How can we help clients better understand when their nervous system is going into “defense mode”?
According to polyvagal theory, the nervous system has three pathways it can follow in the face of a threat. By helping clients map these pathways, they can begin to identify their triggers and develop strategies for staying grounded.
That’s why we made this free infographic based on the work of Stephen Porges, PhD, and Deb Dana, LCSW. We hope you’ll share it with your clients.
Click the image to enlarge
Based on ideas from Stephen Porges, PhD and Deb Dana, LICSW. According to polyvagal theory, the nervous system has three pathways, each designed to protect you.Think of ventral vagal as the nervous system’s optimal state. This is the state from which we can engage socially, and connect and co-regulate with others. In this state, we often feel more calm, curious, grounded, and safe.
But when you carry a history of trauma, relationships can be particularly triggering, making it difficult to feel safe connections with others. So, the nervous system starts seeking out alternative pathways of protection:
The sympathetic pathway is a defensive pathway that gets the body to mobilize into a fight or flight response, or an attach/cry-for-help response. In this state, we might feel fear, panic, irritation, anger, or even rage.
The dorsal vagal pathway is a defensive pathway that gets the body to immobilize into a collapse/shutdown response. In this state, we may feel numb, depressed, ashamed, hopeless, or lethargic. We may dissociate.
Understanding these responses can help you recognize when your nervous system is going into “defense mode.” Your therapist may be able to help you identify what triggers these responses so that you can develop strategies to manage them and get grounded.
(If you’re sharing this infographic, please attribute it to NICABM. We put a lot of work into creating these resources for you. And if you’re sharing this digitally, please link back to this page in your attribution. Thanks!)
If you’d like to print a copy, you can use one of these links:
For more insights from Polyvagal Theory, have a look at this short course featuring Stephen Porges, PhD.
Now we’d like to hear from you in the comments below. How has Polyvagal Theory informed your work with clients? Please let us know.
If you found this helpful, here are a few more resources you might be interested in:
Polyvagal Theory and Trauma with Stephen Porges, PhD and Ruth Buczynski, PhD
Polyvagal Theory & Perfectionism – A Brief Case Study
Rethinking Trauma – Stephen Porges and the Polyvagal Theory
Your infographics are the BEST! I use them all the time with clients and in teaching others. Any chance you could make them in different languages? I feel like there are others who could benefit from your knowledge, if they could have it in their own language. Again thank you all for your great work teaching others about the importance of being trauma-informed.
Hi Julia! We agree that others may benefit with translations that is why we are currently working on getting translations available for everyone. Thank you for your feedback and we hope that this becomes available soon!
Hi, I would love to help you with translating the infographics and the website content into Brazilian Portuguese! Who can I write about that?
Hi Mariana, feel free to send us an email at respond@nicabm to share this information with us!
Hi, I would gladly help you translate the infographics and webpage content to Spanish.
Thank you so much for your free offerings I follow you on here and forward things to my daughter who has 70 or more children in her care children who have been removed from their homes and are traumatized she works hard to educate and provide them with trauma-based counselling but it is a privately funded foundation with limited resources always for accessing materials that can help
Wonderful infographic, thankyou! Simple and clear – very useful resource to assist working with clients to understand their trauma responses.
Thank you for this very easy to understand infograph about our nervous system and trauma. I have been studying this topic for a while and this infograph helps explain in lay person’s term.
Thank you so much for your kindness in sharing such a great tool. 100% credit will go to NICABM.
Thank you for that you do make me see my own issues and traumas. And I will definitely attribute it to NICABM when I share it.
Thank you for this. Working with my clients through the lens of the Polyvagal Theroy they have another perspective around their emotions and behaviours.
They seem to really like it, and can learn to ‘pause’ and notice what’s going on in their bodies and where the reaction is coming from, related perhaps to historical schémas.. Then they can change their reactions to others by regulating their nervous system.
Thanks for the diagram, very helpful.
I love this!
Thank you for providing us with an adult picture book. Is there a name for the sympathic + the dorsal vagal systems?
Is there a typo in the Sympathetic box? I was thinking “attach” mught need correcting to “attack”.
Interesting the words are so similar with such opposite meanings.
This is a great iconograph. Thank you.
Yes, that occurred to me as well.
Hi Jacqui, thank you for bringing this up!
I can definitely understand how this might appear like a typo; however the response we are referring to is actually called the attach/cry-for-help response.
If you’re interested in learning more about this response, we have a few free resources that may be able to provide a brief explanation:
A Mistake Practitioners Might Make When Their Patient Is Stuck in the “Attach/Cry-for-Help” Response
How the Nervous System Responds to Trauma
We also have a course, The Advanced Master Program on the Treatment of Trauma, that goes much more in-depth into what the attach/cry-for-help response is and how to work with it.
I’m glad that you enjoyed this infographic. If you have any other questions or concerns, please let us know!
This info graphic will help couples understand that that their partner is not reacting consciously or (initially) intentionally.
It will help to curtail the blaming of self &/or other, empowering each to work to self-regulate in more productive ways!
Thank you for your generosity!
~Lori
TransitionByDesign.com
Thank you so much for the wonderful education you do. This makes it so much easier for people to begin to think of their emotional states as something that they can learn to ‘unravel and re-construct’ as opposed to fixed features of their personalities. So so important for our maturation process of integrating ‘big emotions’ and making decisions from the ‘grey areas’ and not from ‘black / OR white’ as it were.
Thank you so very much for your quality continued education programs and very helpful “handouts” as was this “mapping response.” You and your presenters continue to provide valued, relevant, timely and high quality information and online workshops. You have been much appreciated for many years and continue to offer so much to health care providers. Again, thank you.