Treating Trauma and Addiction with the Felt Sense Polyvagal Model : A Bottom-Up Approach.

Intro -- Endorsements -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- Contents -- Acknowledgements -- A Prologue: My Women's Group -- Bridgette's Mixed Memories -- Reference -- 1. Early Days: The Initiation of a Trauma Therapist -- Addiction as Behavioural Affect Regulation: A New Frontier -- Finding Interpersonal Neurobiology (IPNB) -- Experiential Response to Siegel's IPNB Model -- Discovering the Missing Links: The Polyvagal Theory -- Origins of the Felt Sense Polyvagal Model of Addiction (FSPM) -- Addictive/Adaptive Responses Often Tell a Detailed Trauma Story -- Finding Focusing: Back to Women's Group -- How Porges Updated the Traditional ANS Model -- The Dorsal Vagus -- The Ventral Vagus -- Sympathetic Nervous System -- The Felt Sense Polyvagal Model (FSPM) -- Play: Mobilization with Safety (yellow/red) -- Stillness: Immobilization with Safety (yellow/grey) -- Addiction: A Propeller of Dysregulated State Change (red/grey) -- The Current and Desperate State of Addiction -- The Polyvagal Paradigm Shift ... A Powerful Dance of Connection -- Summing Up the Journey to a More Sophisticated Model for Addiction -- References -- 2. Finding Focusing and Thinking at the Edge -- Focusing and the Felt Sense -- Focusing in Partnership: Learning to Listen -- Focusing: The Fundamentals -- Step 1: Clearing a Space -- Step 2: Getting a Felt Sense of the Problem -- Step 3: Finding a Handle -- The Felt Shift -- The Addictive Shift -- Step 4: Resonating Felt Sense and Handle -- Step 5: Asking -- Step 6: Receiving -- George's First Focusing Session -- Thinking at the Edge (TAE) -- The 14 Steps of TAE -- TAE as a Three-Step Process -- Steps 1-5: Speaking From the Felt Sense -- Steps 6-8: Finding Patterns From Facets (Instances) -- Step 9: Write Freely -- Steps 10-14: Building Logical Theory -- References.

3. Thinking About Thinking About Addiction: Integrating Top-Down and Bottom-Up -- Top-Down Processing -- Brain-Disease Model -- Addiction According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) -- Critiquing the DSM -- First-Person Experiencing of DSM -- A Group Vignette -- Critiquing the Twelve Steps: The Origins and History of AA -- The AA Controversy -- The Twelve Steps: Dancing with the Devil -- Cognitive Behavioural Therapy: A Top-Down Approach -- Embodied Processing: A Bottom-Up Approach -- The Marvellous Metaphor -- The Safe Edge: Where Bottom-Up Meets Top-Down -- Thinking at the Safe Edge: A Non-Pathologizing Approach to Addiction -- References -- 4. Addiction: A Very Bad Habit -- Neuroplasticity, The Brain's Way of Learning -- First Person Experiencing - The Fear of Shameful Sharing -- Back to the Origins of Neuroplasticity -- The Changing Brain: Dispelling Myths -- Myth #1: Brains Don't Change -- Myth #2: Brain Parts Perform Specific Functions -- Brain Regions Most Relevant to Addiction -- Dorsolateral PreFrontal Cortex: "The Bridge of the Ship" (, p. 45) -- Ventral Striatum: Motivational Engine -- Midbrain: Dopamine Pump -- Amygdala: "Emotional Spraypaint" (, p. 79) -- Orbitofrontal Cortex: Connector -- How Addiction Works in the Brain, A Case Example -- Neurons That Fire Together Wire Together -- Embodied Cognition Leads to an Integrated Approach to Addiction -- References -- 5. Facing the Truth About Addiction -- Facing the Truth, Settling Our Nervous Systems -- Five Faces of Oppression -- The Myth of the "Hook -- Anslinger's Racist War on Drugs -- First-Person Experiencing -- Understanding Harry: White Body Supremacy -- The Female Chain Gang -- First-Person Experiencing ... Pause -- Childhood Trauma: The Underbelly of Addiction -- Felitti's Adverse Childhood Experiences Scale (ACES) -- Felitti's Aha Moment.

Felitti's Alternative Model of Addiction - A Psychodynamic Model -- The Plot Thickens with Later ACES Study -- Alexander: "Addiction is our teacher -- Globalizing Free Market Society Creates Dislocation -- Sustained Dislocation Creates Addiction -- Skinner Box Versus Rat Park -- References -- 6. Bringing the Body to Mind: The Emerging Field of Interpersonal Neurobiology -- First-Person Experiencing -- Bringing the Interpersonal into Neurobiology -- Thinking at the Edge: Crossing Concepts and Finding the More -- Crossing Flooding/Numbing with Chaos/Rigidity -- The Sweet Spot -- The Brilliance of Consilience -- A Definition of Mind -- First-Person Experiencing -- Complexity Theory: A Push Toward Integration -- First-Person Experiencing -- Consilience and Crossing -- A Crossing: The Help Embraces the Harm -- Hypothesis: Self-Organization is the Same as Self-Regulation -- Complex Systems are Non-Linear, Challenging Twelve Steps -- The Harm Reduction Model -- Complex Systems have Emergent and Recursive Properties -- Eyes-Wide-Open Presence -- Bringing it all Together: The Triangle of Well-being and Resilience -- Mindsight: Seeing the Mind -- SNAG and SIFT -- Attachment Theory: Holding and Letting Go -- Four Classifications of Attachment -- Mapping Attachment Styles and the Felt Sense Polyvagal Model of Addiction -- Critiquing Attachment Theory: The Unclassifiable -- References -- 7. Creating a Safe Nest -- First-Person Experiencing -- Instinctively Seeking Good Energy -- Back in the Women's Group -- Vicarious Trauma, The Hot Potato -- Thinking at the Edge: Feeling into Thinking -- Attachment, Trauma, Addiction: Making Vital Connections -- Addiction as an "Attachment Disorder -- First-Person Experiencing -- Thinking Systemically About Attachment: Bridging the Divide -- Attachment Theory: Early Days -- Strange Situation Procedure.

