There's a brand new Polyvagal Theory book that is out extremely soon. It's for pre-order right now. And I want to give you as unbiased of a review as I possibly can so that you can know whether or not you should buy it for yourself. It is called Our Polyvagal World and is written by Dr. Stephen Porges and Seth Porges. My name's Justin Sunseri. I am a therapist, a coach, and the creator of the polyvagal trauma relief system. Welcome to stuck, not broken.
Typically on this podcast, I teach you how to live with more calm, confidence, and connection without the psychobabble, but in this one, I want to do obviously a review of the book, Our Polyvagal World, although I'm going to be doing a review of the advanced copy. That's what I have, although I did buy it for myself as well, but the I'm going to review the advanced copy, which should be the same as the one you can purchase for yourself. But there might be some differences.
So I can't guarantee it's exactly the same. I imagine it's pretty much the same. I probably should address really quick also that I might not be a completely unbiased reviewer. I love the polyvagal theory stuff first off. But I'm also on the editorial board of the polyvagal Institute. Now, PVI did not publish this book or anything like that, but I love this stuff. I talk about it all the time. So I'm not. I'm not exactly unbiased probably.
I do think I'm being pretty objective about the book though. But just that's like my disclaimer. If you decide you want to buy the book, I do have an affiliate link in the description. Please note that a portion of the sale goes to me at no extra cost to you, but I do also want to kind of be upfront about that as well. So let's just get straight to, is it worth buying? I think in general, yes, it is. For general audiences, it's pretty darn approachable.
The language is very simple in an easy to approach. There are in, especially in the first opening section on the polyvagal theory, there's references to like Spiderman and the Hulk. It's uh, some pop culture stuff in there. It's not too heavy in the book, but it is there, especially in the beginning, which I think like I said at the outset, Seth and Stephen Porges wrote this together and you can definitely get the feel from the first section that that is just kind of like Seth going off.
And when I. Uh, interviewed Dr. Porges in episode 2 0 1. He confirmed as much. So if you're new to the theory, I think it's pretty darn approachable. If you're a Polyvagal Theory nerd, then there's still some stuff in here for us as well, that I think is worth reading. There's a section on oxytocin. There's a section on evolution. There is information on respiratory science arrhythmia. So there's lots of really good little nuggets in there for us to kind of chew on as well.
So if you're new to it, I think it's fine. If you're a general audience, I think it's fine. If you're a Polyvagal nerd, I think it's, uh, it's worth buying as well. If you just like to collect this stuff then? Yeah, I think it's worth buying. Especially, because right now the price that I bought it at today was 14 to, or is $14, which is marked down from 22. So at 14 bucks, yeah, this is definitely worth a purchase. Let's talk about what I liked, uh, very easy to read.
And I like that it is short. I am a extremely slow reader and usually when I read, I fall asleep, so. The fact that it's easy to read and short, I liked it. This is written primarily by Seth. And he's a much better communicator than Dr. Porges is. Dr. Porges knows his Polyvagal science academic stuff, of course. Seth is a better communicator. And I think they worked pretty darn well on this. I get the impression that Seth primarily wrote it.
And then Dr. Porges's kind of gave his stamp of approval on it. Or maybe Dr. Port has communicated with him and then Seth made it. Uh, more understandable. But either way it works. There is a wide range of topics. I liked that. I liked that there they talk about things like school., prisons, oxytocin, mixed states that they added in. I'm not super excited about how those were introduced. And I have my questions, which I talked about in the last episode, number 2 0 4. But I did like that.
They're trying to address different things, you know, from the Polyvagal lens. And it does tread over Polyvagal Theory basics. I'm looking right now at the table of contents and there's a section on the pandemic, the Polyvagal Theory and work, evolution and the Polyvagal Theory. So it was a pretty good amount of stuff that they address. Neuroception. I liked all that. I love the section on oxytocin. I think it's a wonderful little read here.
And it really, to me stuck out as far as I don't want to root it for you. But there's something really kind of special about this section that I just found delightful. And one more thing I liked a lot was that the discussion points are politically neutral. Very open. I think they're very inviting. They're not taking a stance on anything cause. Well, I think the Polyvagal Theory is open to anyone and everyone, and I love that they stick to that.
I personally do not care what their political or religious leanings are. I want to know the knowledge and I want to be able to apply that to reality as I see it. Right. So I liked that they kept it open to anyone to partake in and apply as they best can. What I didn't like though was, especially when it came to the mixed states. To me, this is a pretty big addition. To the Polyvagal Theory, just sort of general knowledge and language. There's not much depth there.
