The Collective Nervous System: From Polyvagal Theory to Collective Regulation in Trauma Recovery and Education

This working paper extends polyvagal theory from the individual to the collective domain and introduces the concept of a Collective Nervous System. It proposes that trauma and recovery are not only personal processes but also shared, emerging through co-regulation within families, classrooms, and societies. Drawing from clinical neuropsychology and trauma education in Ukraine, the paper maps the three autonomic states—ventral (connection), sympathetic (mobilization), and dorsal (shutdown)—onto collective patterns such as empathy and creativity, militancy and hypervigilance, or despair and depopulation. A brief intellectual lineage (Jung, Durkheim, Volkan) situates the idea of the “collective,” while the novelty here is a neurobiological framing grounded in polyvagal mechanisms (neuroception, autonomic hierarchy, co-regulation). Case vignettes, parallels between individual and collective dysregulation, and the role of rituals as collective breathwork translate the model into education, clinical practice, and societal healing. The paper concludes with a research agenda for measuring group-level regulation and piloting interventions through DOVIRA (Canada–Ukraine Trauma Recovery Initiative).