254. From Sound to Safety: Understanding the Safe & Sound Protocol with Dr. Porges and Karen Onderko

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
You have tried everything to getrelief from anxiety or depression, or
fear or panic or fill in the blank.
You are in therapy.
You've bought programs, you've triedmedication, maybe, uh, a retreat or two.
You've moved your eyes back and forth.
You've tapped incessantly on yourskin, and you've of course tried every

(00:21):
social media, brain retraining or vagalnerve hack, but that underlying sense
of unease or disconnection remains.
What if there was a way to gently nudgeyour body towards safety through something
as fundamental and simple as sound?

(00:42):
Today, you and I are diving deep intothe Safe and Sound Protocol or SSP.
It's a unique approach that usesspecifically filtered music to
speak directly to our body's senseof safety, leveraging the power
of the human voice frequencies.
I'm incredibly honored to have thepioneers behind this work with us.

(01:05):
You and I are joined by Dr. StephenPorges, the originator of the Polyvagal
Theory and the developer of SSP.
And also Karen Onderko, who wasinstrumental in bringing SSP outta
the lab and into the clinical world,conducting the initial testing,
development, and training of SSP.
The two co-authored, a new book,uh, which is called Safe and Sound.

(01:29):
And is out now.
In this conversation, we deeply explorewhat SSP actually is and why it works.
Hi, my name's Justin Sunseri.
I'm a therapist and coach who helpsyou live more calmly, confidently, and
connected without psychobabble or woo woo.

(01:50):
Welcome to Stuck Not Broken.
What is SSP?
What is the Safe and Sound Protocol?
The Safe and Sound Protocol, andwe call it SSP, is a evidence-based
and non-invasive therapy thatinvolves listening to music that
has been filtered to prioritizethe frequencies of human voice.

(02:13):
So this auditory input allows ournervous system to be receptive to cues
of safety and to downregulate defense.
So voice is such a sound in particular,but voice, sound generally, but voice in
particular is just salient, sensory input.
And as humans, we're so driven to connectand our voices are such an important,

(02:36):
um, vehicle for that connection.
So, um, using the auditory system to,um, to access safety in the nervous
system was the way that Dr. Porges,uh, chose to create a, a therapy.
So it's all about sound andhow that impacts safety.
You mentioned that there's, or inthe book it mentions that there is

(03:00):
three different versions of SSP orthree different filtration pathways.
What does that mean?
SSP has three pathways, and theyrelate to how the music, the
underlying music is filtered.
The original SSP-SSP Core is the firstof those frequency filtration pathways,

(03:22):
and it involves, all of them involvefive hours of listening to music.
Though it doesn't take five hours tocomplete SSP, it take, it can take
months to complete SSP, uh, but thepoint is that throughout those five
hours of listening, the music isthe filtration of the music shifts.
So, at the very beginning, in hourone, at the be- you know, early stages

(03:45):
of your listening- you're really justreceiving distilled, uh, cues of safety
in the frequency range that focuseson, on the human voice in particular
a mother's voice, a mother's lullaby.
You know, those sounds that we, wehear when we're first, well, when we're
in utero and when we're first born,that, uh, lead to us feeling welcomed

(04:10):
and loved and embraced in the world.
That sort of, um, biological,uh, exp expectancy to come into
the world in a welcoming way.
So those are the firstsounds that we hear.
And hopefully we hear them, not, noteverybody does, and this, if they don't.
This is a really nice, uh, substitute.
Karen, one thing you saidwas that it's evidence-based.

(04:32):
mm-hmm.
What's the evidence?
The evidence- and there are, uh, inthe book we cite at least six different
studies, and another study has justgotten funded by the Department of
Defense, which we can talk about later.
But, uh, the evidence, uh, showsthat SSP can, um decrease auditory

(04:52):
hypersensitivities, decrease sensorysensitivities generally, uh, increase
calm feelings, uh, reduce anxiety,reduce depression, um, enhance sleep.
And what am I forgetting, Steve?
Well, um, it changes autonomic tone,but that was early research and now

(05:13):
there's more will be coming out.
So, uh, Justin, in the beginningit was really just my own research,
but for the past, let's saydecade, it's been outta my hands.
And the community is now doing researchincluding a large contract or grant
with the Department of Defense.
And people have used it and mixed itwithin clinical work, as you know, but

(05:34):
now they're documenting how it acceleratesintervention strategies or outcomes.
Tell us a little bit more about that.
So I know that it, and we'll, wewill get into this, it has lots
of potential benefits and I reallywanna touch upon that later on.
So it's, is it just someonewho's a provider saying, "Hey,
it helped," or is there, are wetalking about randomized controlled-

(05:56):
Yeah, let, let, let me jump in andalso bring you back a step and say,
there's two different types of evidence.
There's evidence on the theoreticalmodel and the neurophysiology that
documents what this is supposed to do.
And then there's a sensevalidation of what it is doing.
And the validation for what it's doingis coming from controlled studies.

(06:18):
Like- so it's a laboratory, like some ofthe work was laboratory, but some of it's
actually controlled clinical studies, uh,within people's clinics and institutions.
Um, and there's also of course, casehistories and that's the other, uh, what
Karen and I call real life experiences.
And you start collecting, let's saya few hundred of those and you start

(06:38):
saying, well, something's happeninghere, especially if the symptom clusters
start to match the features of whatthe laboratory research is showing.
Gotcha.
So it's not just a bunch of people whoare passionate about this saying, "Wow,
this is curing everything." This is,we're, there's also some, you know,
white coat laboratory stuff going on.
there, there's more than that as Ioften say, is everything does something.

(07:01):
You know, build the expectation,you'll get the effect.
And that's not necessarily wrong becausethe human interaction, connectedness
supports body changes and that's fine.
But what we're talking about isliterally- visualize a compass.
We know what this does.
So we're really targeting the symptomchanges based upon the theoretical model.

(07:22):
And so what you start seeing is this,uh, engagement in what I call the
ventral vagal complex and the cluster offeatures that come from that spontaneous
engagement, hypersensitivities onmultiple dimensions, which was almost
a sur I would say, a positive surprisefor me 'cause auditory was certainly,

(07:42):
but then it became visual as well.
And ingested people are noweating more different foods,
literally, eating drops down.
So the model is really being expressed inthe clinical feedback from the different,
uh, I would say portals of research wherewe have laboratory, which is gonna be
more targeted towards randomized controls.

