Critical Review of Polyvagal Theory Book

Completely different way to think about health and social interaction - we don’t realize how much tension isn’t just in one part of the body.

Referred pain is a fascinating topic and this book illuminates a lot more about how our nervous system makes us who we are

This book and application of the Polyvagal Theory is amazing. I've seen improvement just doing the Basic Exercise once per day before bed. The audio book was great. My only concern is finding practioners in the US who can implement? There are additional Self Help Exercises and I wish those were available by Stanley online. The book is amazing and highly recommend.

I think there is a lot to polyvagal theory, but 2/3 into this book, I realized there was very VERY little evidence being provided for very big claims. Rosenberg keeps saying over and over, after one or two visits, this patient was cured. Cured? How did he measure that? And for how long did he measure the positive changes? For the five minutes after the exercise or for regular intervals over the next 10 years? It seemed like he was concluding positive results over a very short amount of time with a sample size of somewhere between 1-5 people. He didn’t have other, non-biased scientists or medical doctors measure his results in any kind of replicable scale.

I’m not saying it doesn’t work. What I’m saying is, this guy is no scientist and he hasn’t proven anything with his anecdotes. Before I put my time and energy into this, I’d like to see more scientific data from much larger sample sizes, measured in ways that can be critiqued and replicated. This isn’t the book for anybody looking for the science behind polyvagal theory.

But book is in good condition and learning a lot about the vagus nerve. I do massages and exercises at least 1 time a day.

I’m not rating the content of the book just yet, but the audiobook needs a different reader. Many, many words and a name are mispronounced to the point if distraction. It’s a book with a lot of medical terms and a French guy’s name, but Derek Botten’s pronunciations miss the mark. Ive never stopped an audiobook in the middle for this reason before until now. Disappointing. Examples of words he has mispronounced: esophageal with a hard G, thoracic as “thoractic,” integral as “intregal,” “hiatal” is sometimes “hi-uh-tel”, chyme with a soft ch sound instead of a “k” sound…and the poor French person’s name….I have no idea what he’s trying to say. I think perhaps “Alain” might be the first name—but only because of the he/him pronouns (without that, I could have sworn he was trying to say Élaine) and the last name, I have no clue because he’s pronouncing an H in the middle, and the French don’t pronounce those. Update: I managed to find the name via Google, and it’s Alain Gehin. Whether in English or French, the “h” in this name is silent. It’s unfortunate the reader did not take the time to look up so many pronunciations.

In addition to a full easy explanation of polyvegal theory book provides an easy method for testing vegal function and several exercises to reboot, align. And maintain healthy vegal function