Co-regulation is at the heart of positive relationships: work alliances, enduring friendships, intimate partnerships. If we miss opportunities to co-regulate in childhood, we feel that loss in our adult relationships. Trauma, either in experiences of commission (acts of harm) or omission (absence of care), makes co-regulation dangerous and interrupts the development of our co-regulatory skills. Out of necessity, the autonomic nervous system is shaped to independently regulate. Clients will often say that they needed connection but there was no one in their life who was safe, so after a while they stopped looking. Through a polyvagal perspective, we know that although they stopped explicitly looking and found ways to navigate on their own, their autonomic nervous system never stopped needing, and longing for, co-regulation
When opportunities for connection are missing, we carry the distress in our nervous system. Our loneliness brings us pain. Lonely people suffer from health and mental health problems including compromised immune function, heart disease, and depression (Cacioppo, 2011)—all issues related to autonomic function. While feeling lonely sometimes prompts us to reach out, loneliness also increases our watchfulness for threat (Hawkley & Cacioppo, 2010) with increased cortisol and activation of the sympathetic nervous system (Cacioppo, 2011). A lonely person feels not only unhappy but also unsafe. Loneliness triggers a neuroception of unsafety, activating our autonomic defense systems. Chronic loneliness sends a persistent message of danger, and our autonomic nervous system remains locked in survival mode.
Deb Dana, The Polyvagal Theory in Therapy
