051: Cautionary Words about a Ventral Vagal Bias

Play Episode 51 Here The first of an unknown number of
mini-episodes from Twig's SE Reflections. This one on a hopefully
unnecessary worry of creating an intellectual cultural bias
favoring the pro-social or Ventral Vagal stance at the cost of
excluding (and stigmatizing?) those who don't have or want it. Show
Notes Page with with additional commentary. [Note: I'm still
working out some changes for the next 50 episodes of Twig's SE
Reflections after recieving positive and helpful feedback from
listeners. Many thanks to those who took the time for that. In the
meantime I'm going to share some mini-episodes of 5 minutes or
less. Here's the first, with a little written commentary in the
show notes.] Here's something I don't think is an active problem
but something we need to be cautious of as SE Practitioners develop
an intellectual community with a common language of what we like
and what we don't like. We don't want to become so attached to the
idea of being Ventral Vagal oriented that we become exclusatory or
inadvertently enforce stigmatization of people who are not
currently - or may never want to be - very "pro-social." Let me
explain. Humans, as with our primate relatives, have a tendency to
make social groups that reinforce our clan's preferences. This is
part of what makes being part of "the in group" feel so good - our
behavior and choices are championed. We feel a part of something
bigger than ourselves and are encouraged to think that we're
correct in our assumptions. This is also why it feels so bad to be
on the outside, shunned or not included - it suggests that we're
doing something wrong and that we are, in some sense, actually
wrong. As you and I grow more and more fond of the langauge
associated to the Polyvagal theory (wiki) and begin using it
as a short hand for naming beneficial features and calling out
challenging ones, we'll want to remember this basic tendency in
human nature and try to avoid creating a "this is better than that"
duality. Of course it can be argued that mammals have a tendency
toward Ventral Vagal dominance in their nervous system when they
feel safe enough. That the resulting "pro-social" nature is
spontaneous and a functional attribute of nervous system state is
one of the great insights to be found in the - very cool and
parsimonious - Polyvagal theory. However, the exact same principle
suggests that tendencies toward Sympathetic or Dorsal Vagal type
behaviors such as high activation or desire for isolation are also
informed by the autonomic nervous system and often describe the
burden of accumulated stress and chronic neuroception of danger or
life threat, even if we're unaware that this is part of what's
going on. Ultimately this probably explains ourselves more
than common cultural or psychological explainations of the
associated expressions of personality (i.e. Type A or Extreme
Introvert amongst others). In this way, we can probably assume that
many people would express more spontaneous pro-social behavior if
they experienced less accumulated stress in their lives. Thus a
bias toward signs of Ventral Vagal innervation are an
understandable desire of ours as trauma focused helping care
professionals. At the same time, when we cheer the "that's so
Ventral" moments, in and out of sessions, we'll want to remember
that we live in a puralistic society of people, many of whom have
experienced challenges that have led to the accumulation of stress
- and personality formation around that stress - which makes social
engagement itself a challenge or even truly undesirable. For that
matter, on any given day even the most social of us might find
seclusion the ideal state. All that to say, people expressing
SNS or DVC tendencies are no less human and no less worthy than
those of us who have found the comforts to be gained by reinforcing
pro-social experience. While all of this is more a cultural concern
far beyond the scope of being an SEP and I'd...