(08:05):
We have it researched now withinter- interbedding, interweaving
it into clinical treatmentversus standard treatment.
And we see, uh, basicallytrajectory changes.
And then you have in the sense, uh, theself-reported clinical observations,
uh, basically, uh, coming from boththe, uh, Unyte dashboard where they're

(08:26):
doing the assessments and otherforms of people collecting data.
Obviously music's a big part of this.
Mm-hmm.
What is the music, whatare people listening to?
You've mentioned, um, filtration anddistillation, but if I put headphones
on or earbuds in with and listeningto SSP, what am I gonna hear?
Hmm.
Well, you are gonna, you are gonna decidewhat you wanna hear, and there are five

(08:48):
different choices, selections of theunderlying music that you can select.
There's a classical, uh, selection.
There's a, um, musicfrom the seventies or so.
Uh, there's a children's playlist of,you know, kids' songs and, you know,
songs from movies that they know.
There is a, uh, grooveplaylist that is instrumental.

(09:10):
What, so what music wouldnot fit into SSP like this?
This type of genre absolutely doesnot fit into what we're looking for.
I mean, it's so personal, isn't it?
Like what kind of music, uh, affectsstate, but I would say like rap music or
heavy metal music is probably not whatyou want to have as your underlying.

(09:32):
Uh, um, I, I'm going to give you,uh, so think of music literally
as the vehicle that's conveyingthe stimulus or the challenge.
So ballads and melodic music, uh,and even classical music, uh, you can
modulate, uh, filter the music to, in asense, signal this notion of engagement

(09:53):
and disengagement in a sense, it'sthe voice of- a prosodic voice, uh, a
mo- a mother's voice with intonation.
Well, in classical music, it's reallyviolins and flutes and clarinets.
And again, in songs, there'salways the lead singer and
the ballad in the modulation.
But- given- that being said, whenI was actually developing it in the

(10:15):
laboratory, I had, uh, literallyfamilies with kids who said they
wanted to, uh, they didn't wannalisten to this, uh, Disney type music.
They want to listen to N Sync-which is getting pretty close
to, uh, grading sounds in my ear.
And I said, fine, we willprocess your, your, your CD.
And it was effective.

(10:37):
Now point is that you can getthese frequency modulations,
uh, off of most music.
You can do that.
But if you keep the music, thenatural form of the music in
the range of a mother's voice,it's going to be more effective.
So your question is a greatquestion, but it shouldn't be

(10:57):
meant that you can't get effects.
The issue is when you, when we developthe SSP, it was really leveraging what we
knew to optimize the effectiveness of it.
I am guessing that some types ofmusic or pieces or genres are gonna
naturally gravitate more toward theprosody, the coagulation aspect of

(11:18):
it, and you're enhancing that versusheavy metal and rap, which are more
mobilizing, but toward deeper, um, mouh, flight fight kind of activation.
Yeah, if you looked at theacoustic features of the music,
it would give you real hints.
And if you knew what like theacoustic features of a prosodic
effective mother is, the answerbecomes in front of your eyes.

(11:39):
Now, you start understanding that, "Yeah,why do I like that music?" Because it
does modulate within that frequency data.
It pulls me in.
And so when you learn the lesson orthe rules, you select the music that
you can work with the, the easiest.
So it is with music, I tend to feel likewe, we, we are pulled toward what speaks

(12:00):
to our state, uh, sort of matches it.
So I like heavy metal music a, a lot.
Uh, but there's also times where Ireally like more folksy calm, and there's
other times where I just want silence.
There's other times where I wantmore somber, you know, more that
speaks to my shutdown state.
So what, the music you'redescribing, it sounds like it
doesn't really match the state.
It's more like there's an intention,there's a goal to self-regulate.

(12:23):
Okay.
Now, um, I'm looking at you, listeningto you, and I realize there are
people who don't wanna go into a calmsocial engagement state, and their
life is really all about stayingmobilized, energetic, and, and active.
They may use the word engagement,but not really in a reciprocal level.
They're, they're doing that.

(12:44):
And they tend to developstrategies to keep in that state.
Now, when a child, and this is reallywhere this whole, uh, I would say
intervention came from, which childrendon't, it's not, so, it's not that
they're selecting to be out of tune.
They're basically due tosomething in their history.

(13:05):
They're-, they're in a sense outta tune.
So they don't have enough experienceto say, I want elect to be calm.
Yeah.
So what we're saying is wecan, in a sense, allow them
to sample that experience.
Gotcha.
So the music that you're gonna,that one would listen to, it sounds
like it's repurposed commercialmusic that's been out there already.

(13:27):
Mm-hmm.
It's not like you guys are in the,you know, you're, you're creating
your own music and playing theviolins and singing and whatnot.
You're repurposing.
Some of the music for that's on theplatform has been composed, uh, for them.
Mm-hmm.
Uh, but the, the bit is, so if wewere to step back and say, what
type of music would you work with?

(13:49):
And, uh, the issue is melodic, prosodic.
For me, it's the history of folk music.
It's like the Chieftains and Irish music.
It's melodic, it's narrative, it'sstorytelling, it's very engaging.
Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell- but that'smy, I'm, I'm dating myself, but what it

(14:10):
is, is it, the words were less importantthan how they were being projected.
So what do you do withthe words of the music?
Because there's narrativeswithin these pieces, right?
So what happens to that?
That's the cultural aspect.
That's where people want certainplaylists, and that's, that's
actually a business set of decisions.

(14:30):
So what would I do with it?
I would, my own- Karen has heard me saythis before- I think everyone should
literally choose their own playlist.
I think it should be totallyindividualized, culturally, and totally
individualized, and let the processingof the music that they like, lead
them into the state of engagement.

(14:51):
So when someone, um, listens tothe music, what should they expect?
Are there, is it all safety allthe time and bliss or other things?
Safety is not a constant state.
Safety is part of a range of engagement,disengagement, and re-engagement,
as we call that co-regulation.
But the body is like saying, "Oh, I'mcoming towards something and then I

(15:15):
am, in a sense, feeling a loss andI want to come back." so it's not a
constant state, it's a neural exercise.
And so SSP was developed tobe a neural exercise of that
whole ventral vagal complex.
So it can't be a steady, uh,frequency band has to be modulated.

(15:36):
Our whole body respondsto changes in stimulation.
If we live in a constantstimulation, we're no longer
really alive or functionally.
Yeah.
Right.
But we were talking about how, um,the music changes over the total
five hours of listening that is,you know, laid out for someone.

(15:56):
And at the very beginning thereis, there are longer phases where
you're hearing more of the, you know,the, the, the frequency range of a
mother's voice, a mother's lullaby.
And so, people, some people arefeeling something, feeling safety
or, or focusing on that range offrequencies for the first time.

(16:16):
And it's actually quite profound.
Um, kids have given their parents theirfirst hugs after hearing this music.
And it's, it's very a visceral experience.
So your body goes along with themusic feeling the sense of safety
and openness at certain points.
And then sometimes thosefrequencies go away.

