Finding Mastery: Conversations With Michael Gervais

This week’s conversation is with Dr. Stephen Porges, a distinguished university scientist at Indiana University, where he is the founding director of the Traumatic Stress Research Consortium. He is also a professor of psychiatry at the University of North Carolina and professor emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Maryland. Stephen more than 350 peer‐reviewed scientific papers, published across several disciplines, have been cited in approximately 40,000 peer-reviewed papers. He holds several patents involved in monitoring and regulating autonomic state and originated the polyvagal theory, which emphasizes the importance of physiological state in the expression of behavioral, mental, and health problems related to traumatic experiences. So at its core, this conversation is about the triggers that either prompt us to feel threatened or safe… and why social connection or lack thereof plays such an integral role in which state we gravitate towards.Stephen is