If you are interested in mental health – professionally or personally – you should really meet my friend Poly – she’s just a theory, but still, it would be worth getting to know her. 

Polyvagal theory was developed by neuroscientist Stephen Porges and it can help us better understand our physiologic responses to trauma and stress. Stress (and often trauma) are underlying factors in chronic pain, addiction, and many chronic diseases. Because I work with young women in recovery from substances and process addictions, I wanted to be able to explain Polyvagal theory in a way that was practical, accessible, applicable and didn’t make everyone get triggered feeling like they were in science class! 

A wonderful young artist, Caitlin Luedke, did the drawings and graphic design for these. After we finished the first one, we thought it would be nice to have one that was a little denser and appealed to young people with a deeper interest in the science. So we added a little more text – because the image sort of lent itself to it. There’s even a reference to transient hypofrontality at the end.

Feel free to print them out and share (just right click and go to “open image in new tab”). 

Here’s the second one.