual health issues. It will appeal to students as well as advanced mental health clinicians looking to expand their therapeutic tool kit.

The definitive Handbook of Trauma-Transformative Practice brings together the work of leading international trauma experts to provide a detailed overview of trauma-informed practice and intervention: its history, the latest frameworks for practice and an inspiring vision for future trauma-transformative practice. The Handbook is interdisciplinary, incorporating trauma research, interpersonal neuroscience, the historical and continuing experiences of victims and survivors, and insights from practitioners. It addresses a range of current issues spanning polyvagal theory, the social brain, oxytocin and the healing power of love, and the neuropsychological roots of shame. It also considers trauma through the lens of communities, with chapters on healing inter/transgenerational trauma and building communities' capacity to end interpersonal violence. Furthermore the Handbook makes the case for a new way of thinking about trauma - trauma transformative practice. One which is founded on the principle of working with the whole person and as part of a network of relationships, rather than focusing on symptoms to improve practice, healing and recovery.

Imagine a graph with two lines. One indicates happiness, the other tracks how you feel about your body. If you’re like millions of people, the lines do not intersect. But what if they did? This practical, inspirational, and visually lively book shows you how to create a healthier and happier life by treating yourself with compassion rather than shame. It shows the way to a sense of well-being attained by understanding how to love, connect, and care for yourself—and that includes your mind as well as your body. Body Kindness is based on four principles. WHAT YOU DO: the choices you make about food, exercise, sleep, and more HOW YOU FEEL: befriending your emotions and standing up to the unhelpful voice in your head WHO YOU ARE: goal-setting based on your personal values WHERE YOU BELONG: body-loving support from people and communities that help you create a meaningful life With mind and body exercises to keep your energy spiraling up and prompts to help you identify what YOU really want and care about, Body Kindness helps you let go of things you can't control and embrace the things you can by finding the workable, daily steps that fit you best. Think of it as the anti-diet book that leads to a more joyful and meaningful life!

This book is a scientifically current, integrative, and practical guide for understanding clinical hypnosis and its place within a new health care paradigm. Blending four original short stories with a treatise, it alternates narrative prose with health science discourse to create a framework for embracing systemic emotional and relational elements that lie beyond diagnosis, medication, surgery, and psychotherapy. Following the stories of four characters, the authors establish an empirically-grounded conceptualization of the mind, then demonstrate how practical applications of therapeutic hypnosis can help readers use individual and family resources in health and healing. Clinicians will learn to improve their care by embracing emotional, relational, and narrative elements that powerfully affect health beyond diagnosis, medication, surgery, and psychotherapy. Further, health care educators and policy makers will find inspiration that enriches professional training.

Captain Bunn founded SOAR to develop effective methods for dealing with flight anxiety. Therapists who have found this phobia difficult to treat will find everything they need to give their clients success. Anxious flyers who have “tried everything” to no avail can look forward to joining the nearly 10,000 graduates of the SOAR program who now have the whole world open to them as they fly anxiety free wherever they want. This approach begins by explaining how anxiety, claustrophobia, and panic are caused when noises, motions—or even the thought of flying—trigger excessive stress hormones. Then, to stop this problem, Captain Bunn takes the reader step-by-step through exercises that permanently and automatically control these feelings. He also explains how flying works, why it is safe, and teaches flyers how to strategically plan their flight, choose the right airlines, meet the captain, and so on. Through this program, Captain Bunn has helped thousands overcome their fear of flying. Now his book arms readers with the information they need to control their anxiety and fly comfortably.