Section 4 Flashcards
How does the autonomic nervous system work as a relational system?
It is toned in experience with others and serves as the platform to help establish connections. When one nervous system enters into a back and forth communication with another, a feedback loop is established.
If signals conveyed are cues of safety, reciprocity, and resonance, then connection is increased. If cues are ones of danger, the outcome is dysregulation and protection through disconnection.
The energy of reciprocity
The energy of reciprocity is one of sending care back and forth, of shared intimacy, of balance in the relational exchange. Reciprocity is not equality, but it is also not a greater or less than experience always flowing in one direction.
Three elements of a foundation of safety in relationship
1) Moments of Reciprocity
2) Shared Autonomic Language – helps clients learn to speak for their experiences of connection and disconnection
3) Trust in the willingness and ability to be responsible for autonomic states - through a therapist’s actions and use of the notice-and-name skills, a commitment to autonomic responsibility and regulation is demonstrated. Over time, a client’s beliefs change as they wire in the new neural expectations that their therapist is predictably reciprocal and that ruptures are common, can be small and not life threatening, and most importantly can be repaired.
Exercise: The reciprocity, rupture and repair process
1) Track reciprocity – pay attention to the nervous system and cues that we have fallen out of reciprocity
2) Notice and name the rupture - done in the language of the autonomic nervous system, rather than the story of the rupture. E.g. describe autonomic state change “I noticed a shift toward disconnection” and identification of cues of danger “I felt a sympathetic alarm in response to your voice” and “When you moved a bit away from me, I felt myself mobilize to fight and then quickly collapse”
3) Find the right repair - take time to explore what your client’s autonomic needs are to feel fully repaired and reconnected. If often takes a few attempts to find the regulating words.
4) Come back to connection - make an intentional, explicitly named return to relational connection. Take time to savor the experience of resolution – this will help create the autonomic expectation of safely navigating future repairs.
Ujjayi breath
Fogging up a mirror breath. Increases vagal tone.
What does a sigh mean? How can it be used?
From an activated sympathetic state, sighing returns the autonomic nervous system to parasympathetic balance. Can be used intentionally - though make sure your client explains this to the people around them :)
Exercise: Two Breaths in Transition
Designed for clients to intentionally move between a breath of fear and a sigh of relief.
Breath of fear can be thought of as the client reacting to something frightening in a dramatic manner. It is initiated with a sense of startle accompanied by a quick, audible inhalation and a brief holding of breath. One hand moves to the heart, the shoulders tense upward.
The sigh of relief that follows begins with the release of breath in an audible, deep sigh characterized by a long,s slow exhalation and some form of resistance either through an ujjayi breath or slightly pursed lips.
Exercise: Me and We breath
Inhale moving into internal connection and synchrony with self. Exhale transitioning into connection with the world outside yourself and into harmony with others. Inhale into individual experience. Exhale into shared experience.
Effect of touch on the nervous system and how it can be used in therapy
Touch stimulates the autonomic nervous system. It can convey presence and empathy. Work with your client on a touch agreement that maps out what touch is regulating vs dysregulating. When you engage in that touch, you can name it and state the intention (bring regulating energy)
Exercise: Savoring the State/Experience
Bring attention to a moment of ventral vagal regulation
Stay present to the physical sense and actively receive the fullness of hte experience (emotion, belief and body)
Stay in the savoring experience for 20-30 seconds
Exercise: SIFTing as A Resource
1) Find an experience – either the immediate moment in therapy or a moment the client has thought of.
2) Have your client tell the story of the memory
3) Break down the experience in terms of Sensations, Images, Feelings and Thoughts. Start with the element that feels most alive and accessible. Repeat that back to the client and then move to the next layer.
4) Then narrate the full SIFT for the client and invite them to rest in the completed SIFT and let it fill their body/mind
5) Potentially write the SIFT on an index card for the client and give it a title. Experiment with its use as a resource, for example in pendulation between that pleasant SIFT and a dysregulating memory
Exercise: Continuums
An alternative to categorical thinking that brings nuance.
1) Help your client choose a habitual experience or belief and have them name the familiar end of the continuum and the opposite end.
2) Invite the client to explore the space between the ends. What happens when they think about moving back and forth along the continuum? How does their autonomic state shift and their story shift?
What play is from an autonomic perspective
Its a blend of ventral vagal and sympathetic. The vagal brake relaxes, allowing the sympathetic mobilization of play, then reengages before the mobilization turns from play into protection.
What stillness with others is
Dorsal vagal circuit + ventral vagal working together. For example, the act of sitting in silence with someone without feeling the need to fill the space with words is a measure of feeling safe in stillness. Finding moments to sit together in silence during the therapy session can help.
Examples of ways to experiment with stillness in everyday life
Best if client comes up with these. E.g. moments of self-reflection, periods of silence in conversation, sitting quietly next to a person, finding a safe person with whom to explore physical contact including holding hands and hugging