(16:38):
And so you do experiencesomething of a loss.
And when Steve talks about aneural exercise, it's that.
We're, we're practicingtraveling between states.
We have an anchor now in, in safetyand what feel, what that feels like.
So we have sort of a signpostfor getting back there.
And the more we shift in andout of that state, we're really

(17:00):
practicing resilience and balance.
And even the pathwaysare becoming myelinated.
Uh, so that.
We can travel those pathways more easily.
Karen, what does that mean?
"The pathways are becoming myelinated."
So the, um, pathways in our brains that,uh, that allow us to experience emotions
and thoughts and feelings and behaviors,um, are neuroplastic and we can become in

(17:27):
a habit of having, for instance, anxietyand we can get stuck, stuck, not broken,
uh, in, uh, a loop of being anxious.
And when we, uh, can pull ourselves-but, but because the brain and the
nervous system are neuroplastic, wecan shift out of a state of anxiety
by practicing safety, by cultivatinga sense of safety and experiencing

(17:50):
that state, moving between those two.
And the, um, pathways in our brainsare myelinated when there's more
frequent use of those pathways.
And by that we mean that there'sa, a fatty coating that, uh, uh,
coats that sheath, uh, which coatsthat pathway that makes traveling
along it much more quick and easy.

(18:12):
We're not gonna be able to, in a sense,measure this or easily measure this.
this And so it carries with it moreof a metaphor of how the system is
actually becoming, uh, more flexible.
And that is, you know, and like, uh, whenwe demyelinate, we can demyelinate from
starvation and for lack of stimulation.

(18:33):
So we know that stimulation, especiallyearly experiences, aid in terms of
nerve nervous system, myelination.
So this is what's happening-we're becoming more fluid, our
ability to move states change.
And that's why I like tocoin it as a neural exercise.
As opposed to, let's say headphonesthat filter out sounds or only

(18:56):
allow certain sounds in therewould be more of a prosthesis, a
sense accounting for what might bethought of as being neurodiversity.
And I like to think not of is asneuroplasticity as much as the fact that
we can shift state and when we shiftstate, then that neuroplasticity, those

(19:16):
exercises start to improve the fluidityof how we move back and forth from states.
You know, in, in reading the-your work, Dr. Porges, you've used
the word neural exercise a lot.
I feel like, where I think that in readingthis book, this is the first time where
it really hit me that we were talkingabout is, um, I call it, when I talk to

(19:36):
my clients, I call it putting the reps in.
It's not like you just getto safety and you're done.
You practice it, you build itjust like anything else really.
If you wanna lift heavier weights,you gotta show up and do a little
bit, and then you work your way up andeventually get to where you wanna be.
And so with, with this book,there seems to be more care
or attention placed onto that.
The, that the fact that it's incrementaland there's small changes, and part

(20:00):
of that evidence was sounds likefrom the practitioners who said
things like "safe before sound."And we do little pieces, we titrate.
It's not just, here's a bunch ofsafety for you, but here's the
amount of safety you can handle.
And then we kind of pull away from it,come back to it, process it, build on it.
Well, first of all, uh, Karen hadthis, these wonderful relationships

(20:21):
with the providers and that ledto actually the interactions
and interviews with the clients.
So this becomes the important part.
One can structure a theory and a model,but how it gets embedded in a person's
lives- I mean, I really, uh, lean on Karenand give her, uh, the pat on the back for

(20:42):
in a sense, getting that information out.
Mm-hmm.
So, as an example, children were veryreceptive to the amount of cues of safety
that were embedded in the music throughthe filtration and, um, when we expanded
the, when we released SSP into the worldof therapists, and now it's worldwide,

(21:04):
um, and all kinds of therapists.
Initially it was pediatric, um, OTs and,uh, PTs and speech language, uh, people.
But then the trauma world heard windof this and trauma therapists, psycho
psychotherapists, uh, were interested init and started using it their clients.
And the, the same filtration in someonewith a complex trauma background, uh,

(21:27):
was, uh, was not received in the same way.
So cues of safety to them were cues of,uh, vulnerability or, um, if they had,
uh, a trauma that was interpersonal, theycould be reminded of that experience.
And even a little bit of that,of input could be too much.

(21:48):
So therapists started to titrate and,um, have shorter and shorter segments
of listening, and tried to find thatsweet spot where someone could accept,
accept that input, and then take a break.
And so this concept of sortof mi- titration or even micro
ti- titration really took hold.

(22:08):
Uh, and it very, you know,each client is different.
Each setting, each time you meetwith your client is different.
Um, so it's always shifting.
There's no one way of deliveringSSP and even with your, same client,
there's no one way of delivering.
The, the therapist or the provider,what I learned, they really need

(22:30):
to be truly Polyvagal informed.
And what does that mean?
It means they have to be aware ofthe state that their client is in.
And they can't think of this as atool that works the same on everyone.
Hmm.
So by looking at people's faces, bylistening to their voices, uh, and seeing
the muscle tone in their body, they haveto be able to infer with physiological

(22:54):
state their clients are moving into.
Because many clients, especiallythose with trauma histories, are
really numb too much of their body.
And may miss their body's own reactions.
And so the therapist has to reallybe, in a sense, almost a parental
figure to the client in monitoringtheir titration of this stimulation.

(23:17):
Personally, I was really quiteshocked 'cause I had years of
experience with in more of a pediatricgroup in neurodivergent, and I
never saw anyone react adversely.
I just saw people justwhoosh and become engaging.
Uh, but when the trauma group starteduse this, I mean it took me on a journey

(23:41):
of, I would say, understanding whatit is to be traumatized and what it is
to be traumatized for many of those,especially those with complex trauma,
is that the trauma was inflicted bysomeone with whom they had trusted.
And often the trust was almost ona biological level, like a parent.

(24:01):
And so the body's naturalresponse to a parent or to a
caregiver is to be accessible.
But now that accessibility hasled to injury and the body learns,
learns very well, and we can evensay from our friend, Bessel Vander

(24:23):
Kolk- the Body Keeps the Score.
But in understanding this from a polyvehicle perspective, the body learned
that accessibility was a portal to injury.
It was vulnerability.
And so the music always worked.
This was the paradox and the irony-that even when they were getting
adverse effects, it was working.

(24:45):
Because happened was theylistened, they became accessible.
The internal bodily feelings,inter interoception, percolated
upward to the cortex.
And they said, "I know what thatfeeling is. That's the feeling that
occurs before I get injured. I'mout of the room." And literally
they start to tell us those things.

(25:06):
And so we learned a lot about theaccessibility versus vulnerability
dimension, and we learned that thenervous system really is on a journey.
It wants to be accessible.
But these associations ofaccessibility, visceral accessibility
with injury are just powerful.