Thinking at the Edge of Attachment Theory: The Quantitative Shift -- The Wisdom of Mixed Methods -- A Feminist Lens on Attachment -- Global Attachment Trauma -- The Politics of Trauma -- References -- 8. Bringing Polyvagal Theory into the World of Addiction -- First-Person Experiencing: Resolving the Paradox, "What Helps you Hurts You -- Porges' Vagal Paradox -- Linking Polyvagal Theory to Trauma and Addiction -- Our Very Elegant Survival System -- Thinking at the Edge with Polyvagal Theory -- Lesson 1. Safety First: None of Us Is Safe Unless All of Us Are Safe -- Creating a Safe Nest -- What is Enough Safety? -- Chronic States of Dysregulation -- First-Person Experiencing -- What is Essential for Safety? -- Lesson 2. Interoception: Honour Your Mind/Body Connection -- First-Person Experiencing -- Lesson 3. Neuroception: Our Body's Wisdom is Designed to Seek Safety -- Crossing Felt Shift and Neuroception -- Neuroception and Triggers: A Retuning/Reframing Process -- First-Person Experiencing -- Lesson 4. Social Engagement System: We need each other to survive and thrive -- Social Engagement and Addiction: No Thanks! -- First-Person Experiencing: Feeling into Our Heart, Throat, Face Connection -- Lesson 5. Co-regulation: Body/Environments are Alive and Co-regulate -- Self Regulation and Addiction: Whatever Gets You Through the Night -- First-Person Experiencing -- References -- 9. Experiential Psychotherapy and Gendlin's Felt Sense: The Whole of a Situation -- First-Person Experiencing: Meeting Mary Armstrong -- Meeting Eugene Gendlin -- Gendlin's Safe Space: Do What is Right for You -- The Dream: Lotte's Holocaust Story -- Gendlin's Holocaust Story -- Gendin the Philosopher -- The Primacy of Human Presence -- Three Ways of Knowing -- Gendlin's View of Neurobiology -- Experiential Psychotherapy: The Birth of Gendlin's Felt Sense and Felt Shift.

Gendlin's Felt Shift as a "Motor of Personality Change -- The Experiencing Scale: Tracking the Felt Sense -- A Process Model: Gendlin's Major Philosophical Work -- Body/Environment is One -- Interaction First -- First-Person Experiencing: Implicit Intricacy - We Are More Than We Can Say -- Implicit intricacy and Words -- Implying and Carrying Forward -- First-Person Experiencing: A Dreamy Carrying Forward -- Addiction as Process Skipping -- References -- 10. Bringing the Model to Life: Going Deep and Thinking Big -- The Paradigm Shift - From a Medical Model to an Embodied Emotion Regulation Model -- First-Person Experiencing: Moments of Liberation -- The Embodied Emotion Regulation Paradigm: A Bigger Picture -- The Trauma of Addiction: The Bidirectional Link -- Two Different Versions of Joe -- Where Do We Start? -- Safe and Secret: The Hidden Faces of Addiction -- The Big Mistake: Never Engage in a Power Struggle With the Addict Part -- First-Person Experiencing -- The Importance of Asking -- The Trauma of Addiction Needs to be Named -- Three Process Movements: The Three D's -- References -- 11. Nuts and Bolts: Embodied Assessment and Treatment Tool (EATT) and Focusing Oriented Therapy Strategies -- Using EATT: Allowing the Story to Unfold -- The Felt Sense Polyvagal Model -- The Experiencing Scale (EXP) -- The Felt Sense Polyvagal Dialogue -- The Three Circles -- The Inner Circle: Fixate -- The Middle Circle: Fight/Flight, Fold -- The Outer Circle: Flow, Flock, Fun -- The Trauma Egg and The Background Wallpaper -- The Nine Domains of Integration -- Integration of Consciousness: Does this person have an inner observing compassionate voice? Can they stand beside their experiencing? -- Vertical Integration: How connected is this person with their bodily-felt knowing?.

Bilateral Integration. Can this person think logically (using their left hemisphere)? Can they describe their felt-sense embodied knowing (right hemisphere)? How well can they move back and forth between both hemispheres?.

In sharp contrast with the current top-down medicalized method to treating addiction, this book presents the Felt Sense Polyvagal Model (FSPM), a paradigm-shifting, bottom-up approach that considers addiction as an adaptive attempt to regulate emotional states and trauma.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2024. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.