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Alarming Things Believers in Trauma-Focused Care and Polyvagal Theory Do About Health Problems

Are believers in polyvagal theory and trauma-focused treatment practicing unproven and dangerous medicine on themselves and their family members?

James C. Coyne
8 min readOct 27, 2021

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Writing about the trauma-informed therapy of Bessel van der Kolk (BvK) and the polyvagal theory of Stephen Porges is not as rewarding as some people encouraged me to believe it would be.

Some advocates of evidence-based treatment express alarm about the powerful influence that BvK and Porges held over what clinicians and patients think about talk therapies.

Both BvK and Porges say exaggerated, unproven, and untrue things about how to understand and do psychotherapy. Neither are unafraid to blatantly contradict the evidence in a way that makes it no sense to argue with them.

Yet, BvK and Porges have captured lots of therapists and patients. Adopting their point of view closes someone off to new evidence about what works dramatically and what bombs. BvK and Porges influence consumers’ expectations and their search for the…

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James C. Coyne
James C. Coyne

Written by James C. Coyne

Socially conscious Clinical Health Psychologist. Skeptic debunking hype and pseudoscience. Defender of freedom of expression without undue fear of reprisal

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