FREE

Personal
Profile Map
A Polyvagal-informed Tool
to Help Clients Explore &
Befriend Their States

Featuring:
Deb Dana, LCSW
Practical and engaging printable tool
to use with your clients!
 A Quick Guide to Completing
the Personal Profile Map
The Personal Profile Map is the foundational autonomic map answering the question, “Where
am I?” This map helps clients safely connect to, and get to know, their experiences in each of
the three autonomic states. The mapping process naturally energizes the system. Help your
clients ‘dip a toe’ into sympathetic and dorsal in order to befriend these states and not be
hijacked by them and savor their exploration of ventral. Remember, although clients create
their own individual maps, the mapping process is a dyadic experience. Accompany your
client on their mapmaking journey and bring your co-regulating energy to support their safe
engagement in the process.

Mapping Directions
While this map can be done in pen or pencil, there is an added benefit to completing the map
in color. If you decide to use color, ask your clients to choose colored markers that represent
each of their autonomic states.

Polyvagal-informed exercises support clients in exploring their states, moving between states,
and follow the rule, “Always end in ventral”. In this mapping exercise, travel the predictable
pathway down the hierarchy and first map the sympathetic state, then move to dorsal vagal,
and end by mapping the ventral vagal state of regulation.

Ask your client to remember a time when they felt a sense of sympathetic activation and let
a bit of that into their mind and body - just enough to get a flavor of it. In the sympathetic
section of the ladder map have them write what it feels like, looks like, sounds like. What
happens in their body? What do they do? What do they feel? What do they think and say?
Ask how sleep, their relationship with food, and use of substances or compulsive behaviors is
impacted. As they finish the section, ask them to fill in the sentences “I am...” and “The world
is…” These two sentences identify the core beliefs at work in the state.

Repeat this process with the dorsal vagal state. Mapping dorsal vagal can easily activate the
energy of collapse and disconnection. Use your ventral vagal co-regulating capacities to
support your client and help them connect with just enough of their dorsal state to begin to
map it.

Copyright Deb Dana The Polyvagal Theory in Therapy: Engaging the Rhythm of Regulation (Norton, 2018)
Finish by mapping the ventral vagal state. For this section help your client bring the state fully
alive. Some clients have a difficult time believing they have access to this state or think they
are damaged and their ventral vagal system is broken. If a client struggles to connect to their
ventral state, look for moments in the therapeutic relationship, connection with a pet, or time
spent in nature. A micro-moment of ventral regulation is enough to bring the state alive and
map it.

While ventral, sympathetic, and dorsal are important terms to know, clients may find these
names are not how they want to refer to their states. With their map completed, invite your
clients to use the boxes along the side of the map to give each of their states a name that
reflects their personal experience.

End by exploring the map with your client. Listen to their sympathetic and dorsal experiences
and finish the exercise by anchoring in the experiences of the ventral vagal system.

Copyright Deb Dana The Polyvagal Theory in Therapy: Engaging the Rhythm of Regulation (Norton, 2018)
 _______________________________________________
Ventral
Vagal _______________________________________________
_______________________________________________

Safe _______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
Connected
The world is: ____________________________________
I am: ___________________________________________

_______________________________________________

Sympathetic _______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
Mobilized
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
Fight - Flight The world is: ____________________________________
I am: ___________________________________________

_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
Dorsal Vagal
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
Immobilized _______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
The world is: ____________________________________
Collapsed
I am: ___________________________________________

Copyright Deb Dana The Polyvagal Theory in Therapy: Engaging the Rhythm of Regulation (Norton, 2018)
 Deb Dana, LCSW
Deb Dana, LCSW is a clinician and consultant specializing
in working with complex trauma. She is a consultant to the
Traumatic Stress Research Consortium in the Kinsey Institute
and clinical advisor to Khiron Clinics. She developed the
Rhythm of Regulation Clinical Training Series and lectures
internationally on ways Polyvagal Theory informs work with
trauma survivors. Deb is the author of The Polyvagal Theory
in Therapy: Engaging the Rhythm of Regulation, Polyvagal
Exercises for Safety and Connection: 50 Client-Centered
Practices, co-editor with Stephen Porges of Clinical Applications of the Polyvagal Theory:
The Emergence of Polyvagal-Informed Therapies, and creator of the Polyvagal Flip Chart.
rhythmofregulation.com

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