SPRING 2025 SEMINAR: Foundations in Autonomics

Please note that this course is by application only. Apply here.

This is our introductory graduate level seminar in applied autonomics for the Spring of 2025.

Hearth Science, in collaboration with our clinical and research teams and faculty, has continued to evolve a new Foundation Model of General Autonomics. The model builds on advances in clinically-applied neurophysiology, including the Polyvagal Theory, as well as the Evolved Nest work of Darcia Narvaez, PhD, trans-cultural indigenous lineages, and other mentors and advisors of ours pioneering in neurophysiology.

Western orthodox neurology, formed within a cultural context and worldview of mechanistic segregation, was initially built upon a foundation of individualism, compartmentalization, and necrotic anatomy. While not void of usefulness in the formative years of allopathic medicine, this inaccurate impression of human biology and neurophysiology has thus informed a concretization of erroneous conceptual understandings and subsequent methodological interventions within medical science and clinical practice. It is not difficult to see that Western medicine still has much to learn, as observed in continual rises in stress-related conditions, chronic pain and illness, and autoimmune disorders.

In this introductory graduate-level seminar, we will rediscover the interconnected, animated intelligence of the human body and nervous system as it exists within a likewise alive and symbiotically related world. We will reestablish this thread of relationship, starting here within our own autonomic nervous systems. Rather than solely focus on pathogenic models of deteriorating health, we will restructure the ontology through which we perceive into that of a salugenic nature; that is, health creation and health sustaining frameworks of being. Rather than interpret symptomology as phenotypic expressions of what has gone wrong, and demonizing, ablating or surgically cutting away what we have erroneously conceptualized and alienated as “disease”, we will remember and relearn the innate language of our cellular nervous systems, and begin to relate to symptomology as signposts of meaning that intelligently denote the underlying autonomic deviation from and salugenic progression back to enduring wellness.

Within this framework shift we will explore:

• •A non-brain-centric worldview of the human nervous system and collective body
• •Developmental growth patterns of neurogenesis and accurate understandings of directionality of neural pathways (origination and termination) as it pertains to distribution of neural intelligence and functional significances
• •Refined understandings of distinction between neuroanatomy and neurochemistry
• •Concentric (rather than linear) dynamic movement between autonomic states in relation to the neuroceptive contexts of safety, danger or life threat
• •A comprehensive map of vagal pathways conscious of postpartum neuronal myelination beyond birth
• •Foundational contributions of various neural structures (in the body, in the periphery, fascia, skin, etc.) in identity, feeling, and cognition

Over 12 weeks, we will explore the General Autonomics Foundation Model from the seat of our own subjective, embodied experience. We will centralize our field of learning within our the body, as well as the fields of relatedness created and built between bodies in a collective group. Therefore, in addition to pedagogical material, this seminar will be highly experiential and practical, involving the following forms of commitment and assignment:

• •Live engagement and tracking during each seminar class
• •Basic interoceptive exercises practiced throughout the 12 weeks
• •Video and written homework
• •Final project
• •This class is a pre-requisite, with instructor approval, for more advanced Hearth Science pedagogical and clinical coursework

Hearth Science has been, for the past decade, synthesizing a novel Foundation Model of General Autonomics that has integrated the work and conceptualizations of nearly 100 practitioners in 25 disciplines of research and healing. In this seminar we will explore an introduction to and further elaboration of this foundation model, which has profound implications for the creation of enduring wellbeing and the diagnosis and treatment of stress-related disorders.

WHO IS THIS COURSE FOR:

Researchers, integrative physicians, naturopathic physicians, psychologists, nurses, trauma therapists, addiction therapists, practitioners of mindbody medicine, mental health counselors, marriage and family therapists, licensed professional clinical counselors, occupational therapists, physical therapists, bodyworkers.

We will consider applications from individuals across the spectrum of research and the healing arts, with the caveat that you need to have a clear scope of research or practice in which you will be applying this learning.

Course is BY APPLICATION ONLY. Regretfully we are unable to offer scholarships for this course at this time.Apply here.

Our autonomic physiology seminar was, in brief, and I say these words with potency, an altogether grounding reorientation of my connection to Self and my Environment which manifested itself during a period of deep and painful metabolization of emotions and nervous system states which were previously unexperienced by my physical body. Not only was it meaningful for me, but it was in fact quite necessary for me in order to remain acutely conscious, observant, and attentive to the ways in which connection and safety desired to show up for me in a life context/situation which seemingly provided very little. In this way, it meant a great deal to me - and as I've always felt, known, and seen, this connected world knows the confluences of support, required growth and stretch, invitations to expansions and safeties in contraction much better than I am necessarily consciously aware. This course provided the banks and power charge to a river of insight, of revelation, and of reorientation.

Personally, it allowed me to apply grounded theoretical learning to the movement of energy within my own body and community. In turn, it contextualized the physiological requirement of containing, of holding, and of relating in a way that illuminates the beautiful symbiosis between our unconscious lives and our automated physiology. This course brought phenomenal clarity, with neurophysiological acuity and revelational attributes, the relationships between my own fields of study - restoration, creative expression, conflict dissolution and contextualization, and the general notion that in fact all of these fields are not separate at all.

-J. Ariel Guy, Counselor, Conflict Consultant, Artist & Mental Health Eductor (presently residing in Tel Aviv)

ABOUT YOUR INSTRUCTOR: Sue Bahnan MS,MA holds a Master of Science in Neuroscience and Master of Arts in Psychology in Education. She has numerous certifications, including in HeartMath, Embodiment, and Trauma Coaching. Sue is Faculty at Hearth Science, serves on the Hearth Science Research Advisory, is a member of the Hearth Science Culture Coordinating Team, and a member of the Restorative Practices Alliance. She has worked closely with Hearth Science Founder Natureza Gabriel on the research and pedagogical development of Autonomics, as well as clinical implementation of the modality. She has blended her expertise from academic and facilitatory training into various fields including stress, trauma and wellness research, social emotional e-learning platforms, and outpatient neurofeedback clinics. Her past work in the Massachusetts Worcester County District Attorney's Office involved delivering trauma-informed and responsive trainings through the scientific lens of the autonomic nervous system to educators, law enforcement, first responders, and other community organizations.