Neurobiology of Love and Human Relationships

Mental health through the lens of polyvalent theory with Dr. Stephen Porges Safety is fundamental for humans to optimise their potential. The neurophysiological processes associated with feeling safe are the prerequisite, not only for optimal mental health and social behaviour, but also for accessing both the higher brain structures that allow humans to be creative and generative and the lower brain structures involved in regulating health, growth and restoring health. Multi-vagal theory explains how social behaviour is able to calm and turn off defences and promotes opportunities to feel safe. It provides an innovative model for understanding the body’s responses to trauma and stress and the importance of the client’s physiological state in mediating the effectiveness of clinical treatments. According to the polyvalent perspective, oxytocin and vasopressin dynamically moderate the autonomic nervous system by influencing the vagal pathways and anti-inflammatory circuits that help explain the adaptive consequences of good treatment, love, trust and social behaviour and their positive impact on emotional and physical health. Therefore, interventions aimed at creating and sustaining the ability to feel safe, as well as using social behaviour to regulate physiological status, can be effective in treating psychological disorders that depend on defence systems.

Dr Carter is the scientist who discovered the relationship between social behaviour and oxytocin. She will present information on the neurobiology of social bonding and love. She will explore how oxytocin is involved in stress regulation. Dr Carter’s research focuses on neuroendocrine systems and how these systems explain the positive impact of oxytocin on physical and mental health, social bonding and trust relationships. Her work examines how oxytocin pathways are at the core of physiological systems that enable human socialization. Oxytocin acts as an autonomic nervous system regulator to enable the high levels of social sensitivity and attunement necessary for human sociability and for the raising of a human child. Dr Carter will discuss the unique actions of oxytocin, including the facilitation of birth, lactation, maternal behaviour, the genetic regulation of neocortex growth and the maintenance of blood supply to the brain. Consistent with the polyvagal perspective, oxytocin and vasopressin dynamically moderate the autonomic nervous system by influencing the vagal pathways and anti-inflammatory circuits that help explain the adaptive consequences of love, trust and social behaviour for emotional and physical health. In the final session of the workshop, Dr Porges will join Dr Carter to explore the clinical applications and discuss the reliance of autonomous oxytocin regulation on social bonding and on the regulation of stress responses in social contexts and will focus on how oxytocin and vasopressin act as “neuromodulators” within the theoretical context of the Polyvagal Theory.