Fundations of SE
This term describes the therapeutic approach of processing trauma by starting with primal bodily sensations and moving upward toward emotions and cognitions.
What is Bottom-Up Processing?
In the SIBAM acronym, the letter S stands for this internal, interoceptive channel that serves as the entry point for bottom-up processing.
What is Sensation?
According to the podcast, chronic trauma syndromes are centrally driven by dysregulation in this specific bodily system.
What is the autonomic nervous system?
Rather than looking for massive changes all at once, the healing process in somatic work requires precise, delicate attention focused here.
What are small shifts in the body?
Dr. Levine critiques the United States for a cultural tendency to avoid acknowledging these two painful states, a habit that severely hinders healing.
What are pain and grief?
Dr. Peter Levine developed Somatic Experiencing after studying this specific field of animal behavior, noticing that animals in the wild rarely become traumatized.
What is ethology?
In Sharon’s case study, seeing the Hudson River or boats moving on the water represents this specific letter/channel of the SIBAM model.
What is Image (I)?
The podcast notes that this type of early-life experience is a massive contributor to chronic stress and trauma syndromes later in adulthood.
What is early childhood adversity?
his specific type of therapeutic intervention is highlighted in the video as a method used to restore balance to the nervous system.
What is a somatic approach (or somatic experiencing / somatic work)?
Working through this specific difficult emotion, which Dr. Levine notes is very often deeply linked with grief, requires an exceptionally careful and gentle therapeutic approach.
What is shame?
According to SE, trauma is not caused by the adverse event itself, but by this specific failure within the individual.
What is the failure of the body, mind, spirit, and nervous system to process extreme adverse events?
his channel of SIBAM includes both voluntary movements and involuntary reactions, such as the spontaneous arm gestures or leg agitation tracked by a therapist.
What is Behavior (B)?
When conventional medicine rules out organic causes for a syndrome, the podcast suggests physicians should promote inner balance by doing this for their patients.
What is referring them to practitioners who address underlying dysregulation?
A major mistake in somatic therapy is trying to force voluntary control over this specific involuntary bodily function.
What is breathing?
In the podcast summary, a practitioner notes that this new, transformative training has vastly improved their outcomes with adolescents facing these specific severe relational challenges.
What are severe attachment issues/challenges?
Unlike other animals that temporarily experience tonic immobility, humans frequently remain stuck in this state due to the overriding power of this part of the brain.
What is the neocortex (or neocortical ability)?
When a client concludes, "I am a bad person," they are operating in this final SIBAM channel, which the therapist helps normalize before steering them back to physical sensation.
What is Meaning (M)?
These two specific chronic conditions are highlighted as examples of syndromes that often completely lack clear, apparent medical causes.
What are fibromyalgia and lupus?
This technique is described as "carefully touching into the smallest “drop” of survival-based arousal, which increases stability, resilience and organization and prevents retraumatization."
What is Titration?
Despite modern progress, public awareness still lags regarding the immense delicacy of the nervous system and its remarkable capacity for this during trauma recovery.
What is rewiring (or its capacity to be rewired)?