Stephen Porges, Ph.D., professor of psychiatry, stephenporges.com, in 1994, created PVT and, since 2014, he and Deb Dana, LCSW, rhythmofregulation.com, have collaborated to explain this science of feeling safe enough to fall in love with life and take the risks of living.

The new words to learn are neuroception and sympathetic/dorsal vagal/ventral vagal (the hierarchy of the autonomic nervous system).

Stephen Porges created the word, neuroception (neuro for nervous system, ception for aware), to describe the built-in surveillance system of our autonomic/automatic nervous system which consists of three elements: inside (breath, heartbeat, muscles, digestion), outside (physical location), and listening to the way our nervous system interacts one-on-one or with a group).