Polyvagal Defense Hierarchy
Parasympathetic Nervous System:
Brake System: Ventral Vagal Complex (social engagement) or Dorsal Vagal Complex (low tone, rest and digest)
The felt sense of safety can be restorative, pleasurable, and supports rest and repair functionality, physical, and relational. It sets the conditions for eating, digestion, sleeping, nursing, meditation, prayer, and reading (low tone DVC), and healthy social connection (VVC). When feeling safe, SNS arousal (as opposed to SNS survival activation) is tempered by the ventral brake to enjoy activities like play, sports, sex, learning, exploration (SEEKING), and creative pursuits. The shaded area depicts blended states of VVC + SNS. Unpleasant effortful activity can occur as well, as can fidget behaviours (out of boredom, excitement, or anticipation). Effortful movement requiring limited metabolic resources can also occur here, as in gentle exercise or movement, controlled by the SNS.
Parasympathetic Nervous System:
Brake System: Dorsal Vagal Complex (high tone)
When the other strategies are not possible or successful, an organism may enter a state of energy conservation involving either tonic (rigid) immobility or collapsed (floppy) immobility (fold/flag) in the face of life threat. Defeat, helplessness, learned helplessness, shame, shutdown, numbing, depressed life energy, derealization, depersonalization, personality splitting, dissociation, altered states of consciousness, or loss of consciousness can be experienced. Blended states occur at this point in the hierarchy as well, where the gas and the brakes can be on at the same time (high tone DVC + SNS = freeze/fright). Fawn behaviours are also thought to occur here, as in submission, surrender or supplication to spare one’s life. Life threat responses are adaptive.
Sympathetic Nervous System:
Gas Pedal: Sympathetic Activation
With the neuroception of danger, a hierarchy of responses begins to mobilize, including a transitory increase in social survival behaviours. Blended states to co-regulate the source of danger (VVC + SNS) can occur in a quest for safety. Defensive fight or flight actions (SNS) occur when social survival strategies are not possible or effective, and vice versa. Appeasement in particular is used by oppressed individuals to prevent harm from those at a higher tier in the social power hierarchy (as a response to racism, sexism, ableism, heterocentrism, masking to appear neurotypical, etc). Fidget reflects thwarted attempts at mobilizing or attempts at managing survival responses or drives. Survival responses are adaptive.
• Find/flock: (SEEKING): Looking to the herd, pack, family, community, or attachment figures for comfort, soothing, co-regulation, or protection (attachment cry, proximity seeking, reaching out, clinging, high cohesion and bunching, protesting separation)
• Flatter/friend/fawn: Appeasing and defusing conflict and tension to try to win over and co-regulate the source of danger to make them less likely to cause harm (reasoning, negotiating, placating, peace keeping, caretaking, ego stroking, non-verbal calming signals to down-regulate another’s state, using humour, shrinking or showing deference to appear agreeable or less threatening, etc). Stockholm Syndrome is an antiquated and sexist term that has fallen out of favour.
• Fib: Fabricating or omitting information in order to self-protect.
• Flee: A range of behaviors, from avoiding and ignoring to physical efforts to create distance, such as moving or making away, running away, stampeding.
• Fight: Another range of behaviors, from resisting, posturing, and intimidation to aggression, defending, and protecting.
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