(25:27):
And that's why they're in therapy.
So they're in therapy because ofexactly what's getting triggered.
And now we gave them a neuralexercise, which downregulated their
vulnerable vulnerability reactions.
So, so that led to therapists reallyunderstanding how to titrate, um,
because when they saw that reactionwhere suddenly the story was evoked and

(25:49):
they were out of their body, uh, thenof course the therapist would stop the
music and they would, you know, processand integrate and, uh, help that person
come back, come back to their body.
Um, but then they, people beganto realize why wait for that?
Let's take a shorter segment oflistening, and before that happens,
let's see what, you know, let's seehow that can be helpful to this person.

(26:13):
And what people have really come tounderstand is that what's so nice about,
um, SSP is as a bottom up therapy, itdoesn't require any cognitive processing.
You don't have to talk about your story.
It's not top-down in any way.
In fact, the, the focusisn't on the story at all.

(26:33):
The focus is on state.
And what a gift to someone tolearn more about their state, to
understand more about their autonomictendencies, and to let their body
go through this experience without,without having to bring the story in.
Yeah.
I wanted to ask you, there's no, um, notnecessarily any trauma narrative sharing.

(26:56):
I mean, it's not to say that thereisn't trauma narrative that is
shared, and sometimes, you know,something will up during the
listening that will be processed.
But in general, for people who haveavoided, um, say Cognitive Behavioral
Therapy because they are avoidingtalking about their story, this is
a really nice alternative for them.
And in fact, after going through SSPwith a more safety infused into their

(27:20):
system, they may act, they may be readythen for cognitive therapy afterwards.
So not necessarily it's not ruledout, but it's not necessary.
Correct.
What about the person that says, "I,I'm supposed to talk about my childhood
and what I went through and my parentslike, what are you talking about,
Karen? I, I have to purge these thingsfrom myself." What about that person?

(27:41):
I mean, I think a sensitive therapist willwanna listen, but also they'll wanna get
back to the work and they may encourage tosay like, "No, let's, let's, rather than
the story, let's get back to state." Andthat's what's lovely actually, is that
it really is so state driven and, and youcan process so much through your state.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
the part that I think is importantabout this discussion we're having

(28:04):
right now is that it places the emphasison the feelings or the individual's
physiological aware awareness oftheir physiological reactivity.
if we step back and ask, really, likein the whole area of trauma and about
being locked into different states ofdefense and leading to addiction or
anxiety, whatever terms we wanna useto describe these adaptive strategies

(28:30):
that people are using, what we realizeis that they have numbed their body.
And all the therapies are about isreally a journey of re-embodiment.
the SSP is a tool forthat reem embodiment.
And so when you get embodied and youfeel your body, then the narratives
start taking on a different meaning.

(28:50):
So, from SSP, it's notall first hugs and smiles.
There are other things that kindof crop up is what I'm hearing.
And in the book, all the vignettes, lotsof examples of, it's not just bliss.
There, there are otherthings that kind of surface.
When I described this to my client,I don't, I'm not an SP provider,

(29:11):
but this concept, what I sharewith them is that you, you finally
achieve some level of safety.
And so the rest of your body,the stuff that's sort of stuck
in there is like, thank you.
Now pay attention to me.
And it starts to surfaceand, and bubble up.
Is that, is that an aptmetaphor for how SSP works?
You're really saying that we're givingpermission for the different parts.
I'm gonna move into that model toexpress themselves because they're

(29:35):
not gonna take over as the dominantfeature because you have a place to
go to, you know, that you can be safe.
That means you can hear, when you hearyour body, when you feel your body, you no
longer are using all your- for instance-neural energy to suppress bodily feelings.
And there's a paradox here is that we,we come from a culture and society that

(29:57):
thinks that attending and mental effortis really the, the premier experience.
We should have to work harder todo better, to be more productive,
but we're doing that at greatexpense of the inhibition of our
brainstem mechanisms that serve ourfoundational survival processes.

(30:18):
Uh.
Basically our autonomic state.
And what we need to do is enna- enablethe autonomic nervous system to move back
into states of homeostasis, to supporthealth growth, restoration, and sociality.
And so that's really what thisprocess is, is giving the resource.
And so Justin, the res- the resourceenables people to move outta that

(30:41):
safety zone, but with a tremendoussense of, uh, anticipation that they
are capable moving back into it.
It helps them access safety, which thenopens up potential to self-regulate,
but remember in the beginning,for many people, they don't

(31:01):
know what safety feels like.
Right.
And so it's a curiosity that they're beingled on this journey and that curiosity for
a traumatized individual triggers fear.
Oh yeah.
Uncertainty.
And so what SSP provides is reallythis neural exercise of moving in and
out of uncertainty with predictability

(31:23):
The predictability being theco-regulation aspect of who you're
working with and the actual musical
actual prosodic contentof the, of the sounds.
Gotcha.
Who's SSP for Who shouldbe seeking out SSP?
Um, we'll start with there.
And I guess after thatwould be, who's it not for?
If anybody.

(31:43):
The book covers a lot of differentpresentations of people seeking help.
What do you think?
Well, SSP is a nervous system therapy,and it, it can support, um, all
kinds of conditions and symptoms, um,that relate to the nervous system.
And maybe let's forget about diagnoses.

(32:06):
Uh, because really what the SSP cando is to help infuse safety into
the nervous system to allow for moreco-regulation, more openness, uh, less
defensiveness, and more availability.
Um, and that is, you know, safetyis the beginning of all healing.
Um, so, but we can also talkabout who does benefit from

(32:29):
SSP, and that's worthwhile too.
So, uh, the early earliest, uh, peoplewho experienced the SSP were children
on the autism spectrum, and that was,uh, that was a very successful attempt
where Steve had the idea that ratherthan addressing reactions, um, and
Hmm.
behaviors, let's look at the interveningvariable between, uh, between a

(32:54):
stimulus and a response, which isour autonomic state, and basically
created SSP in fact, with, uh, childrenon the autism spectrum in mind.
Maybe it's worth saying something a littlemore about that origin story, Steve.
Well, it, it was, I mean, it'sa whole different perspective.
When I was doing this work andwas actually starting in the early

(33:15):
nineties, or even late eighties.
Um, basically behavioral modificationwas the tool to treat autistic kids.
So it was all in the observable.
And if you ever interact with autistickids who are being conditioned,
I mean your heart just is ingreat pain watching this 'cause
you can feel what they're doing.

