Reading the Nervous System

Contents

Dedication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Note from the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

For the Reader . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Positionality and Collaboration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Organizing the Regulatory Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

PART I - The Nervous System and the Construction of Bodily . . . . . . .

Experience

19

Chapter 1 - How the Body Builds an Inner World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Chapter 2 - What the System Is Already Carrying . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Chapter 3 - The Shape of the Response . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Chapter 4 - What the System Does With What It Carries . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

Chapter 5 - The Field in Motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

PART II - Autistic Nervous System Organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

Chapter 6 - Autistic Interoception: Another Way of Inhabiting the . . . .

World

90

Chapter 7 - Embodied Cognition: The Thinking Body . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

Chapter 8 - Bodily States, Energy, and the Architecture of Access . . . . 111

Chapter 9 - Emotion and Bodily Experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

PART III - Safety, Protection, and Bodily Reorganization . . . . . . . . . . 131

Chapter 10 - Safety and Protection: A Reading from the Body . . . . . . . 133

PART IV - Relationship, Co-Regulation, and the Conditions for . . . .

Reorganization

156

Chapter 11 - Relationship as Regulatory Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158

PART V - Clinical and Educational Implications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184

Chapter 12 - What Legibility Opens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185

Glossary of Core Constructs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207

Afterword - Research Agenda . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217