PolyVagal Therapy

PolyVagal Therapy: Harnessing the Power of your Nervous System

In 2025, all of our therapists at Shift Counseling, PC have completed training in PolyVagal Theory, created by Dr. Stephen Porges. While the foundations of this theory come from Dr. Porges work in the biomedical research world, mental health clinicians like Deb Dana, LCSW and Dr. Arielle Schwartz have depeloped applications for the use PolyVagal theory in therapy.

The PolyVagal Therapy model of treating depression, anxiety, and trauma is largely based on the work of Deb Dana, LCSW. This way of rethinking your symptoms and experiences will help you better understand how your Nervous System affects physical feelings, mood states, and how you see yourself and the world. While it is true that our nervous system functions are subconcious (meaning we cannot fully control it by thinking), enhanced awareness of the different nervous system states, and how they affect each individual can be a game changer for people who struggle to break out of chronic nervous system dysregulation. Deb Dana calls this “befriending” your nervous system, and it can make a huge difference in how you show kindness to yourself and build resiliency to every day stressors.

What is PolyVagal theory?

The theory is both simple and complex, so it can be hard to describe. In essence, the Vagus nerve is the longest nerve in the body and it affects the functioning of many different bodily systems including our lungs, our heart, our digestive system, and our ears, eyes and throat. If we spend prolonged periods in an environment that causes us distress, or grow up around dysregulated people, or have a history of generational trauma, our nervous systems may be especially reactive to any perceived threats. This can manifest as frequently being in fight or flight (stressed, angry, anxious, unable to unwind) or shutdown (depressed, hopeless, possibly dissociated, often struggling to function with the demands of daily life).

While it is normal to experience different nervous system responses to stress that is encountered during our day to day lives, some people are especially prone to disproportionate responses to stress that may send them into states of chronic dysregulation. Without awareness of why they are feeling this way, or access to tools to help themselves, many individuals end up seeing their struggle to regulate their symptoms as some kind of personal failure. THIS IS FALSE!!

Our Polyvagal informed therapists understand the biological underpinnings of these symptoms, and can help you find strategies to manage them better, instead of constantly feeling out of control and ashamed about why you react to stress the way you do.

Understanding the Three Nervous System States

Polyvagal Theory teaches us that our autonomic nervous system operates in three distinct states, and we move between them throughout the day based on whether we perceive safety or danger:

Ventral Vagal State (Social Engagement): This is the state where you feel safe, connected, and able to engage with the world around you. Your body is relaxed but alert, you can think clearly, and you feel present in your relationships. When you're in this state, challenges feel manageable and you can access your full range of emotions and problem-solving abilities.

Sympathetic State (Fight or Flight): When your nervous system detects a potential threat—whether real or perceived—it mobilizes your body to respond. Your heart rate increases, your muscles tense, and your mind becomes hypervigilant. For many people struggling with anxiety, this state becomes their default. You might feel like you can never fully relax, always waiting for the other shoe to drop, or constantly on edge even when there's no obvious danger.

Dorsal Vagal State (Shutdown): When the stress feels overwhelming or inescapable, your nervous system may shift into a protective shutdown mode. This is often what depression feels like—a sense of numbness, disconnection, exhaustion, or hopelessness. You might describe it as "going through the motions" or feeling like you're watching your life from behind glass. This isn't laziness or weakness; it's your nervous system's ancient strategy for conservation when it believes survival is at stake.

The crucial insight from Polyvagal Theory is that these responses happen automatically, below the level of conscious thought. No amount of "thinking positive" or "trying harder" can override a nervous system that believes it's under threat.

Why Does This Matter for Your Mental Health?

If you've been in traditional talk therapy and found yourself thinking, "I understand my patterns, I know where they come from, but I still can't change how I feel," you're experiencing the disconnect between cognitive insight and nervous system regulation.

Many clients who come to our North Riverside therapy practice have already done significant insight work. They can identify their triggers, understand their family dynamics, and recognize their unhelpful thought patterns. Yet they still struggle with:

• Anxiety that won't quiet down, even when they "know" they're safe

• Depression that feels physical and overwhelming, not just emotional

• Explosive anger or irritability that seems to come out of nowhere

• Panic attacks despite using all their coping skills

• Feeling disconnected from themselves and others

• Exhaustion that sleep doesn't fix

• Difficulty trusting others or feeling safe in relationships

These aren't signs that you've failed at therapy or that you're not trying hard enough. They're signs that your nervous system needs a different kind of support—one that works with your body, not just your thoughts.

How Polyvagal-Informed Therapy Works

At Shift Counseling PC, we integrate Polyvagal principles throughout our work with clients seeking anxiety therapy, depression treatment, trauma therapy, and PTSD recovery. This isn't a separate type of therapy—it's a lens that enhances everything we do.

Building Nervous System Awareness

The first step is learning to recognize which state your nervous system is in at any given moment. This might sound simple, but many people have become so disconnected from their bodies that they can't identify the early warning signs of dysregulation.

