Polyvagal Theory : Don’t Throw the Baby Out with the Bathwater

In recent years, Polyvagal Theory (PVT) has become widely used in trauma-informed spaces, coaching, somatics, and even workplace wellbeing programs. It’s offered many people a way to understand their nervous system, and a language for talking about regulation, co-regulation, and safety.

But it’s not without critique.

Some argue that PVT oversimplifies complex physiology, and that certain anatomical claims about the dorsal and ventral branches of the vagus nerve are not supported by robust evidence. Others have called out the commodification of the model, noting how it’s been popularised and sold in ways that sometimes outpace the science.

As someone who works with changemakers, teams, and organisations around nervous system literacy, I take these critiques seriously.

But I also see something important beneath the popularity of PVT: a wider recognition of the body’s role in how we show up, connect, create, and lead.

In my work, frameworks like PVT and the Window of Tolerance offer accessible, non-pathologising ways to explore how stress and overwhelm show up in daily life. Not as fixed scientific truths, but as helpful metaphors—ways of mapping experience and building embodied awareness.

Like any model, PVT is not the whole story. But for many people, it’s been a gateway back into the body.

What matters is how we hold it:

• With humility

• With critical thinking

• With care for the people we’re working with

We don’t need to abandon embodied approaches because a theory isn’t perfect. We just need to keep refining our understanding and stay open to better ways of supporting regulation, resilience, and relational capacity.

Let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water.
Lets acknowledge PVT as a useful framework supporting regulation, not as a biological schema.

Want to explore a more embodied approach to change and leadership?

• Download the Autonomic Compass a free tool for self-awareness and nervous system literacy
  
• Book a 15-min call to explore training or support for your team
• Or check out my Nervous System Literacy workshops