Restore balance with Polyvagal Theory Therapy. Support nervous system regulation, resilience, and feelings of safety for lasting emotional well-being.
The polyvagal theory, developed through the groundbreaking work of Stephen Porges, provides a framework for understanding how the human nervous system responds to stress, safety, and connection. This theory focused approach looks at how the vagus nerve affects both our physiological state and emotional experiences, influencing vital functions like heart rate and our ability to engage in social interaction.
At Upstream Counselling, we apply the principles of polyvagal theory to help clients move from states of fight or flight, freeze response, or shutdown into a regulated state of wellbeing. Through deep breathing exercises and mindfulness-based strategies, clients learn to regulate the autonomic nervous system, strengthening resilience and a deeper sense of safety. Using the principles and applying polyvagal theory, we support emotional healing and stability through the body’s natural ability to restore balance.
Through the lens of the polyvagal perspective, this therapeutic approach supports both mental and physical health, offering an integrative path to healing that bridges the mind and body. Consistent with polyvagal theory, our methods foster safety, connection, and long-term autonomic regulation for lasting wellbeing.
Our approach helps balance your parasympathetic nervous system and sympathetic system through targeted techniques that optimize the regulation of the autonomic nervous system. This process enhances your autonomic response and improves your ability to manage your stress response more effectively.
Within polyvagal theory, understanding your body’s physiological cues allows you to strengthen emotional regulation and recover from stress and trauma. This process improves respiratory sinus arrhythmia (natural rhythm between breathing and heart rate), fostering flexibility and resilience in managing emotional challenges.
Through increased awareness of physiological response patterns, therapy enhances your connection with your body’s signals. By working with the ventral vagal complex and understanding the dorsal vagal system, you can better attune to and regulate your mind-body state for greater harmony.
This therapy supports your integrated social engagement system, helping you build trust and connection. As your autonomic state stabilizes, you naturally feel safe, fostering healthier communication, empathy, and relationships rooted in genuine connection.
Using the safe and sound protocol, we help your nervous system detect real cues of safety, allowing it to shift from defence to openness. This transformation helps you move toward connection, presence, and growth in daily life.
Polyvagal theory emphasizes the importance of understanding your body’s response to stress. Our therapy guides you to create sustainable patterns of calm and emotional regulation, promoting enduring stability and balance across your autonomic nervous system.
Take control of the process.
Beginning therapy can feel daunting but the truth is you decide what (and when) to share. Our diverse team specializes in a range of issues including anxiety, depression, trauma, grief, and relationship issues. No matter your situation, we're here to support your journey to empowerment and mental wellness.
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Finding the right therapist is key to achieving your goals. Dip your toes into the therapy experience by booking a free consultation with one of our registered psychotherapists. These appointments are an opportunity to address your questions and explore your challenges, needs, and aspirations.
Commit to the experience.
To maximize the benefits of counselling it’s important you attend sessions consistently. When in session, we encourage you to lead the agenda. (Remember, this is YOUR therapy!) Between sessions, we hope you will strive to apply new insights, practice new skills, and develop new habits that support personal growth.
Are you looking for a therapy approach that helps you regulate stress through your body’s own system of safety?
Understanding the autonomic nervous system through polyvagal theory provides a powerful and compassionate framework for healing trauma response and building emotional resilience. This approach recognizes that people who’ve experienced trauma often move between states — sympathetic nervous system activation or the body’s fight-or-flight alert mode and the shutdown mode where everything feels numb or disconnected. Healing starts by noticing these shifts and slowly guiding the body back to a place of balance and safety.
“Safety isn’t just the absence of threat; it’s the presence of connection and an understanding of our nervous system’s language.”
Through the science of safety, we help clients move from dysregulation toward grounded engagement. By exploring how the branch of the vagus nerve influences our physiological and emotional responses, our therapy addresses both trauma treatment and long-term stress regulation. Integrating polyvagal hypotheses with mindful, evidence-based practices, we guide individuals to move beyond behaviours of fight and flight into authentic states of calm and connection.
At Upstream Counselling, we recognized that the central nervous system is always on the lookout—constantly evaluates risk and safety in our environment. With that in mind, we help you tune into your body’s signals and strengthen your natural ability to connect with others, so you can handle relationships and life’s ups and downs with more ease. This theory emphasizes the importance of recognizing and responding to your body's signals, creating lasting patterns of regulation and resilience.
At Upstream Counselling, we want you to feel comfortable with the counselling process. Here are some of the most frequently asked questions about talking to a therapist about this type of therapy.
Understanding your autonomic state is central to emotional healing and nervous system regulation. At Upstream Counselling, we help clients interpret their body’s signals and move from stress toward balance using the science behind the polyvagal theory.
Recognizing State Shifts: According to polyvagal theory, our body constantly shifts between defence and safety states. Recognizing when you’re in fight, flight, or freeze helps you regain control and begin self-regulation.
