FREE EVENT: ‘There’s No Therapy Without Safety’ with Trevor Rocca... Embodied Dialogue Series
‘The Polyvagal Parent’
with George Thompson
Thursday 12pm-1pm ET on November 14, 2024
Free to join, all welcome.
***Please be aware that by participating in these community meetups via Zoom, your image and name may appear online, including in replay recordings and podcasts. Meetup events are livestreamed to social media channels.***
The process of deep listening may be thought of as the essential act of parenting, forming a neurobiological foundation for the child’s healthy development. While there are many other skills necessary for effective parenting, they are not nearly as effective without this foundational skill. From the perspective of Polyvagal Theory, developed by neuroscientist Stephen Porges, safety produced by deep listening evokes a state of relaxed, social engagement, the ventral vagal state that allows for connection, collaboration, creativity, learning, growth, health, and restoration.
Understanding the link between parent-child bonding and Porges’ polyvagal neuroscience of safety, threat, and connection can guide parents toward opportunities to deepen the parent-child bond, which in turn provides myriad developmental benefits for both the child and the parent. When a child feels that connection, it forms a foundation of love, safety, warmth, and care that lets them move into the world with confidence, wonder, awe, and joy. When the parent builds their ability to deliberately stoke such affiliation and affection, it offers them a feeling of completeness. Life for both parent and child becomes a celebration of goodness.
About George
Dr. George Thompson is a child psychiatrist and founder of The Listening Parent Community (www.drgeorge.club), an online support for parents based on Polyvagal Theory, Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy, and Thompson’s 30+ years’ experience. He specializes in the residential treatment of traumatized youth and polyvagal-informed crisis response. As Medical Director of crisis services for ReDiscover’s psychiatric urgent care center in Kansas City and two psychiatric residential programs in Kansas, he focuses on creating emotionally safe, curious, coherent, and collaborative healthcare cultures. As neuroscience lead for SonderWorx, he trains community responders in trauma-informed and nervous system-informed care. Additionally, as a certified DDP therapist, Dr. Thompson develops parenting strategies that nurture a child’s heart-felt knowledge that their lives matter to their families, community, and future generations, regardless of the challenges they have faced.
Dr. Thompson was appointed Chairman of the Polyvagal Institute’s board of directors in June 2024, and also serves as a core faculty member for PVI’s certificate course. He is Treasurer of the board of directors for the Kansas Chapter of the National Alliance for Mental Illness. He was on the board of the DDP Institute from 2014 to 2020, serving as Treasurer for that board as well.
Dr. Thompson is the co-author of Polyvagal Theory and the Developing Child as well as Working with Relational Trauma in Children’s Residential Care. He is working on a third book due in 2026, The Polyvagal Parent. He is a volunteer Clinical Associate Professor in the Departments of Psychiatry at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine, where he teaches compassionate doctor-patient communication, and the University of Kansas School of Medicine, where he supervises adult and child psychiatry residents. Dr. Thompson’s research in medical education, particularly on medical professionalism, has been published in Academic Medicine and recognized with awards. He also teaches the Avatar® Course, promoting personal empowerment and compassionate service.
Website: https://www.georgethompsonmd.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgethompsonmd
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/georgethompsonmd/
Join Jan Winhall's group on the PVI (Polyvagal Institute) Online Community Space for updates and discussion.
The Felt Sense Polyvagal Approach to Trauma & Addiction Group is a place for you to explore with others, through a polyvagal lens, the experiences of trauma and addiction. We are focusing on understanding addiction through the lens of the nervous system, as an adaptive response to maladaptive environments. Our group is growing in leaps and bounds indicating a hunger for change, for the kind of transformative change that polyvagal theory brings us. The group interacts online as part of the PVI (Polyvagal Institute) Online Community Space. Once a month the group meets live on Zoom for an hour of exploration and discussion with a guest presenter, in what we now call the Embodied Dialogue Series.
Free to join the group, all welcome!
PVI Community Member Guidelines
- We are cultivating cues of safety, so please be supportive.
- Encourage and support your colleagues – Remember criticism, cynicism, advice, or judgment may be signs of threat.
- Be courteous and assume the best intentions – respect all opinions, no hate speech.
- Share generously – Your stories and experiences may be what another person needs to hear today to solve a problem or seize an opportunity.
- Be constructive – We’re here to push each other forward and lift each other.
- Find ways to help each other find and create cues of safety and co-regulation, reframe challenges, and stay curious.
- Advertising, solicitation, personal or company promotion is not permitted. Those who don’t comply with the guidelines will be requested to leave the app.
Jan Winhall, M.S.W. P.I.F.O.T. is an author, teacher and seasoned trauma and addiction psychotherapist. She is an Educational Partner and Course Developer with the Polyvagal Institute where she offers a training program based on her book Treating Trauma and Addiction with the Felt Sense Polyvagal Model, Routledge 2021. Completion of all three levels leads students to become Felt Sense Polyvagal Model Facilitators. Her new book, 20 Embodied Practices for Healing Trauma and Addiction with the Felt Sense Polyvagal Model, published by Norton, is available for preorder and out in March 2025. She is an Adjunct Lecturer at the University of Toronto and a Certifying Co-Ordinator with the International Focusing Institute. Jan is Co-Director of the Borden Street Clinic where she supervises graduate students. She enjoys teaching all over the world.