From Connection to Survival, a topography of our survival system

This lecture presents a methodology informed by polyvagal theory (from connection to survival) about how we organize our survival mechanisms (psychological defenses) when the search for social connection has failed or is explicitly harmful. It addresses the importance of relationships, specifically the therapeutic relationship, in helping the patient's system (their nervous system) return to a relationship that is now perceived as safe and reliable. An illustrated topographical model of the organization of the defensive system is presented. At the top are the defenses most dependent on learning: introjects and social masks; these still work to maintain the bond with others, at the cost of inhibiting a part of our authenticity. In the middle are what the author calls archeopsychic defenses, which are more extreme and highly phobic in relation to others. These attempt to suppress, even amputate, internal vulnerability. Also at this level are interpersonal defenses such as mistrust. They severely disrupt both internal and interpersonal contact, leaving our psychological wounds in solitude and therefore inaccessible to human relationship. This prevents their healing. The model's proposal guides the therapist to offer this entire defensive system, which defends itself and reacts to the relationship with a caregiver (transference), in more extreme cases excluding the relationship with another as a means of appeasing and healing pain, a defense that provides respect and compassionate presence in which the defenses are given the opportunity to feel honored in their functions and fears. In this new relationship, the defenses experience the paradox of feeling connected, sharing the suffering of having been in harmful past relationships. The rejected, banished parts of the self are placed on the lower level of the topography. These remain excluded from internal life and external relationships with others. Psychotherapy aims to access the wound in order to facilitate its processing and transformation in a kind and compassionate manner. The dimension of the Compassionate Inner Observer (self-compassionate mindfulness) occupies its own place in the topographical system as an integrative dimension of the inner world. From this dimension of consciousness, the patient can embrace and honor their pain and history of survival so that it can finally be processed, transformed, and consolidated into a new perception of self and others. This is where the self-healing capacity of our brain-body resides. The end result of any psychotherapy will be for the patient to maintain a compassionate connection with their inner world of sensations, emotions, and experience.

Psychologist and specialist in clinical psychology, he is co-director of ALECES, Institute of Integrative Trauma Psychotherapy with 40 years of experience. He is an international trainer, current president of the Iberian Association of Brainspotting and Founder of the Ibero-American Association of Psychotrauma (AIBAPT). Is an international trainer, lecturer and author of the 5 books: Beyond the Self: Healing Emotinal Trauma and Brainspotting 2016, 2022), Who Am I? from dissociation to integration, (2022), and The Two Faces of Nina (2024), Our Internal Citadel (2025) and co-author of the book The Power of Brainspotting (2018).