(33:36):
They're trying to controla visceral reaction.
I, I was really kind of interestedin is if you could change the
child's state with the reaction tothe stimulus, would it be different?
Because I could see that thephysiological state was very important.
Now this reason I was asking that questionwas that my research from my dissertation

(33:59):
onward, and if we're talking aboutdecades, was all about looking at heart
rate variability, which is really vagalregulation as the intervening variable
of people's reactivity in the world.
And so it was the idea that you need amore vagal regulated state that created
literally a resource for buffering.

(34:20):
And this later became things like what DanSiegel talks about, window of tolerance
and other derivatives of that, whichreally are saying our physiological
state mediates how we react to the world.
And that was reallywhat the motivation was.
Could I create a stimulation system thatwas easily administered to children?

(34:42):
I will also tell you when I firstdeveloped this, and I was dealing
now with hypersensitive, hyperactiveyoung, uh, autistic individuals, and
I was actually running 'em in quartetsfour of at a time with their parents.
And I was starting to see reciprocalplay behavior amongst these kids.

(35:02):
And then one totally, uh,previously dysregulated child who
couldn't even have headset on.
He was so sensitive, ran into thissound attenuating chamber I built, which
had speakers in it and said, with hislimited vocabulary, one word- "Safe."
That's the word.

(35:23):
Wow.
So you start to see it being broadcastback at you and you, and the other one
was, I was working with a 42-year-oldadult autistic individual whose parents
described him as the most nicest,most selfish person they had ever met.
Now, what do they mean by that?

(35:43):
They meant that everything, theyinterpret, every interaction with
him about that was about him.
He never asked them how they felt.
No reciprocity.
So, I I actually, uh, ran him through thefive one hour sessions and, uh, by the end
of the fifth hour, I walk into the room.

(36:06):
He turns, looks towards me, puts hishand out to me, makes direct face-to-face
eye contact and says, "Good morning, Dr.Porges." Now, the other most interesting
thing was I wanted to get his senseof his own feelings, you know, which
is really what we're talking about.
So I said to him, I said, "John, how doyou feel?" And there was dead silence.

(36:29):
As he's starting to try to figureout what are these feelings.
And then he comes up with this veryinteresting way of saying "Relaxed,"
and, and a big smile came on his face.
He had figured out that he wasrelaxed, and this was novel to him.

(36:50):
I think both those stories, um, alsopoint to something that is worth
making sure we say in the, in thisconversation, and that is that how it's
delivered and the, um, approach that theperson has, the therapist or whoever's
delivering SSP, uh, with that person.
So the fact that Steve had already createda little cave with blankets around it so

(37:12):
that a child who couldn't put headphoneson could go inside this special place
and they were cared for and they couldexperience it in that way, they know
that that was, that, you know, that wassomeone really wanting to help them.
And the same with John, you developeda really nice relationship, which
is so clear through those, um,videos that you have of him.

(37:33):
Um, and so that's a really, uh,important point that the therapist
themselves has to have reallyan attuned relational presence.
And that is, um, so key and, andreally, I don't know if it's half
or if it's a quarter, but it's avery important or three quarters.
Uh, it's a very important input intothe experience of, uh, doing SSP.

(37:54):
So one other side story.
Um, we talk about what the, whattreatment of autism was in the
late eighties and early nineties.
And the children were really,they all had like, uh, ABAs, uh,
specialists working with them,with M&Ms and Cheerios as feedback.
And one child went through theSSP when it was called the Listing

(38:19):
Project Protocol in my lab.
And the mother calls me up and says,"I'm having problems with the ABA
teacher." I said, "How's he doing athome?" "Oh, doing great at home." And
I said, "What's going on with the ABAteacher?" And that is he was asking
the ABA teacher too many questions.
He was actually engaging her andit was disrupting her behavior.

(38:42):
Wow.
Very, but a lot of engagement though.
That's great.
Yeah.
And with John, the 42-year-old, I sawvideos of him with his father, and his
father is trying to create this dialogue.
And then John says, " Oh,tell me about you.
How are you doing?" And it was like, Iwas like, uh, what we learned, and it

(39:03):
took me decades to learn this, becausewe start thinking that children on
spectrum are not contingent- meaningthey don't follow our directives.
But if we watch the videos,we realize they're almost a
hundred percent contingent.
But the contingencies tend to be negative.
Neurotypical children are nota hundred percent contingent.

(39:26):
They change the flow.
So if the dialogue is, I'm talkingto you and you're responding, you'll
stop it and you'll ask me a you'll doa break and you'll do this transition.
That's what co-regulation is about.
Karen, you, you mentioned earlierabout the important, I'm, I'm glad
you started assigning at a percentage,although I'm not gonna hold you to it,
but the percentage of co-regulationof the provider and or, or the

(39:49):
parent in the room with the music.
So it's not just music, there'sthe co-regulation aspect of it
is really significant as well.
Can you elaborate on why thatis helpful along with the music?
Well, I mean, co-regulationis a cue of safety.
You know, when you talk about in your,uh, I think you call it four pathways

(40:09):
of healing, you, you say find safety,cultivate safety in your world.
And you talk about humming and beingin nature and, and walking and all
the ways and co-regulation, uh, allthe ways that you can begin to feel
safe again in your, in your own body.
And so that happens with the therapist,but on top of that experience, there is

(40:31):
this, um, psychoeducation component of it.
So, Polyvagal theory in and of itselfis so, um, hopeful and, um, forgiving.
And I think that clients do experiencethe benefits of Polyvagal theory just
purely, uh, by being with their therapist.
And then that just kind of infusesand bleeds into the experience

(40:52):
of SSP and moves back and forth.
And, um, yeah, I, I feel thatthat's a really, it's a really
important component and it's reallyimportant that that therapist is also
themselves in a ventral vagal state.
Well, that, Karen, that's the point aboutlike the ABA or the behavioral technician.
They're not in a ventral, they weredoing the behavior and the, the point

(41:14):
is the behavior in the person, they'realways broadcasting the autonomic state.
That's what it is tobe Polyvagal informed.
You acknowledge that.
So when a therapist uh, is in asense Polyvagal informed is sensitive
to the state of the child or theclient or themselves, then the
whole dyadic relationship changes.

(41:38):
I want to, let's, let's zoom out asfar as what a, a session looks like
and let me preface this- i, I am alwaysskeptical about pretty much everything.
Okay.
And I hope you don't mind me bringing alittle bit of skepticism, but I want to,
I wanna question something here . Uh,there's the music, there's co-regulation,
some of these vignettes involved beingoutside a horse, a grieving ceremony.
There was just all kindsof stuff that cue safety.

(42:02):
So at what point or how does the SSPadd to, or is foundational to all this?
What's the, is there like adividing line amongst all this?
How do we know it's not just anotherthing being added on that is not the
main mover, you know what I mean?
But is integral to the process?

