How do we create safety, trust, and connection through touch?
This two-day course introduces Steven Goldstein’s fascia-led, Polyvagal-informed approach to hands-on therapy—exploring the vagus nerve, social engagement, and nervous system regulation through ethical, trauma-aware clinical practice.
Grounded in Stephen Porges’ Polyvagal Theory and the applied insights of authors such as Deb Dana and Stanley Rosenberg, this training gives manual therapists a practical understanding of how to work with the nervous system through touch—not just around it.
Book your space now: Early Bird Offer
Save 10% when you book by 31 May 2025 with code EARLYBIRDSG
Course Overview
You’ll explore the three circuits of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) through the Polyvagal lens—focusing on the organising principles of hierarchy, neuroception, and co-regulation. This updated framework moves beyond the old binary model of sympathetic/parasympathetic and into a deeper understanding of the Social Engagement System.
We’ll explore how vagus nerve function relates to chronic conditions, trauma responses, and regulation, and examine manual therapy’s role in embodying safety and trust through touch.
Topics and Techniques Include:
- Overview of Polyvagal Theory and its clinical relevance for manual therapists
- Understanding the vagus cranial nerve, its pathways, and signs of dysfunction
- Comparisons of leading authors’ interpretations, including Porges, Dana, Rosenberg
- Working with the ventral vagal system to support regulation, presence, and relational safety
- The manual therapist’s role in trauma-aware care within ethical scope of practice
- Introduction to Interpersonal Neurobiology, including practitioner-client dynamics
- Navigating transference, counter-transference, and projection in hands-on work
- How touch can evoke early memories and somato-emotional responses—why this matters ethically and clinically
Hands-on Techniques You’ll Learn
- FT Two-Point method for transverse fascial planes
- Hyoid release and vocal toning
- Cranial base and sacral base regulation techniques
- Spinal wave undulations and diaphragmatic unwinding
- Sternal heart-based release and breathwork strategies
- Applications of positional orientation to create therapeutic safety
Who This Course Is For
This course is ideal for manual therapists, Bowen practitioners, and bodyworkers who want to:
- Integrate Polyvagal Theory into their touch-based practice
- Understand how to create safety, trust, and regulation in therapeutic relationships
- Support clients with chronic tension, dysregulation, or trauma histories
- Work ethically, sensitively, and within scope when emotional responses arise during treatment
No prior Polyvagal training is required—this course is designed to be practical, grounded, and clinically relevant for hands-on therapists.
Why This Work Matters
Touch is intimate. When used with awareness, it can regulate, reconnect, and restore. When misattuned, it can retraumatise. This course offers a framework for using manual therapy as a therapeutic dialogue with the nervous system, supporting clients’ healing with presence, care, and ethical clarity.
Don’t Miss Out
Steven Goldstein is internationally recognised for his ability to blend structure with sensitivity, bringing depth to trauma-aware manual therapy education. He rarely teaches in the UK—and these courses are kept intentionally small to support meaningful, hands-on learning.
Save £30 with early bird code EARLYBIRDSG before 31 May 2025. A Payment plan is also available – secure your place today with a 50% deposit. Balance due by 1 September 2025.
BTPA CPD certification for the Steven Goldstein courses will come under “other training”