In therapy, you'll develop the ability to notice:

• What does anxiety feel like in your body before it becomes overwhelming?

• What are the first signs that you're starting to shut down into depression?

• What sensations signal that you're in a state of safety and connection?

• Which situations, people, or environments tend to trigger shifts in your nervous system state?

This awareness becomes your early warning system, allowing you to intervene before you're fully dysregulated.

Developing Regulation Skills

Once you can identify your nervous system state, we work together to build a personalized toolkit of regulation strategies. These aren't generic "relaxation techniques"—they're targeted interventions based on your specific patterns.

For clients stuck in fight-or-flight anxiety, we might focus on:

• Practices that activate the ventral vagal brake (slowing down your system)

• Grounding techniques that bring you back to the present moment

• Breathwork that signals safety to your nervous system

• Movement practices that help discharge excess activation

For clients experiencing dorsal vagal shutdown and depression, the approach looks different:

• Gentle activation to bring energy back into your system

• Connection practices that combat isolation

• Small, achievable actions that build momentum

• Somatic resources that help you feel more present in your body

Co-Regulation: The Power of Connection

One of the most powerful aspects of Polyvagal-informed therapy is the concept of co-regulation. Your nervous system literally "borrows" a sense of safety from your therapist's regulated presence. This isn't just about feeling understood—it's a biological process where one person's calm, regulated state helps another person's nervous system remember what regulation feels like.

Over time, through repeated experiences of co-regulation in therapy, you internalize this capacity and develop stronger self-regulation skills. This is why the therapeutic relationship itself is healing, beyond just the techniques you learn.

As your nervous system begins to feel safe more often, it allows for better connections with others. This can mean deepening connections with the safe people who are already in your life, or feeling open to new relationships. As you get better at knowing what safety feels like, you can also choose better relationships instead of falling back into old patterns of unsafe (but familiar) relationships.

Addressing the Root: Trauma and Chronic Stress

For many people, chronic nervous system dysregulation stems from unresolved trauma or prolonged exposure to stressful environments. Polyvagal Theory helps us understand why traditional talk therapy sometimes isn't enough to heal trauma.

When you experience trauma, your nervous system's protective response can get "stuck." You might stay in a state of hypervigilance long after the danger has passed, or shut down to avoid feeling the overwhelming emotions associated with the traumatic memory. Talking about the trauma can even reinforce dysregulation if your nervous system becomes activated during the retelling.

Our therapists are trained in trauma-focused approaches like EMDR therapy that integrate Polyvagal principles. This means we can help you process difficult memories while carefully tracking your nervous system state, ensuring you stay within your window of tolerance. The goal is to help your body understand at a visceral level that the danger has passed and it's safe to release those protective patterns.

Who Benefits from Polyvagal-Informed Therapy?

This approach is particularly valuable if you:

• Have tried traditional talk therapy with limited success

• Feel like your anxiety or depression is more physical than emotional

• Experience your emotions as either overwhelming or completely numb

• Have a trauma history that still impacts your daily functioning

• Struggle with relationship patterns where you either push people away or lose yourself

• Notice that you shut down or get activated quickly in stressful situations

• Want to understand why your body reacts the way it does

• Are tired of feeling like your symptoms are a personal failure

We work with clients throughout Illinois who are seeking a body-based approach to complement traditional therapy methods. Many of our clients in the North Riverside area and surrounding communities have found that understanding their nervous system finally gave them the missing piece in their healing journey.

Polyvagal Theory and Cultural Considerations

At Shift Counseling PC, we recognize that cultural context shapes how we experience and express nervous system dysregulation. Different cultures have varying norms around emotional expression, body awareness, and what constitutes "normal" stress responses.

For our bilingual clients and those from collectivist cultures, we understand that nervous system patterns are often influenced by:

• Generational trauma passed down through families

• Immigration experiences and acculturative stress

• Cultural messages about showing emotion or vulnerability

• Community and family dynamics that affect your sense of safety

Our bilingual counseling services in Spanish and English allow us to explore these dynamics in the language that feels most authentic to you. We recognize that healing happens best when it honors your full identity and cultural context.

Beyond Individual Symptoms: Understanding Patterns

Polyvagal Theory also helps explain relationship patterns that might have confused you for years:

Why do I push away people who care about me? When your nervous system perceives vulnerability as dangerous, intimacy can trigger a fight-or-flight response. Pushing people away is protective, even though it prevents the connection you actually crave.

Why do I lose myself in relationships? If your nervous system learned that your own needs were a threat to connection, you might reflexively shut down your authentic self to maintain relationships.

Why do I overreact to small things? When your nervous system is already running in fight-or-flight mode, even minor stressors can push you over the edge. It's not that you're overly sensitive—your system is already maxed out.

Why can't I feel anything? Chronic shutdown is your nervous system's attempt to protect you from overwhelming emotions. The numbness that comes with depression is functional from your body's perspective, even though it makes life feel colorless.