(42:22):
Let, let me try to be a little helpfulon It's not a standalone therapy.
Let's just start there.
It's a tool to change the state of theindividual or to create an opportunity
for that state to be changed.
So, it fits in with any- virtuallyany other form of therapy that
is respectful of the otherindividual's presence and feelings.

(42:45):
So, it can be viewed as an,it's, it can accelerate the
effects of treatments of others.
So the, your question isboth very interesting.
It's profound and in generalit's viewed as unanswerable.
Okay.
Let me give you credit for what it is.
However, there is a way of answering it.
And the question is, if you dotherapy the way you normally do it

(43:09):
Hmm.
with and without SSP, doyou get any differences?
And that is actually a paper that'salmost ready for publication that was
being done at a psych clinic wherethey did practice normal practice and
practice, uh, uh, treatment with SSP.
And the trajectories are verydifferent with extraordinary

(43:32):
large statistical size of effects.
I mean big.
So the, the trajectory is differentand that is actually the project.
The same type of protocol is beingused by a department of defense funded
research grant because it's not thatthis is treating the anxiety or the
depression or whatever to trauma effectsit's helping the therapist accelerate the

(43:58):
impact of therapy because you're changingthe state of the client, making the
client's nervous system more accessible.
Mm-hmm.
And in all those cases, or theexamples that you just brought up,
that accessibility allowed for, forinstance, someone to, uh, spend time
with a horse, which other otherwisemight have been scary or uncomfortable.

(44:21):
Um, when you were talking about thegrieving ceremony, the, the, uh,
young, the older brother in thatfamily, uh, was able to just be
silly and kind of mimic the, um,you know, the, uh, wings of a bird.
And without, you know, withoutSSP, that wouldn't have been,
that would've been possible.
it, it really helps well shiftstate and open up someone to benefit

(44:46):
from these other interventions.
It compliments them, but it alsosounds like it really bolsters them.
But non SSP even I was, I wasexperimenting with different
things in my therapy room.
So besides the environment of theroom, sometimes I would have soft
music playing in the background.
And I would ask my clients, just tell mehow you feel about this and some of them
would say that really helped me stay calm.
Like it just helped me sort of focus.

(45:06):
So I guess that without that, I,I see that same person without
that little intervention.
And they're still them and we stilltalk but with that little addition,
it's, they said, it just helps me tosort of focus a little bit better.
I've also experimented with like havinga visual on a, my computer monitor of
nature, just sort of, you know, expansivesort of, and people will say, I just, I
like looking at it while I talk to you.

(45:27):
It just helps me open up.
So, SSP has probably an enhancedversion of, of these things.
It's really triggering that safety state.
You know, l let me buildon what you're saying.
There are certain modulations of soundsthat our nervous system can't reject, and
that's why it triggered in the traumatizedindividuals, that vulnerability.

(45:51):
It's wired into us.
It's how we talk to ourpets, how we to our babies.
So there, there is a study that I didwith my, my, when I had my active lab,
and that was looking at the intention,the, uh, intonation of a maternal
voice, uh, in, in its relationshipto its calming ability on the baby.

(46:14):
So are these frequenciesbeing modulated more or less?
And looking at the baby's heart ratechanges and distress behaviors, using
Ed Tronick's still face paradigm.
So the mother is interacting,freezes her face.
The baby gets dysregulated and thenthe mother comes back and talks
to the baby to try calm the baby.

(46:35):
The baby's heart rate was a, virtuallya linear relationship to the prosodic
features of the mother's voice.
And so was the reduction of stress interms of, uh, uh, this, uh, basically
behaviors that were stressful occurring.
But the point I'm making is thatthat was the core feature of what's

(46:56):
in SSP, and so the kids calm downautonomically and behaviorally when
there's intonation in those frequencies.
That's what SSP does.
Right.
So why music?
Why not the safe and Smells protocolor the safe in sight protocol?
Why, why music?

(47:16):
I, I'm gonna cut you short on that one.
Jason.
I'm gonna say, aren't youlistening to what I said?
The issue is the pattern of ournerve- our nervous system is
wired to look at vocal intonation.
And I'm gonna ask you, do you havekids or do you have pets and or pets?
and
Okay.
And the answer is, uh, whatkind of pet do you have?
Let's start
Two dogs.

(47:37):
Okay?
How do you talk to your dogs?
Um, when I'm not irritated, Ido the, uh, higher pitched, you
know, the prosodic kind of voice.
Yes.
And their reaction to bothforms almost immediate.
And so when you use a more melodicvoice, or like when I talk to my cat

(47:57):
who's sitting behind me, uh, they knowbecause that's phylogenetically embedded
in social mammals is to have thatmodulated sound and it's cross species.
And you, the example is cross species.
It's not that the cat or dog haslearned, but they may get, when

(48:18):
they get traumatized, it may,it's the same history of humans.
It's someone that was, uh, they,they were accessible to someone
and they were hurt and therefore,wham, they're closing that door.
SSP, the, the sound is reallyspeaking to the mammalian aspect of,
That's right.
And we use the word safety, that'sthe word that's been used all through

(48:41):
this podcast, but we can easily put-exchange it with the word trust,
Hmm.
and then it starts taking on adifferent ecological validity.
If I can trust the source of thosesounds, what happens to my body?
And sound is our medium ofconnection between each other.
And as such, it's very salient.

(49:04):
Um, Nina Krause has written a terrificbook about sound and hearing in the
brain, and it's called Of Sound Mind.
And in her book, she, she citesthat Helen Keller- well, first of
all, she talks about how, you know,that game that people play with.
Uh, if you had to lose oneof your which one would you,
you know, which one you lose?
Well, um, sight is at the top of the list.

(49:26):
Uh, but it, but really soundshould be at the top of the list.
And what, um, Nina talks about.
me.
To keep, no, yeah, yeah.
To keep, yeah.
What, what would be thelast sense you'd want lose?
It turns out that Helen Keller was talkingabout, um, uh, blindness sight is the,
is the sense that everyone wants to keep.
Yeah.
but what she said was, blindnessdisconnects us from things, but

(49:51):
deafness disconnects us from people.
Wow.
Yeah.
The, the, the going with this isthat I have friends who have worked
in institutions of the deaf andinstitutions of the blind, and
I ask them questions very muchrelated to what you're describing.
Are the blind emotionallydysregulated, frequently?

(50:14):
And the answer is no.
But are the deaf, yes.
No kidding.
Yeah.
So, uh, and in fact with deafness,that's why the sign language is
actually trying to use the face plusthe hands because the face is that other
part of our portal of presentation.

