Hi @Jeffrey Lawton,
So sorry to hear about your experience growing up with a narcissistic parent. We all grow and benefit every time someone shares their childhood trauma story—and every time someone takes action to heal like you're doing. It's inspiring to hear that you have a trauma therapist and have found a course of treatment that works for you. I'm positive that so many of us relate to what you say about hypervigilance and severe trauma.
I, too, loved the Polyvagal Theory when I read about it. It seemed to explain a lot about the physiology of trauma and helped me rationalize my "freeze response". Unfortunately, a PACEs Connection member alerted me that Dr. Stephen Porges' work is questioned by other experts. He defends that it's "just a theory," so it should be read as just that.
The Wikipedia entry for Polyvagal theory states: "Polyvagal theory (poly- "many" + vagal "wandering") is a collection of unproven evolutionary, neuroscientific and psychological constructs pertaining to the role of the vagus nerve in emotion regulation, social connection and fear response, introduced in 1994 by Stephen Porges."
Emphasis on "unproven".
The Wikipedia entry goes on to say: "Critics of the polyvagal theory point out that its premises are not supported by empirical, scientific research. Paul Grossman of University Hospital Basel argues that there is no evidence that the dorsal motor nucleus (DMN) is an evolutionarily more primitive center of brainstem parasympathetic system than the nucleus ambiguus (NA), and that no evidence supports the claim that sudden decrease in heartrate elicited by extreme emotional circumstances (like trauma-related dissociation) is due to DMN efferent activity to the heart.[21] In fact, there seems to be no evidence that such decrease happens in trauma-related dissociation in the first place."
Check out this thread on ResearchGate about how other researchers have been unable to replicate his findings: https://www.researchgate.net/p...olyvagal-conjectures
I'm not a physiology expert, and neither are most of the leading trauma experts. Peter Levine, whose work I love, got his "PhD" in Psychology from an unaccredited "University." There's still so much research that needs to be done in this field! And as, a recent post on our site says, the NIH is still under-funding this work.
Not to merely discourage, I will add that in my personal healing path, I read every single trauma book I could get my hands on and let my brain sift through the information, finding the overlapping nuggets of gold. There is plenty that feels good and true with Dr. Porges' work--and just as much that needs to be taken in with skepticism.
Best,
Alison
