Safety is critical in enabling humans to optimize their potential. The neurophysiological processes associated with feeling safe are a prerequisite not only for optimal mental health and social behavior, but also for accessing both the higher brain structures that enable humans to be creative and generative and the lower brain structures involved in regulating health, growth, and restoration.  The Polyvagal Theory explains how social behavior turns off defenses and promotes opportunities to feel safe.  It provides an innovative model to understand bodily responses to trauma and stress and the importance of the client’s physiological state in mediating the effectiveness of clinical treatments. Consistent with a Polyvagal perspective, oxytocin and vasopressin dynamically moderate the autonomic nervous system influencing vagal pathways and anti-inflammatory circuits that help explain the adaptive consequences of love, trust, and social behavior for emotional and physical health. Thus, interventions that target the capacity to feel safe and use social behavior to regulate physiological state can be effective in treating psychological disorders that are dependent on defense systems.

The Oxytocin Hypothesis – The Biochemistry of Love and Trust. 

Dr. Carter is the scientist who discovered the relationship between social behavior and oxytocin. She will present information on the neurobiology of social bonding and love. She will explore how oxytocin is involved in regulating stress. Dr. Carter’s research focuses on neuroendocrine systems and how these systems explain the positive impact on physical and mental health, social bonds and trusting relationships. Her work examines how oxytocin pathways are at the center of physiological systems that enable human sociality. Oxytocin acts as a regulator of the autonomic nervous system to allow the high levels of social sensitivity and attunement necessary for human sociality and for rearing a human child.

You will learn about the unique actions of oxytocin, including the facilitation of birth, lactation, maternal behavior, genetic regulation of the growth of the neocortex, and the maintenance of the blood supply to the brain. Consistent with a Polyvagal perspective, oxytocin and vasopressin dynamically moderate the autonomic nervous system influencing vagal pathways and anti-inflammatory circuits that help explain the adaptive consequences of love, trust, and social behavior for emotional and physical health.

In the final session of the workshop, Dr. Porges will join Dr. Carter to explore clinical applications and to discuss the dependence of autonomic regulation on oxytocin in the establishment of social bonds and in the regulation of stress responses in social contexts and focus on how oxytocin and vasopressin act as “neuromodulators” within the theoretical context of the Polyvagal Theory.