Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP)
What is Safe and Sound Protocol?
The Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP) is an evidence-based listening therapy designed to reduce nervous system sensitivities, trauma responses, improve auditory processing, behavioral state regulation, and social engagement behaviors through filtered music. Developed by Dr. Stephen Porges and based on his 40 years of research on Polyvagal Theory, SSP involves listening to specially filtered music through headphones alongside a provider, in-person or remotely and is suitable for children and adults. As a practical application of Polyvagal Theory, the SSP acts as a non-invasive, acoustic vagal nerve stimulator, helping to retune the nervous system to support connection, collaboration, and resilience.
The designed and prescribed administration of SSP will create new, positive connections in the brain utilizing neuroplasticity that allows patients to better regulate by stretching the nervous system. This treatment is helpful because as the brain/body connection becomes more organized, patients better process the world around them and have an increased and sustained window of tolerance.
Who Can Benefit from SSP?
This tool has been used to treat patients experiencing difficulties with emotional control, behavioral organization, and hearing and auditory sensitivities and can be administered to both children and adult patients.
This music-based intervention address dysregulation caused by Anxiety Disorders, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders, Autism, ADHD, Sensory Processing Disorders, and other factors that cause an overactive or underactive emotional state.
The SSP is an adjunct therapy meant to be used in combination with and to enhance existing treatment programs, so integrating it into patient care can be super beneficial. The ultimate goal is to support patients struggling with therapeutic gains and offer a different and varied approach to treatment, as SSP promotes a neural platform for health, growth, and restoration in a bottom-up intervention.
How Is The Program Administered?
This program can be administered in-office, at home, or remotely through the digital delivery platform.
In partnership with the patient and primary therapist, the administering clinician will determine the most suitable regimen for the patient. First-time appointments will be conducted in the office to gauge the impact of listening and to develop a specialized administration regimen that will not stress the nervous system.
SSP is not meant as a stand-alone intervention and is best utilized to complement the work already being done in therapy. Since SSP works implicitly on the nervous system to enhance neuroception, working with a therapist is imperative to explicitly recognize the patient's state of regulation and find strategies to get back into a relaxed muscle body with much more ease.
Polyvagal Theory: The Science of Feeling Safe.
Polyvagal Theory focuses on what is happening in the body and the nervous system and explains how our sense of safety, danger, or life threat can impact our behavior. Understanding Polyvagal Theory gives a scientific framework that can be applied through physiological or “bottom-up” therapies to help change and improve how we feel, think, and connect with others. Safe and Sound Protocol is a treatment intervention that is designed to work on this internal system specifically.
Please check out the videos below to learn more, or contact the office today to schedule a consultation call.