Understanding these patterns removes shame and self-judgment from your healing process. You're not broken or difficult—you're responding exactly as your nervous system was designed to respond given your unique life experiences.

What to Expect in Therapy

When you begin working with one of our Polyvagal-informed therapists in North Riverside, we start where you are. There's no pressure to immediately change your nervous system responses or "get better faster."

Initial Sessions: We'll explore your history, current symptoms, and treatment goals while beginning to map your nervous system patterns. If you request using PolyVagal theory in your sessions, you will therapist can help you start learning the language of Polyvagal Theory and how it applies to your specific experiences. We will also be offering psychoeducational groups about PVT soon.

Ongoing Work: Each session builds on the last as you develop greater awareness and regulation capacity. We'll integrate Polyvagal principles with other evidence-based approaches like cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), EMDR, or trauma-focused therapy based on your needs.

Between Sessions: You'll practice the skills we develop together in your daily life. This isn't homework in the traditional sense—it's about noticing your nervous system states and experimenting with what helps you find regulation.

Progress: Healing happens in layers, not in a straight line. You'll have weeks where everything clicks and weeks where you feel stuck. Both are normal parts of the process. Over time, you'll notice that you recover from stress more quickly, your window of tolerance expands, and you feel more present in your life.

Common Questions About Polyvagal Therapy

Is this evidence-based? Yes and no. While Polyvagal Theory is a relatively new framework (developed in the 1990s), it's based on neuroscience research and has been integrated into many evidence-based trauma treatments. PolyVagal therapy is the application of PolyVagal theory in individual or group therapy. Since this framework was just introduced around 2020, so there has not been enough research done to prove efficacy yet. However, we are strong believers in the power of this type of therapy. Our therapists use Polyvagal principles to enhance proven approaches like EMDR, CBT, and trauma-focused therapy.

Will I have to relive my trauma? No. One of the benefits of understanding nervous system states is that we can work with trauma without overwhelming you. You can learn to better regulate your nervous system without ever having to talk about how it got dysregulated, if you don’t want to.

How long does it take? This varies based on your history, current symptoms, and goals. Some clients notice shifts within a few weeks, while others need longer to develop stable regulation patterns. Unlike approaches that promise quick fixes, Polyvagal-informed therapy recognizes that nervous system healing takes time.

Can this help with depression? Absolutely. Understanding depression as a dorsal vagal shutdown state opens up new treatment possibilities beyond just challenging negative thoughts. We work with your body's protective shutdown response rather than against it.

Do I need a trauma history to benefit from this? Not at all. While Polyvagal Theory is particularly powerful for trauma work, it's valuable for anyone struggling with anxiety, depression, relationship issues, or stress management.

Integration with Other Treatment Approaches

At Shift Counseling PC, we don't see Polyvagal Theory as replacing other therapeutic approaches—it enhances them:

With EMDR Therapy: Polyvagal awareness helps us track your nervous system during trauma processing, ensuring the work is effective without overwhelming your system.

With CBT: When your nervous system is regulated, cognitive interventions become much more effective. We use Polyvagal tools to create the foundation of safety that allows cognitive work to create lasting change.

With Teen Therapy and Young Adult Therapy: Adolescents and young adults often respond well to Polyvagal-informed approaches because the framework removes shame and helps them understand their big emotions and reactions as protective rather than problematic.

Taking the Next Step

If what you're reading resonates with you—if you've felt frustrated by your body's responses or wondered why insight alone hasn't been enough to create change—Polyvagal-informed therapy might be the missing piece in your healing journey.

Our therapists at Shift Counseling PC in North Riverside, IL, are trained in integrating Polyvagal principles with evidence-based treatments for anxiety, depression, trauma, and PTSD. We serve clients throughout Illinois who are ready to work with their nervous system rather than against it.

You don't have to keep white-knuckling through your symptoms. You don't have to accept that "this is just how you are." And you certainly don't have to believe that your struggle to regulate is a personal failure.

Your nervous system has been working hard to protect you. We can help you honor that protection while teaching your body that it's safe enough to heal.

Begin Your Healing Journey with Polyvagal-Informed Therapy

Ready to understand your nervous system and harness its power for healing? Contact Shift Counseling PC today to schedule a consultation.

Shift Counseling PC
9007 W Cermak Rd
North Riverside, IL

We accept BCBS PPO, Blue Choice PPO, Aetna, and Cigna/Evernorth insurance plans.

Bilingual counseling services available in English and Spanish.

Serving clients throughout Illinois and the greater Chicagoland area, including North Riverside, Berwyn, Westchester, La Grange Park, Riverside, Brookfield, La Grange, and Forest Park.

COMING SOON- WINTER 2026

Soon we will be rolling out PolyVagal informed psychoeducational groups to help you learn more about your nervous system and how to support it. If you’d like to join our PolyVagal mailing list, fill out this short survey. You’ll be among the first to know when we start our groups!