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ABSTRACT: Why can some people be exposed to toxins, stressors, or traumatic events and be significantly less affected than others? The author conducts a review of research, constructs a theoretical model psychophysiological resilience, and examines the impact of prenatal and early childhood events on the formation of neural regulatory circuits. Psychophysiological resilience involves psychological, physiological, emotional, and spiritual resilience. Research is cited to support the theory that events occurring during gestation and birth offer clues to sustained adaptive programming that supports species preservation. Research relating the impacts of adaptive vs. maladaptive neurodevelopmental programming on currently relevant issues including psychosocial violence, functional intelligence, and somatic disease processes is cited. Emerging research on the role of the heart and the use of guided imagery and Heart Rate Variability (HRV) biofeedback in rebuilding physiological and emotional adaptive processes of resilience is articulated.
INTRODUCTION
Many current diseases, educational problems, and instances of psychosocial violence may have the common thread of threat perception and biological consequences associated with autonomic nervous system (ANS) dysregulation at their roots. In his book, Clinical Behavioral Medicine, Wickramasekera (1988) noted that the diseases most prevalent today are not the acute infectious diseases of the past such as pneumonia and tuberculosis, but rather conditions such as cancer and cardiovascular disease that are being more readily attributed to chronic stress and life style-related factors. This information deserves attention and an exploration into roots and etiology.
Threat perception is viewed as the basis for physiological and emotional arousal responses that can lead to either health deteriorating stress patterns, or as evidenced in the work of Taylor, Klein, Lewis, Gruenewald, Gurung and Updegraff (2000), a more restorative "tend and befriend" response. Health deteriorating stress patterns arise from ANS dysregulation and negatively affect physical health, intellectual functioning, and psychosocial well being. This hypothesis involves a theoretical consideration that the foundations for ANS response pattern's and neural regulatory circuits can and often do begin during early gestation and birth periods. This author further hypothesizes that patterns of physical health and psychosocial well being involve a balance between arousal and restorative based processes associated with physiological and psychological resilience. These restorative responses are hypothesized to be based on successful affiliative relationship abilities whose origins can be found in heart-related emotions...