How the Polyvagal Bites CE Courses Can Offer Deeper Nourishment to All Clients
Are you a helping professional looking for body-based ways to help support oppositional patterns and coping mechanisms? Are you polyvagal curious?
I received a question by email the other day from a helping professional interested in the Polyvagal Bites CE series for professionals I offer with Dee Wagner, LPC, BC-DMT. This question seemed so important that it occurred to me to share both the question and the answer in a blog post.
Question: Since you mention “satisfy hunger” and “disordered eating” in your workshop description, is the Polyvagal Bites series for professionals courses specifically geared towards disordered eating, or can the skills the courses teach be applied more generally?
Answer: The Polyvagal Bites CE workshops place an emphasis on the spectrum of disordered eating but also other concerning, challenging, oppositional patterns and coping mechanisms that can benefit from therapeutic support and relational repair. Throughout each workshop in various, experiential ways, we repeatedly dive deeply into polyvagal theory, trauma response and attachment. We look at how the intersection of the three can shed light on common experiences and reactions and how those oppositional response patterns can be better supported.
The push-and-pull of what can get diagnosed as “Borderline” or “oppositional” tendencies can be seen as coping mechanisms. These coping mechanisms might include:
food/eating/dieting issues
chronic emotional eating
body disconnection or hyperfocus on body image
movement/exercise compulsivity or avoidance
oppositional, defiant, or acting-out behavior at home or school
self-harm
I love/hate you relational dances
Celebration versus Shaming
What's often missing in the treatment world and our culture at large is a celebration and handling of the push and pull that helps us become our unique selves. Little by little over many generations, parents have lost the awareness of the value of these relational "dances." The nerve firing that would flex the muscles to move the bones to begin the relational "dance" has gone into what polyvagal theory identifies as dorsal vagal Shut-down.
The push and pull moves are important for expressing preferences. When those moves have gone into Shut-down, it becomes difficult to know ourselves. It becomes difficult because we cannot sense what we do not like, and therefore what we like. When moves go into Shut-down, any expression of the moves becomes laced with shame.
When parents and helpers know how to better handle what often feels like bursts of challenging opposition, children and clients can more easily embody. Children are able to express preference. Caregivers can better guide children to bite into productive channels of expression and energy expenditure. The better children know themselves and what satisfies them, the more they can authentically cooperate with others.
With the push and pull moves, infants and children experience self-discovery in various stages. These important movements become compromised when they do not receive relational support. The Polyvagal Bites series offers psychoeducation and interactive learning exercises to show:
How infant developmental patterns serve as building blocks to one’s nervous system functioning
How professionals can make space for clients to better recognize these shutdown moves/urges in a trauma-informed way
How these patterns can be healthily integrated, digested and channeled instead of pathologized
Strengthening the Helping Relationship
In the Polyvagal Bites series, helping professionals learn how to use the therapeutic relationship to assist clients in retrieving and re-integrating what we call “Push” and “Reach/Grab/Pull,” to name a few. Push and Reach/Grab/Pull are Chi for Two® partner practices that help us embody polyvagal theory. They help everyone strengthen what scientist Stephen Porges—creator of the polyvagal theory—calls our Social Engagement system functioning.
The Chi for Two partner practices shift nervous system functioning from chronic trauma response to more supportive Social Engagement functioning. With strengthened Social Engagement system functioning, one has an increased ability to honor:
physiological rhythms (hunger, fullness, rest, work, play)
varied emotional states
relationship with self and others in a satisfying way
Join us
Evolving trauma education and neuroscience research continues to shine light on the importance of healthy relationships for healing and well-being. With scientists' enthusiasm for supportive relational dances, we propose that all helping professionals can benefit from Polyvagal Bites training. Some professionals work specifically with identifiable disordered eating issues, and all mental health professionals are beginning to recognize an increasing need for deeper nourishment in relational ways.
Thanks for asking!
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