Safe & Sound Protocol (SSP) for Sound-Sensitive Adults & Teens | Newington, CT | Virtual in CT, MA, RI
Helping your nervous system become more flexible, regulated, and resilient
What is the Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP)?
The Safe & Sound Protocol (SSP) is an evidence-based listening therapy built around the neurobiology of safety.
Essentially, helping your nervous system get better at recognizing when it doesn’t need to be on high alert.
Using specially filtered music, SSP works with the autonomic nervous system from the bottom up.
The goal isn’t to make you calm all the time (because that’s neither realistic nor particularly human). It’s to help your nervous system become more flexible, and better able to move through stress, activation, rest, connection, and recovery without getting stuck.
As that capacity grows, you may have more room for presence, connection, emotional regulation, and engagement. And when SSP is used alongside therapy, it can help create the nervous-system capacity that allows deeper therapeutic work to actually be effective.
SSP may be especially helpful if you experience:
- Trauma-related sensory sensitivity or overwhelm
- Difficulty feeling safe, present, or connected with others
- Anxiety or chronic hypervigilance
- Emotional dysregulation or difficulty recovering after activation
- Sensory processing differences
- A nervous system that seems to go from 0 to 100
Highlights of SSP, and an Introduction to Polyvagal Theory
Highlights of the Safe and Sound Protocol for Adults and Teens
The Safe & Sound Protocol (SSP) is a five-hour, evidence-based auditory intervention developed by Dr. Stephen Porges, the creator of “Polyvagal Theory.”
Rather than completing all five hours at once, we move through the program gradually and intentionally, at a pace your nervous system can tolerate.
SSP uses specially filtered music to work with the autonomic nervous system from the bottom up.
It’s designed to support greater regulation, reduce sound sensitivity, improve auditory processing, and strengthen the nervous system’s capacity to shift more flexibly between states.
In other words: I’m not trying to teach you to “calm down.” I’m helping your nervous system get better at finding its way back to regulation.
By supporting the social engagement system and physiological regulation, SSP can also complement therapy and other forms of healing work, helping create more capacity for connection, resilience, and change.
An Introduction to Polyvagal Theory
Polyvagal Theory was developed by Dr. Stephen Porges to help explain something many of us already know from experience: what’s happening in your nervous system affects how you think, feel, behave, and connect with the people around you.
Your nervous system is constantly taking in information and assessing, Am I safe? Is something wrong? Do I need to protect myself?
Much of this happens automatically, before your conscious brain ever gets a say in it.
When your nervous system detects safety, you have greater access to things like connection, curiosity, flexibility, and engagement.
When it detects danger, it can shift into protective states: fight, flight, freeze, shutdown…even when you logically know you’re safe.
This is why you can’t always think or talk your way into feeling safe.
Polyvagal Theory gives us a framework for understanding these responses without treating them as something that’s “wrong” with you.
It also helps explain why “bottom-up” approaches like SSP can be so powerful: instead of starting with your thoughts and asking your body to follow, we work directly with the nervous system and help the rest follow from there.
Curious whether the Safe and Sound Protocol is a good fit for your nervous system?
Let’s talk about what you’re experiencing, what you’re hoping to change, and how I can help.
Why work with me with SSP?
You don’t need to get better at calming down. Your nervous system needs support finding its way back to regulation.
As a licensed clinical social worker specializing in neurodivergence and complex trauma (and as an AuDHD person myself) I understand that nervous-system regulation isn’t as simple as learning a few coping skills, taking a deep breath, or telling yourself that you’re safe.
Sometimes your brain knows you’re safe while your body is still responding like it isn’t.
That’s why I’m drawn to bottom-up approaches like the Safe & Sound Protocol. I bring a blend of clinical expertise, trauma-informed care, neurodivergent-affirming practice, and nervous-system awareness to SSP work.
SSP with me is intentionally individualized. This is not five hours of music that we power through as quickly as possible. We titrate the protocol based on how your nervous system responds, adjusting the pace and listening time along the way.
What Makes This Work Different
- Neurodiversity-affirming — your sensory and nervous-system differences aren’t something we’re trying to “fix.”
- Trauma-informed — safety, choice, pacing, and capacity matter throughout the process.
- Individualized and carefully titrated — we follow your nervous system rather than forcing it to follow a predetermined schedule.
- Bottom-up and nervous-system focused — because insight alone doesn’t always change what your body is doing.
I work especially well with people who have spent years thinking their way through everything: analyzing, masking, pushing through, coping, and functioning while their nervous system continues working overtime. SSP gives us another place to start: with the body.
Questions about the Safe and Sound Protocol
for you or your teenager?
MOST COMMON QUESTIONS
01. What is the Safe & Sound Protocol (SSP)?
The Safe & Sound Protocol is an evidence-based listening therapy developed from Dr. Stephen Porges’ Polyvagal Theory. It uses specially filtered music designed to support the autonomic nervous system and strengthen your capacity for regulation, connection, and resilience.
SSP is a five-hour listening program, but that absolutely does not mean sitting down and listening for five hours straight. We break the listening into manageable sessions and carefully titrate the pace based on how your individual nervous system responds.
02. What can the Safe & Sound Protocol help with?
SSP is designed to support autonomic nervous system regulation and may be helpful for people experiencing anxiety, chronic hypervigilance, sensory sensitivity or overwhelm, emotional dysregulation, difficulty with social engagement and connection, and trauma-related nervous system responses.
I particularly enjoy using SSP with neurodivergent adults and teens whose nervous systems seem to be working overtime, whether that looks like constantly being on high alert, becoming overwhelmed easily, shutting down, or having difficulty returning to baseline after stress.
03. What does an SSP session actually look like?
You listen to specially filtered music through headphones while we pay attention to how your nervous system responds. Depending on where you are in the protocol and your individual capacity, listening periods may be relatively short and gradually increase over time.
There is no prize for getting through SSP quickly. The goal is not to tolerate as much listening as possible; the goal is to give your nervous system an experience it can actually integrate. We adjust the pace as needed rather than forcing your body through a predetermined schedule.
04. Can I do SSP virtually, or do I need to come into the office?
Both! I offer SSP in person in Newington, Connecticut, as well as virtually for clients located throughout Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island.
For virtual SSP, we’ll discuss your listening environment, equipment, pacing, and how we’ll stay connected throughout the process so that the protocol remains supported and individualized rather than simply giving you access to the program and sending you on your way.
05. Is SSP only for people who are already in therapy?
No. SSP can complement psychotherapy, including trauma-focused approaches like EMDR, but you do not necessarily need to be participating in ongoing therapy with me to benefit from the protocol.
During your consultation, we’ll talk about what you’re experiencing, what you’re hoping SSP will help with, and whether it makes sense as a standalone service or as part of your broader therapeutic work. If I don’t think SSP is the right fit for what you’re looking for, I’ll tell you that too.
06. How do I know if SSP is right for me?
A good starting point is whether you recognize the feeling that your nervous system reacts faster (or more intensely) than your thinking brain can keep up with.
Maybe you understand your triggers intellectually but your body still goes into fight, flight, freeze, or shutdown. Maybe sensory input feels disproportionately overwhelming. Or maybe you can function incredibly well while internally feeling like your nervous system never really gets to clock out.
SSP isn’t appropriate for every person or every nervous system, which is why we start with a consultation rather than jumping directly into listening.
Book a free consultation and we’ll talk about what your nervous system has been doing, what you’d like to be different, and whether SSP makes sense as the next step.
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