Re-issuing the Foundation Model Lectures in Autonomics
A MASTERCLASS IN AUTONOMICS
We are now in the midst of writing our first comprehensive white paper on the Autonomics foundation model - Towards an Accurate In Vivo Reconceptualizing of Autonomic State - which has put me back in touch with much of the research that informed the writing of The Neurobiology of Connection.
It has also recalled to me the wild period of time from mid-2023 to June of 2024, when we realized both that Polyvagal Theory was radically incomplete, and that the entire discipline of neurology was built atop a set of foundation errors. It was a moment of deep intellectual ferment for our work, prior to the successful synthesis of the new model, when we were watching classical autonomic physiology dissolve in front of our eyes.
We were working with a number of colleagues who continue to be actively engaged with our work, and as part of our faculty, as well as several who have moved on to different endeavors. The core group was comprised of about nine people on our research team: Heather MacDuffie PhD MSW, Aubrey Wallace ND, Sue Bahnan MS MA, Marcia Miller, Carol Jenkins, Jordhynn Guy, JD Daniels MD, and Peter Love, PhD. At the time we were collaborating with Samar Singh, PhD, the developer of a brilliant autonomics diagnostic tool using respiration as its primary signal.
I had been asked to lead the global Polyvagal Study Group on Facebook, a network of 5,000 wellness professionals studying Polyvagal Theory. Within the span of a year I was asked to take over as the primary teaching expert in the group because of the level of innovation and discovery that we were bringing to the field of PVT, and then asked to leave the group, because of the level of innovation and discovery that were bringing to the field of PVT. Possibly the most fascinating dynamic in that relationship was how quickly its climate changed from excitement about what we were doing to fear about what we were finding as it became clear that elements of the foundations of PVT were neither complete nor accurate.
In the Autumn of 2024, after we had completed the new Foundation Model, I recorded a series of lectures at our studio in the forest. They are feeling as relevant today as when we shot them; we are therefore reissuing the lecture series. You can watch the first 20 minute lecture here: A love letter to Santiago Ramon y Cajals.
The lecture series comprises about eight hours of video material, self-paced, to which you will have lifetime access.