Restoring Regulation: By guiding you through breathwork and mindfulness, your autonomic nervous system provides a foundation for physiological and emotional stability. These practices activate the ventral vagal system to enhance calm and safety.
Encouraging Safe Connection: When your body feels safe, it opens pathways for connection and trust. This process allows clients to engage socially without overwhelm or withdrawal.
Strengthening Emotional Awareness: We teach you to identify early signs of dysregulation—tight chest, shallow breath, or numbness—and respond with self-soothing techniques that restore equilibrium.
Creating Lasting Patterns: Over time, these skills rewire your nervous system, allowing the body to maintain balance naturally even under stress, leading to long-term emotional resilience.
Our work at Upstream Counselling is grounded in the basic premises of the polyvagal approach, which bridges neuroscience and therapeutic compassion. We help clients use this framework to cultivate safety and resilience from within.
Safety as the Foundation: Polyvagal theory proposes that safety is not just the absence of threat, but the presence of connection. Therapy helps you rebuild this internal sense of safety.
Connection Restores Regulation: Human connection is essential for healing; when you feel understood, your nervous system begins to regulate naturally.
Embodied Healing Approach: Polyvagal theory describes healing as a process that occurs through bodily awareness, not just cognitive insight, emphasizing somatic integration.
Compassionate Curiosity: Rather than judging emotional responses, we approach them with curiosity, understanding that they reflect adaptive nervous system states.
Empowerment Through Understanding: Polyvagal theory suggests that by learning the language of your nervous system, you gain tools for lifelong self-regulation and emotional strength.
Your physiological state reflects how your body communicates safety or threat. At Upstream Counselling, we help you interpret these signals so that you can build emotional stability rooted in nervous system awareness.
Reframing Through Science: Polyvagal theory offers a compassionate lens to view your body’s reactions—not as dysfunction, but as adaptive responses that once ensured survival.
Recognizing Patterns of Response: By identifying when you’re in sympathetic activation or dorsal vagal shutdown, you can respond intentionally instead of reacting impulsively to stress.
Building Body Awareness: Learning to notice your body’s cues allows for early intervention. You can pause, breathe, and use techniques to shift toward calm and presence.
Bringing Mind and Body Together: The polyvagal approach goes beyond just “thinking your way” to healing — it connects how you feel emotionally with what’s happening in your body, helping everything work in sync.
Building Steady Self-Regulation: With regular practice, you become more resilient — staying calm when life gets messy and keeping your emotional balance for the long run.
At Upstream Counselling, we focus on helping clients transition from defence to connection using the healing framework of polyvagal theory’s principles. This process leads to sustainable calm and confidence in daily life.
Understanding the Science of Safety: Polyvagal theory focuses on how your body perceives safety before your mind does. Recognizing these cues helps reduce anxiety and reactivity.
Cultivating Nervous System Awareness: Polyvagal theory also emphasizes that self-regulation begins by sensing your bodily state—learning to interpret and respond to what your system communicates.
Integrating Mindfulness and Somatics: We combine mindfulness with gentle movement to reinforce safety signals within the body, enhancing emotional regulation.
Rewiring Through Practice: Polyvagal theory leads to greater adaptability; with continued practice, your body learns to stay calm even when faced with stress or uncertainty.
Achieving Emotional Stability: Through personalized exercises, our clients develop patterns of balance and peace that sustain emotional wellness beyond therapy.
The vagus nerve helps your body respond to feelings of safety, connection, and calm. At Upstream Counselling, our approach integrates this knowledge to help you achieve emotional stability and reduce stress responses.
Understanding the Mammalian System: The mammalian autonomic nervous system helps us connect socially and emotionally. By engaging this system through gentle awareness, therapy helps restore natural safety cues within relationships.
Building the Social Engagement System: Our therapy activates the ventral vagal complex, the part of the nervous system responsible for communication and empathy, helping you reconnect authentically with others.
Supporting Trauma Healing: Through polyvagal theory, we understand that trauma responses stem from physiological disconnection. We use this insight to guide clients back toward feelings of safety and openness.
Fostering Regulation Through Practice: Mindful breathing, body scanning, and grounding exercises encourage vagal tone improvement, supporting balanced emotional and physical health.
Cultivating Long-Term Calm: By improving vagal function, your body learns to respond to challenges with calm and flexibility, laying a strong foundation for lasting resilience.
Our team at Upstream Counselling is here to help you explore issues, gain insights, begin your journey towards healing, and work towards the goals you identify during the counselling process.
Personalized therapy designed to address specific mental health issues while also nurturing personal growth and well-being.
A counselling program focusing on fostering effective communication, resolving conflicts, and nurturing healthy relationships.
A program designed to support clinical growth, whether you’re a student or a seasoned professional.
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Disclaimer: Content on this website is for informational purposes only. Visiting this website does not establish any type of therapist-client relationship with Upstream Counselling or its staff. Information obtained from this site does not substitute for a thorough medical and/or psychiatric evaluation by an appropriately credentialed and licensed professional.
