Polyvagal Flip Chart: Understanding the Science of Safety (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology)

Offers therapists a low tech–high impact, interactive way to explain polyvagal theory to clients.

When clients are stuck in the cognitive experience of their story, an explanation of polyvagal theory helps to bring their attention to the autonomic experience— to bring the importance of the biology of their experience back into awareness. Yet polyvagal theory can be challenging and intimidating to explain.

This flip chart offers therapists an easy, standardized way to support clients in understanding the role of the autonomic nervous system in their lives. Using a flip chart makes psycho-education an interactive experience. Therapists can feel confident in teaching their clients polyvagal theory by following the chart.

With a flip chart visible during sessions, the therapist can:

remind clients of the ways the autonomic nervous system has been shaped and is active in their daily living experience display a page corresponding to the present moment, thus anchoring that experience in the theory keep a page of the hierarchy visible when working with a client's habitual response pattern support clients' understanding of their own emotional responses and the role of autonomous nervous system in their lives