Polyvagal Acupuncture™: An Integrative Path to Nervous System Healing

Reposted by request from folks who took my intro to PVA class last month!

Polyvagal Acupuncture™ (PVA) is an integrative technique I developed out of necessity—born during a time of crisis, refined through clinical application, and grounded in both traditional Chinese medicine and modern neuroscience.

Primitive Reflexes and Their Role in Nervous System Development

Primitive reflexes (PRs) are foundational components of the human nervous system, and serve as essential building blocks for complex motor and cognitive functions. These automatic, involuntary movements are present at birth and were thought to integrate as the child matures, usually by the age of 8. Controlled by cranial nerves in the brainstem—a primitive part of the brain—these reflexes maintain a balance between the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems to support motor movement, decision-making, and emotional regulation. When PRs remain reactive (retained) or reemerge later in life, they disrupt vagal nerve signals and leave the body in a heightened state of arousal, with higher levels of stress hormones along the HPA axis.

A New Narrative for Trauma Care: A System-Wide, Bottom-Up Approach

A core limitation in many conventional "top-down" trauma therapies is that they target cognition and emotion while the underlying Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) remains locked in a state of high arousal. This narrative proposes that true, sustainable healing requires a "bottom-up" restoration of the ANS, a process that begins in the gut—the primary physiological site for our parasympathetic "rest, digest, and connect" response.

Primitive Reflexes in Clinical Practice: Autonomic Dysregulation, Fascial Bracing, and Developmental Retention

Primitive reflexes (PRs) are involuntary motor responses that establish foundational postural tone, orientation, and motor-sensory coordination during early development. These reflexes should integrate as higher cortical control matures. When they remain active—or reactivate in the context of trauma, emotional stress, neuroinflammation, or structural compromise—they produce persistent motor patterns that disrupt movement, stability, and autonomic regulation.

In clinical settings, retained PRs do not present abstractly. They express through specific, reproducible fascial bracing patterns, muscle spasticity, and sinew channel fixation. These patterns impair functional mobility, destabilize postural tone, and often correlate with elevated sympathetic drive, reduced vagal tone, and impaired cranial nerve regulation.

The Unintegrated Body: Autonomic Dysregulation and Subclinical Adrenal Dysfunction

This model proposes an integrated framework for understanding the pathomechanisms of subclinical adrenal dysfunction, connecting deep physiological drivers to downstream clinical expressions. It serves as a working theory for practitioners who observe localized, non-systemic patterns of circadian dysrhythmia and persistent sympathetic dominance in their clients. This model demonstrates how a fundamental distortion in the balance of the nervous system can create a cascading series of effects, from cellular processes to the observable symptoms that manifest in the body. The simultaneous development of the sinew channels, the autonomic nervous system (ANS), the enteric nervous system (ENS), the limbic system, and the vestibule is why therapeutic work on the sinew channels can effect change across multiple systems. Because these signs of dysautonomia are visibly and objectively reflected in the fascial and sinew channel patterns, practitioners can learn to recognize the symptoms of localized cortisol inhibition and re-effect systemic balance through targeted interventions.