Format: Audio MP3 file download

Presenter: Maggie Phillips, PhD

Relational Safety as the Treatment for Trauma and Pain: Polyvagal Contributions to the Countertransference Trance

The concept of safety is an important requirement for our early capacity to bond with significant others, and a sense of safety within our intimate relationships throughout life is central to our ability to trust. Dr. Stephen Porges, creator and researcher of the Polyvagal Theory, made the discovery that ?the detection of features of safety actively changed the autonomic state and fostered health, growth, and restoration as well as providing opportunities to connect and co-regulate.? Porges concluded that there are three branches of the ANS rather than two, which respond constantly to relational conditions mediated by safety and threat. Ventral vagal, social engagement, and co-regulation are in the lead, with the sympathetic adrenal (fight-flight) and dorsal vagus (freeze) coming online when there is significant threat. The polyvagal model suggests how we can become safe and healing havens for each other if we cultivate our own ventral capacities. This presentation focuses on how relational safety is the treatment for trauma and pain, and explores polyvagal contributions to the essential development of a positive countertransference trance (from the hypnotic perspective) for the therapist (Phillips & Frederick, 1995).