IFS & Polyvagal Theory: Healing Through Compassionate Connection - 6 hours

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• CE Hours Included: 6 (please see below for details)
• Format: On-Demand Webinar (“Asynchronous”, Non-Interactive) ~ At your leisure this recorded video is to be viewed at your own pace. You may pause, rewind, and fast forward at any point during the videos. You are in complete control of how you view this workshop. It also comes with a PowerPoint and references. There is a quiz at the end to ensure viewing and required by all CE approval organizations.
  • NOTE: Your certificate will be dated when you complete the course - Click here for more detailed information on the best way to do this: https://www.theknowledgetree.org/p/help
• Investment: $140 (provides lifetime access!)
• Presented by: Alexia Rothman, Ph.D. (see bio below)
• Date of Recording: July 31, 2026
• Instruction Level: Intermediate
• Target Audience: Counselors, Social Workers, Marriage & Family Therapists
• This workshop is not yet available; by pre-registering, you will receive immediate access when it becomes available in August.

Learning Objectives:

After completing this workshop in its entirety, you will be able to:

• Outline the basic principles of Polyvagal Theory (PVT) and how PVT can inform and enhance the application of any psychotherapeutic modality.
• Discuss how understanding Polyvagal Theory can help therapists implement IFS more safely and effectively, especially in the systems of clients with complex trauma.
• Utilize IFS strategies to shift clients’ nervous systems towards regulation and help them access their own capacity for healing.
• Develop skills to help clients foster attuned, trusting relationships with their hyperaroused and hypoaroused parts, as well as parts that strategically utilize adaptive survival responses, such as fight, flight, freezing, and numbing, for protection.
• Discuss the impact of the therapist’s internal state on clinical work and how clinicians can use this awareness to facilitate client regulation and healing.
• Assess, through observation and discussion of real video examples, how to seamlessly integrate IFS and PVT in treatment.

Workshop Description:

Despite the diversity of content that brings clients to therapy, difficulty regulating their emotional experience is at the heart of their struggles. Clients can feel hijacked by extreme emotional states, uncomfortable in their own skin, or think or behave in ways they wish they wouldn’t. Polyvagal Theory (PVT) helps us understand what is happening on a biological level when our clients are emotionally dysregulated or stuck in adaptive survival states, such as fight, flight, freeze, or numb. Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS) offers a compassionate, non-pathologizing approach to healing the wounded, burdened, and traumatized parts of clients’ systems and increasing internal harmony and connection. This workshop explores the integration of IFS therapy and Polyvagal Theory to help clinicians more safely and effectively use the IFS model in treatment.

Workshop Agenda:

Fundamentals of Polyvagal Theory (80 min)

• Structure and function of the Autonomic Nervous System
  • The regulated nervous system
  • Adaptive survival states of the nervous system (fight/flight, freeze, shutdown/numb/collapse)
  • Impact of trauma on the nervous system
• Three operating principles of the Autonomic Nervous System
  • Neuroception
  • Hierarchy
  • Co-Regulation
• Fundamental goals of psychotherapy through the lenses of PVT and IFS

Limitations of the Research and Potential Risks (10 min)

• Current state of the empirical evidence base for IFS and PVT
• Limitations and potential risks in treatment and considerations for specific populations

Integration of IFS Theory and Polyvagal Theory (60 min)

• Translation of Polyvagal concepts to IFS terminology and vice versa
• The relationship between parts and the nervous system
• Self and the nervous system

Polyvagal-Informed IFS Therapy Practice (210 min)

• How an understanding of Polyvagal Theory can underlie and support safer and more effective IFS practice
• The essential contribution of the Self-led, ventrally regulated presence of the therapist
• Co-regulation and “internal co-regulation” in IFS therapy
• Anchoring the client’s system in Self/ventral to enhance the safety and effectiveness of trauma work
• IFS strategies for working with parts associated with sympathetic and dorsal survival states in the nervous system
• Analysis of video examples of PVT-informed IFS work
• Discussion of clinical decision making and integration in real time

Presented by: Alexia Rothman, Ph.D.

Dr. Alexia Rothman has been a clinical psychologist in private practice in Atlanta, GA, since 2004. She is a Lead Trainer for the IFS Institute, a Certified Internal Family Systems therapist, an international speaker and educator on the IFS model, and an IFSI-approved professional consultant. Dr. Rothman offers workshops and retreats on the IFS model and the integration of IFS and Polyvagal Theory throughout the U.S. and internationally. She co-hosts the IFS-based podcast, IFS Talks, and is co-editor of the book IFS Collected Wisdom: Conversations with Experienced Voices in Internal Family Systems (2025).

Dr. Rothman is a United States Presidential Scholar who graduated summa cum laude from Emory University as a Robert W. Woodruff Scholar. She received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where she was an Edwin W. Pauley Fellow and a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow. She has held adjunct faculty positions at Emory University and Agnes Scott College.

6 "Asynchronous" CE Hours Included - Details by License Type Below:

• COUNSELORS: The Knowledge Tree, A Summit Professional Education Company has been approved by the National Board for Certified Counselors (NBCC) as an Approved Continuing Education Provider (ACEP), ACEP No. 7153. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. The Knowledge Tree, A Summit Professional Education Company is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs. Please click here for more detailed information.
• SOCIAL WORKERS: The Knowledge Tree, a Summit Professional Education Company, provider #2470, is approved as an ACE provider to offer social work continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program. Regulatory boards are the final authority on courses accepted for continuing education credit. ACE provider approval period: 1/14/2026-1/14/2027. Social workers completing this course receive 6 clinical continuing education credits. Please click here for more detailed information.
• MARRIAGE & FAMILY THERAPISTS: TKT has applied for approval for this workshop through the Georgia Association for Marriage & Family Therapy (GAMFT). If you are licensed in another state or country, please click here for more detailed information.

We are an approved vendor for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs for easy reimbursement of educational expenses for VA employees.