Unit 2 – Videos
This unit’s videos is related to the nervous system material from your Core Reading, bringing in some of the most credentialed voices in trauma research to do it.
The first, from licensed therapist Emma McAdam, walks through polyvagal theory and the three nervous system states in real clinical detail — building directly on the fight, flight, freeze, and fawn material you’ve already read. The second, from The Trauma Foundation, covers much of the same territory through Polyvagal Theory itself, adding two things your reading hasn’t yet covered: how trauma can be passed down across generations, and co-regulation — how nervous systems attune to each other, which becomes especially relevant once you reach Unit 5. The third brings together three of the most significant names in trauma treatment in one place: Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, Dr. Pat Ogden (founder of Sensorimotor Psychotherapy), and Dr. Stephen Porges himself, the originator of Polyvagal Theory — discussing how trauma gets held in the body’s habits and posture, and practical ways of working with it directly.
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This second set goes deeper into two things your Core Reading touches but doesn't have room to fully unpack: how attachment shapes the developing brain, and exactly what happens to memory itself under trauma.
The first, from Dr. Allan Schore — a leading figure in attachment neuroscience at UCLA — explains how early neglect and abuse shape brain development directly, including a genuinely important point: it's often a caregiver's ability to repair mistakes, not the absence of mistakes, that matters most. The second, from experienced trauma counsellor Tim Fletcher, explains a specific mechanism behind why trauma memories are so often fragmented — detail without feeling, or feeling without detail — and why memories tend to return only once real safety has been established. The third, produced by London-based trauma specialists, covers the same territory from an academic angle, based on Brewin, Dalgleish and Joseph's well-established Dual Representation Theory of PTSD — a clear, research-grounded account of why trauma memories behave so differently from ordinary ones.