I mean, they really didn't spend much time on this at all. So I was pretty disappointed in that. And the angle that they came at are from was, you know, here's the potential underlying states, but that was kind of, you. Uh, disappointing. I was supported in that. Not only that, but there is a table that they have here where it has the hybrid systems. It says three circuits, several states.
And what they have listed are social communication, play and dance, flight fight, intimacy, appeasement, fawning and shutdown, dissociation. They don't have freeze and they don't have stillness. So in this table of states, they are missing two of the mixed states. Just pretty disappointing or are we expected to believe that these are no longer official polyvagal mixed states, something like that. There's a lot of good stuff in it, but then there's also definitely leaves me wanting more.
And I left this with a whole bunch of questions. Especially about this section, which I've covered in the past. Uh, well, in the past episode. The other thing I've done really quite like is I don't think this book is necessary. It's a fun read or an interesting read. But I don't know if this needs to be in a book. I would love to see stuff like this, especially if it's written by, you know, not Dr. Porges.
I would like to see this in more of like a, a blog somewhere on his website or with, from the Polyvagal Institute, something that's more approachable for anybody. I don't think this needed to live in a book. When it comes to explaining the theory, we already have really approachable, accessible, easy to understand stuff from myself, from Deb Dana, and a whole bunch of other people. My podcast is for free and it's a deep, deep, deep dive into this stuff.
And I think it's pretty unapproachable and that's what I hear a lot. So do we need another rendition of the Polyvagal Theory in a book form? I don't think so on in all honesty, I wouldn't, that would have been fun to read as a, as a blog. But I don't think it needed to be in a book. If you're brand new to the theory, I don't think I would necessarily start with this book. You could, but I think there's other stuff that I recommend you, you start from.
So not only this it's this book, I think unnecessary. But in a lot of places, it kind of like lacks depth. So I personally like. The fact that it's shorter, but for you, that might be something that you don't like. The advanced copy is 203 pages. But a big chunk of that is a glossary. So it's actually 183 pages. But. A few pages of that is the epilogue. And in the epilogue, there's a bunch of like bulleted points, which are rehashing of some of the other stuff.
And the glossary section is a- it's a glossary. We don't need that. And some of the words in the glossary don't even appear in the book. Like it's just not necessary. Just kind of seems like they're adding pages. The book's not super short. But it's also seems to be kind of padded with stuff that was not necessary. Which kind of would, to me detracts from the experience of the book. Um, I might just be nitpicking here. Again, though for 14 bucks, I do think it's worth it.
The other thing I really didn't like. And honestly it was quite distracting was it's written by two people and it lists two people on the cover. So when I was reading it, I assumed it was like they were taking turns, writing sections. And every now and then when they would reference an "I", like a first person. It would put in parentheses who was referencing. As I look back, I believe all the references were Steven.
So it seems like it's written by Seth, but then every now and then Dr. Porges interjects, maybe I'm not quite sure what what to make of that. So, if anything, it's confusing and distracting, I didn't like how they handled that. So the person who's speaking is not always clear and I feel like it kind of should be. Though the opening section, like I said, is clearly Seth. it has a much different distinct feel than the rest of the book, which again is not a huge deal, I guess.
But. As far as the book review goes, I didn't like the way it felt. Personally, what I would have preferred was just like Seth, writing this section, doctor Porges is writing this section, although maybe that would be two totally distinct, uh, but. It would've made it a more comfortable read for me again, these aren't huge issues. And I do think it's worth 14 bucks. Even at 22 bucks, I would have bought at that price. I was delighted to see that it was 14.
My overall impression, uh, overall enjoyable. Overall pretty darn educational. I think there's a lot of really good nuggets in here. I do generally think it's worth owning. I've bought one for myself, even though I have the advanced copy. If you're low on cash and you're brand new to the Polyvagal Theory, I think there's better ways to go. Listen to episode 1 0 1 of his podcast. 1 0 1 through 1 0 9 and boom, you've got a deep dive in the Polyvagal Theory.
Although it doesn't have the new mixed states, but again, just listen more to this a podcast. Episodes 2 0 2 and 2 0 3 will have your mixed dates and then another one's coming up next week. So it's all here. Like it's for free. It's all here. I have it for you. And again, if you're a polyvagal nerd and you're looking for something brand new, I think there are some nuggets in here that are really interesting. I did get into it. So I think you'll be happy as well. Overall.
I think it's worth owning. Those are my thoughts on Our Polyvagal World. If you are moved to purchase it, I do have an affiliate link in the description that you can use. A portion of that goes to me at no extra cost to you. I don't want to just make sure that you're aware of that before you use my link. If you're going to. You've already read the book leave a comment on youtube to let me know what you think of it or email me at justinlmft@gmail.com.
I would love to know what you thought of the book. Again it's justinlmft@gmail.com. Bye.