(50:34):
But the issue is- it's not- there's notequivalence, and that's your point, Karen.
Our nervous system sees patternsof sound as connection and trust.
So the sound aspect is just, sounds likeit's the most salient, the most mammalian-
in what we're, okay.
So in my which is the linkagebetween autonomic nervous system

(50:57):
and social interaction, sound isliterally, or at least the mechanisms
that enable us to interpret orextract sound are linked to how our
autonomic nervous system is working.
So when we get under stress, we losethat capacity to really even pull
in some of these prosodic sounds.
So if you've ever been in aheated argument, it's very

(51:19):
difficult to get this back down.
Oh yeah.
I remember the first time I presentedabout Polyvagal Theory years ago was, um,
at a school with the teachers and whatnot.
I was just very raw putting itout there, and after I was done
I could not hear accurately.
And I remember that kind of lastedfor a while and I picked up my
son from school, very prosodic.

(51:39):
He's, you know, my son andhappy to see him, but he's in
the back of my car talking.
I have no idea what he is saying.
And I was aware of it in the momentof like, oh, I'm in that state
where I can't really hear anything.
Yeah, that's so interesting.
Well, we know that our state affectsour own prosody- the way our, we
speak the melodic nature of our voice,but it also affects our capacity to

(52:01):
process prosody; to hear prosody.
Yeah.
But we're also emphasizing, but somethingabout our culture and our culture
really emphasizes that it's the wordsthat are important and not how we.
Express those words.
Oh yeah.
Yeah, you're right.
Alright, let me, I will wrapit up with a general question.
But- if, if someone reads the book-and I'll, I'll lay out a, a scenario

(52:25):
here for them- it begs the questionof, is this really a cure-all?
So let me ask you this, orI'll put this out there.
I'd love to hear your thoughts.
There's 13 case studies.
I went through the first, I readall of them, but I just went through
the first four to list these.
So in the first four alone, um, SSPaddresses or helps address anxiety, flat

(52:46):
affect, sensory, defensiveness, poorsleep, reduced social engagement, food
restrictions, maladaptive self-soothingtechniques, grief, chronic pain,
muscle tension, jaw clenching... I'mgonna go and on and on that, that I
haven't even finished half of whatthe first four case studies addresses.
Someone's gonna read this and, andit has to, it begs the question
like, really, is this a reallya cure all for all these things?
So I'll- take it away.

(53:08):
I am gonna start because I'mnot gonna let this slip away.
What if I said, if you're relaxed, noneof those things would really bother you?
I believe you.
would I be accused ofpresenting a cure-all?
If I said, when your autonomic nervoussystem is in a state of homeostasis, the
naturally emergent properties are to feelsafe and all these problems disappear,

(53:29):
uh, that would, in a sense give you thetarget of what you should be aiming for,
and now how are you going to get someinformation to enhance that regulation?
And that's what SSP is.
So it's, if we think about in your mindand how you articulate the question
is critical here, you're seeing theoutcomes and you're saying input
outcomes, that's not what this is about.

(53:51):
It's- it's a input into anunderlying regulatory system.
And when that system is morein homeostatic regulation, what
are the emergent properties?
Different lesson to be learned.
We're not treating depression.
We're not treating anxiety.
Uh, they're downstream.

(54:13):
They're being manifest becausethe autonomic nervous system is
in this state of dysregulation.
You asked earlier what, um,diagnoses are appropriate, you know,
Who is this for?
Yeah.
What population?
respond well to SSP.
I mean SSP, what it helps to do isalleviate dysregulation, and when you
alleviate dysregulation, all thoseother symptoms can be addressed.

(54:36):
So with that, Karen, let me kind oflike tell you part of the journey,
which I never really shared with you.
So I start to ask this bigquestion- are there core features
within most of the diagnoses?
And are this, this pathophysiology,diagnostic, or pathologizing
really a waste of time?
Are their core features?
Many of the core features are sensory;hyperreactive, hypersensitive.

(55:00):
They're downstream of a nervous systemthat is under a state of threat.
So I have now collected data on a couplethousand people using survey tools.
And so when people's autonomic nervoussystem is dysregulated based on the
body perception questionnaire, thelinkage with the hypersensitivities
on all sensory dimensions is high-dysregulated autonomic nervous system;

(55:24):
hypersensitivities across the gamut.
Now this becomes important becausewhen we start looking at dimensions
or disorders like autism, if youtake the sensory system off the
table, what percentage of autisticindividuals are no longer autistic?
All of them, because it'sone of the core features.

(55:45):
But it doesn't mean that this getsrid of autism, gets rid of the type of
autism that would be derivative of adysregulated autonomic nervous system.
And Justin, as the therapist inthe room, uh, there are many people
when their physiological systemsget destabilized, they're exhibiting
features of being on spectrum.

(56:07):
Hmm.
So when someone says, "I have thisdisorder, will SSP help me?" The
response is, "Are you dysregulated?"That's really what we're asking is,
and so, "Yeah, we can help you out."
Or let's say, or how do you feel?
Do you feel calm ever?
Do you feel peaceful?
Or, I have a better projective test.

(56:27):
And that is how do youdeal with stillness?
Do you think stillness
love that one.
is where you wanna go to?
Or is stillness reallyget you really anxious?
And that tells you something aboutthis accessibility, vulnerability.
So you have this dialogueon the aspect of stillness.
When you say stillness, doyou mean the immobility or do
you mean ventral plus dorsal-

(56:49):
Yeah.
Immobilize.
No, don't, don't evengo to the physiological-
When you're immobilized, yeah.
Immobilizing.
And what you'll find out, ofcourse, is of many people with the
histories who will come into therapy,stillness is the frightening state.
They don't wanna be there.
It's falling into a great abyss.
They wanna get out of that, andthat's why all this is going on.

(57:10):
Not why it's, but- the issueis that tells you if that they
can't deal with stillness.
Maybe SS P is a goodfirst thing to work with.
That's what- I love with my clientsI like getting to that point, which
is, I know you do all these thingsto make yourself feel better.
Um, but if I took all those things awayfrom you, how would you feel if you just
had to be immobile without stimulation?

