Sibam Model

During the 1970s, I developed a model that allowed me to ‘track’ the processes whereby my clients processed experiences. This model, which I call SIBAM, is based on the intimate relationship between our bodies and our minds.

Levine identifies SIBAM as his original clinical tracking instrument, anchoring it in the body-mind relationship and naming its five constituent channels: Sensation, Image, Behavior, Affect, and Meaning.

Levine, Peter A., In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness, 2010thesis

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Using the SIBAM model, the therapist can help the client work through the first four channels of awareness in order to reach new meanings. When cognition is suspended long enough, it is possible to move through and experience flow via these different channels.

Levine articulates the therapeutic sequence of SIBAM, arguing that suspending cognition and attending to Sensation, Image, Behavior, and Affect allows fresh Meanings to emerge organically rather than through verbal persuasion.

Levine, Peter A., In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness, 2010thesis

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Indeed, the I in the SIBAM model could refer, equally, to any of the externally generated Impressions (i.e., visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, etc.).

Levine elaborates the Image channel of SIBAM, broadening it to encompass all external sense impressions and distinguishing exteroceptive stimuli from interoceptive somatic sensation.

Levine, Peter A., In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness, 2010supporting

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When such disruptions fail to be fully integrated, the components of that experience become fragmented into isolated sensations, images and emotions.

Levine describes the pathological condition SIBAM is designed to address: the fragmentation of experience across channels when the body-mind cannot integrate overwhelming events.

Levine, Peter A., In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness, 2010supporting

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The surging and receding of the emotional arousal is evidence of deepening self-regulation.

Levine illustrates affective oscillation during his own trauma recovery, implicitly demonstrating the Affect channel of SIBAM functioning in a self-regulatory capacity.

Levine, Peter A., In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness, 2010aside

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Along with the method I have described throughout this book were the conjoined twin sisters of embodiment and awareness.

Levine frames embodiment and awareness as the broader conceptual context within which SIBAM-based intervention operates to prevent prolonged traumatic sequelae.

Levine, Peter A., In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness, 2010aside

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