Come join Deb Dana, LCSW, for a weekend workshop! 

The autonomic nervous system is at the heart of daily living, powerfully shaping experiences of safety and influencing the capacity for connection.  How we move through the world—turning toward, backing away, sometimes attaching and other times isolating—is guided by this system.  We now understand how in response to traumatic experiences, autonomic pathways of connection are replaced with patterns of protection and the drive to survive operates in opposition to the need for connection.  With the development of Polyvagal Theory, therapists have a guide to the neurophysiological processes of mobilization, collapse, and social engagement and can reliably help clients reshape their autonomic responses and rewrite the stories that are carried in their autonomic pathways. With an updated map of the autonomic circuits that underlie behaviors and beliefs, we can lead our clients out of adaptive survival responses into the autonomically regulated state of safety that sets the stage for connection and is necessary for successful treatment.  

A Polyvagal Theory guided approach to therapy begins with helping clients map their autonomic profiles and track their moment-to-moment movement along the autonomic hierarchy.  With this foundation, the essential clinical questions address how to help clients interrupt habitual response patterns and find safety in a state of engagement.  Working from a foundation of Polyvagal Theory, therapists have a guide to becoming a regulated and co-regulating resource, practical ways to effectively help clients identify and interrupt their familiar response patterns, and strategies to shape their autonomic nervous systems toward safety and connection.

In this two-day, experiential workshop, Deb Dana shares her Polyvagal Theory guided approach to therapy.  We will look through the lens of the nervous system to explore how to answer the essential question, “What does the nervous system need in this moment to find safety in connection?”  Participants will engage in experiential practices to develop an embodied understanding of the organizing principles of Polyvagal Theory and bring the principles alive in clinical work.  Working individually and in dyads, you will work with multiple ways to track autonomic responses, skills to safely explore patterns of action, disconnection, and engagement, and techniques to build autonomic regulation and resilience.  In addition to experiential work, you will see examples of Polyvagal Theory guided therapy through demonstrations. While the principles and practices learned throughout this workshop are equally applicable to individuals, couples, families and groups, Deb will discuss how the delivery can change when applied to more than one person at a time.

As a result of these two days, participants be better able to:

1. Describe three organizing principles of Polyvagal Theory.
2. Describe how the autonomic nervous system shapes behaviors and beliefs.
3. Describe the ways in which neuroception shapes behavior.
4. Construct an autonomic map to identify the emergent properties of states.
5. Categorize the distinct stories that emerge from autonomic states.
6. Utilize tools to help regulate your own autonomic state to create an environment of safety for clients.
7. Utilize polyvagal-informed processes to help clients move from dysregulation to regulation.
8. Apply strategies that utilize the co-regulating pathways of the Social Engagement System in clinical work to improve clinical outcomes.
9. Assess for patterns in client autonomic states to inform treatment planning.
10. Evaluate the ethical responsibilities of being a polyvagal informed therapist.

Deb Dana, LCSW, is a clinician, consultant, author and speaker specializing in complex trauma. Her work is focused on using the lens of Polyvagal Theory to understand and resolve the impact of trauma in our lives. Deb’s work shows how an understanding of Polyvagal Theory is applicable across the board to relationships, mental health, and trauma.  She delves into the intricacies of how we can all use an understanding of the organizing principles of Polyvagal Theory to change the ways we navigate our daily lives.  Deb is well known for translating Polyvagal Theory into a language and application that is both clear and accessible and for pioneering Rhythm of Regulation® methodology, tools, techniques and practices which continue to open up the power of Polyvagal Theory for professionals and curious people from diverse backgrounds and all walks of life. 

Deb’s clinical work published with W.W. Norton includes The Polyvagal Theory in Therapy: Engaging the Rhythm of Regulation, Polyvagal Exercises for Safety and Connection: 50 Client Centered Practices, Polyvagal Practices: Anchoring the Self in Safety, the Polyvagal Flip Chart, and the Polyvagal Card Deck.  She partners with Sounds True to bring her polyvagal perspective to a general audience through the audio program Befriending Your Nervous System: Looking Through the Lens of Polyvagal Theory and her print book Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory. Deb can be contacted via her website www.rhythmofregulation.com.

About the Conference

This year, the AFTNC conference will be held at Westerbeke Ranch in Sonoma. For more information about the 2024 AFTNC Conference, please email drkeith@drkeithsutton.com. 

Students - As with each conference, we encourage students to join, and schedule a lunch with students and the presenters.  

When: Saturday, September 28th (9am-4:30pm) and Sunday, September 29th, 2024 (9am-3pm)

Where:
In Person: Westerbeke Ranch in Sonoma

Schedule:

GROUP RATE - 10% Discount for Groups of 4 or More (email drkeith@drkeithsutton.com for group registration)

Above costs include: Overnight charges include shared cabins with baths, daily use fees at Westerbake Ranch, dinners for the nights you stay over, Saturday and Sunday breakfasts, and lunches. All gourmet meals are provided by the Westerbake’s amazing chefs. Overnight attendees are welcome to the facilities use of the pool, hiking trails, hot tub, and massages (addtional rates apply for massages). Rooms are shared, so if you have a roommate preference for the two or three occupancy cabin, please email drkeith@drkeithsutton.com. Day-only rates include daily use fees and lunches. No dinner is provided on Saturday or Sunday. 

*Conference is limited to 24 overnight guests and 40 total participants.*
**Scholarships and Work Study are available for those with financial needs**

We understand that plans may change due to mitigating circumstances.  Please contact us at least two days prior to the conference at help@aftnc.com if you would like to change your registration from In Person to Zoom or vice versa.  We will gladly update your registration and you will be charged or refunded the difference in cost, respectively.