(57:31):
What happens internally and theysay, " Oh no, I don't want, Nope.
That's where the fear or theanxiety or the whatever spikes."
That's right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Uh, anything else the two of youwant to add in before we wrap it up?
Well, I wanna say that this was a really awonderful journey for, for me with Karen.
And this is something that westarted together when SSP was being

(57:55):
initially launched and we startedto get this wonderful feedback from
clinicians and from even clients attimes about life changing events.
And I would get these emails, I said,"Karen, here's an email, we gotta
keep this together because this isan interesting story to tell." And
Karen has been with me from that verybeginning and she's become a great- not

(58:18):
become- you are a great storyteller.
Well, there were great stories to tell andwe told a lot of them in this book, and I,
I do hope that, um, the book doesn't comeacross as some sort of an advertisement.
That's not our goal.
Um, but the stories are so compelling thatwe can't not tell some of them, you know?
And we hope that the message, theoverall message, is one of hope

(58:41):
and the possibility for change.
And, and we hope that as many peopleas possible hear that message.
Yeah.
Sense of optimism that this is accessibleand we can become more of who we are.
I, I don't, it doesn't comeacross as an advertisement.
I, I was a little bit worried aboutthat when I, when I got it, I was
like, oh my gosh, this is justgonna be, but no, it, it's not.
And I love the, the casebreakdowns, the discussion of

(59:04):
what's happening autonomically.
I thought that was really helpful.
So I like that, a aspect of it a lot tohear, you know, the conceptualizations.
Can- let me ask one more kind offacetious, but kind of serious
question at the same time.
Let's say that, um, a certain city, anycity in the world says, you know what,
let's, let's, we're gonna install thesespeakers around the city that pump in

(59:25):
SSP music in the background, and peoplewill passively receive it as they exist.
Would that just cure the whole city's-would, would everyone be happier?
I'm honestly wondering.
Um, okay, there.
I thought about The reason I'm gonnajump into this, and I'll also tell
you about the pilot study that Idid do on something like this, and

(59:47):
that was in a preschool classroom,
Oh,
It in, in a classroom, andwatched the preschool behaviors.
I had three classrooms, uh, this isa couple decades ago, and I had one
classroom which had the music withoutthe filtering, one classroom with the
filtering and one without any music.
Okay.
So the, basically what you have are kidsin a preschool room sitting around or

(01:00:12):
moving around, and when the music cameon, they quieted down just to play music.
But when the SSP came on, they gatheredtowards the speakers in groups.
Okay, now- that was really my ideais- can I create a more social world?
Now- but your question is really, welive in a real world in the real world,

(01:00:36):
we're confronted both with social cuesand threat cues, and we have to be
very careful in saying we are going tostay in this world of social engagement
in the world that we're now living innow, which has a lot of threat cues.
We need to be aware and we need toseamlessly respond into defensive modes

(01:00:57):
and respond back to safe modes whenthe cues and context are appropriate.
And just to add on, you know, your,uh, your goal of wanting society
to be calmer and people to bemore relational- um, I get that.
Uh, but the, the way to do that isfor more people to alleviate their own

(01:01:17):
dysregulation because while dysregulationis contagious, so is regulation.
Yep.
Yeah,
And so we all, we all canbe part of this project.
Agreed.
I love it.
I think the, the microcosms like a,a school classroom, like what a great
way, what a excellent opportunity tostart pumping in a little bit more
safety to help increase that distresstolerance, hopefully the vagal brake.

(01:01:41):
Um, do you mind commenting real quickon the Department of Defense thing?
What can you share theDepartment of Defense study?
you before we wrap it up?
A, a colleague of, of ours, uh,J Kolacz, who's a professor at
Ohio State University, uh, gota Department of Defense, uh,
grant, to actually study this.
So he was my postdoc and now heis continuing on this journey.

(01:02:05):
He's quite a remarkable, heis very, uh, a scientist.
And, and, and you know, I think thatproject, it shifts it from- because
of the sufficient resources to do agood study- it changes it into from,
let's run a few people here and there.
Let's get a little pod to, in asense, a true random controlled

(01:02:26):
trial that in a sense willcreate a good, a good practices.
But is it to help veterans recover or...
it's, it's, oh, well, of course the, okay.
The military would have its expectationand I believe it- I don't know.
I, I haven't read the whole protocol,but, uh, in general, when the military

(01:02:48):
funds these types of projects, ithas a lot to do with redeployment.
My, under my understanding is that theywill be using the SSP along with, uh,
another therapy, uh, to determine ifveterans and individuals, they'll have
different groups, um, can reduce theirhyper vigilance, their anxiety, and

(01:03:10):
their, um, improve their sleep as a resultof the group that includes, um, SSP.
And, and an award like this is so,uh, monumental and such a great step.
And honestly, it's important tothank all of the people who came,
you know, research as a team sport.
And there was so much researchthat led up to this point and

(01:03:31):
so much real world evidence.
So we can thank all SSP providers, allof the researchers, all of the clients.
And, and we, we really would liketo thank the clients who are in this
book who at a vulnerable time in theirlives shared their story with us.
So we're really grateful to them,their therapists and every, everybody

(01:03:52):
who played a part in this book'cause we really appreciate it.
Thank you both.
Absolutely fascinating.
I appreciate both, uh, comingon and sharing your thoughts.
Well, thank you.
Thank you for having us.
You're welcome.
Thanks, Justin.
All righty.
Huuuge thanks again to Dr. Porges andKaren Onderko for sharing their time

(01:04:14):
and their deep knowledge of the Safe andSound Protocol and the nervous system.
a couple of key takeaways for me arehow SSP acts as a neural exercise.
It helps the nervous system practicemoving into and out of safety.
It builds resilience- that capacity thatwe talk so much about here on the podcast

(01:04:37):
and the students who learn about this inthe Unstucking Academy- we, we spend a
lot of time on building that capacity.
SSP is not about forcing someoneinto a state of eternal and
unending happiness and and bliss.
That's not the goal, but more aboutgently accessing safety sometimes for the
first time, and using that as an anchorto stay connected to the present moment,

(01:04:59):
even when uncomfortable things pop intothe body, which they probably will.
I also really appreciate the emphasison SSP being a tool that is used along
with co-regulation from a safe other.
It helps to make the nervous systemmore accessible or, or open or
receptive to connection and to healingrather than a, a standalone cure-all.

(01:05:25):
That- that is not the goal of it.
I hope you got a deeperunderstanding of SSP.
I know I absolutely did.
Maybe your next step is to reflect on thequestion that I put forth during the talk.
If I were to somehow remove all of yourcoping strategies, what would happen?
How would you feel?

(01:05:46):
What would your body do?
If you'd react in a defensive manner,like anxiety or panic or fear would spike,
that suggests that you could probablybenefit from more safety in your system.
If you answered that you couldexist in stillness and stay
connected to the present moment.
It sounds like you have a lot of safetywithin you already, so make sure to

(01:06:07):
maximize that and mindfully connect withyour inner felt experience of safety.
That's it for this one.
Thanks for joining me once again.
Bye.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}254. From Sound to Safety: Understanding the Safe & Sound Protocol with Dr. Porges and Karen Onderko

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254. From Sound to Safety: Understanding the Safe & Sound Protocol with Dr. Porges and Karen Onderko

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