WHY THE POLYVAGAL THEORY IS UNTENABLE. An international expert evaluation of the polyvagal theory and commentary upon Porges, S.W. (2025). Polyvagal theory: current status, clinical applications, and future directions. Clin. Neuropsychiatry, 22(3), 169-184
"We maintain that an erroneous belief system regarding relationships between psychological states and neurophysiology may be harmful when presented as facts to healthcare providers, patients and their families. Moreover, implausible physiological explanations are neither helpful for psychotherapists nor for the credibility of psychology, psychotherapy, psychophysiology or other related fields within medicine and neuroscience."
“In sum, PVT proposes a line of argumentation that ignores the overwhelming scientific consensus. The proposal to use an inaccurate framework and unproven measures to guide treatment of diverse vulnerable groups in society is neither scientifically valid nor ethically acceptable. The PVT framework promotes mistaken ideas about how the human mind and nervous system function together and introduces new mental fictions and fantasies about the mind-body relationship, thus contributing to greater, rather than less, distance between lived experience of psychological states and perceptions of bodily functions. Furthermore, broad influence of this scientifically inaccurate theory is likely to hinder the development, integration and true understanding of valid neuroscience and physiology research in relation to psychology and the practice of psychotherapy.”