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A 2026 paper calls polyvagal theory "untenable"—but only its mechanisms, not its clinical tools.

Somatic trauma therapies and co-regulation practices work independently of the theory's mechanism.

When effective frameworks are abandoned over theory disputes, patients pay the highest price.

There has been a bit of a kerfuffle around polyvagal theory lately. Here’s what happened: a group of 39 researchers—neurophysiologists, evolutionary biologists, and autonomic scientists—published a paper declaring polyvagal theory "untenable." Social media (and some real media outlets) ran with this as confirmation that the whole framework has been "debunked." Before clinicians and clients begin dismantling approaches that are genuinely helping people, it's worth understanding what the critique actually says—and maybe more importantly, what it doesn't.

What Polyvagal Theory Actually Claims

Developed by Stephen Porges in the 1990s, polyvagal theory proposed that the autonomic nervous system is more complex than the classical two-branch model of sympathetic and parasympathetic suggested. Porges identified a hierarchical three-tier structure: a ventral vagal state supporting social engagement and felt safety; sympathetic activation driving fight-or-flight; and a dorsal vagal shutdown state associated with collapse, freeze, and dissociation. The theory also introduced the concept of neuroception—the nervous system's continuous, below-conscious scanning for cues of safety or threat.

These ideas gave clinicians something they had long needed: a neurobiological framework for understanding why trauma survivors get stuck in dysregulated states, why "irrational" responses to safe situations are anything but irrational, and why the therapeutic relationship itself functions as a regulating........

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