TTC Somatic Experiencing Methods 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Peter Levine's SIBAM model in SE stands for:
- Sensation, Image, Behavior, Affect, Meaning (Correct answer)
- Somatic, Integration, Breath, Activation, Movement
- Sympathetic, Inhibition, Baseline, Arousal, Memory
- Sensation, Inhibition, Body, Affect, Mobilization
Correct answer: Sensation, Image, Behavior, Affect, Meaning
SIBAM (Sensation, Image, Behavior, Affect, Meaning) describes the five elements that make up an experience and that become coupled in trauma.
Question 2: Which polyvagal state is associated with the 'freeze' or 'feigned death' response in SE theory?
- Ventral vagal activation
- Sympathetic nervous system dominance
- Dorsal vagal dominance (Correct answer)
- Parasympathetic rebound
Correct answer: Dorsal vagal dominance
The dorsal vagal branch of the parasympathetic system mediates immobility, collapse, and feigned-death responses when fight-or-flight has failed.
Question 3: In SE, 'completion of defensive responses' most often involves helping the client:
- Verbally confront the perpetrator in role-play
- Finish thwarted fight, flight, or orienting movements somatically (Correct answer)
- Write a narrative ending to the traumatic story
- Cognitively reframe beliefs about the event
Correct answer: Finish thwarted fight, flight, or orienting movements somatically
SE focuses on allowing the body to finish the incomplete survival movements (running, pushing, turning away) that were interrupted during the trauma.
Question 4: A practitioner notices a client's breathing becomes shallow and chest tightens when discussing a memory. In SE, the next step is most likely to:
- Ask the client to take three deep diaphragmatic breaths immediately
- Have the client rate their distress on a 0–10 scale
- Slow the pace, name the sensation, and invite curiosity about it (Correct answer)
- Switch to a cognitive reappraisal technique
Correct answer: Slow the pace, name the sensation, and invite curiosity about it
SE practitioners track body cues, slow the process, and invite the client to become curious about sensations rather than immediately regulating or analyzing them.
Question 5: What is the primary purpose of 'somatic resourcing' in SE?
- To pharmacologically reduce hyperarousal before sessions
- To identify financial and social supports for trauma recovery
- To build positive somatic reference points that support regulation (Correct answer)
- To document the client's physiological baseline for insurance purposes
Correct answer: To build positive somatic reference points that support regulation
Somatic resourcing creates felt-sense anchors of safety, strength, or comfort that the therapist can return to when activation becomes too intense.
Question 6: In SE, hyperarousal symptoms such as hypervigilance, startle responses, and intrusive imagery are understood as:
- Character pathology requiring long-term psychodynamic treatment
- Incomplete discharge of survival energy remaining in the nervous system (Correct answer)
- Conditioned avoidance behaviors maintained by negative reinforcement
- Neurological damage caused by the trauma itself
Correct answer: Incomplete discharge of survival energy remaining in the nervous system
SE views hyperarousal symptoms as trapped survival energy that was never discharged, keeping the nervous system stuck in a mobilized defensive state.
Question 7: Which of the following best describes 'grounding' as used in Somatic Experiencing?
- Using electrical earthing mats on the floor during sessions
- Verbal re-orientation to the facts of the trauma narrative
- Connecting client awareness to physical contact with the ground and present-moment sensory experience (Correct answer)
- Emotional suppression through controlled breathing
Correct answer: Connecting client awareness to physical contact with the ground and present-moment sensory experience
Grounding in SE involves directing attention to feet on the floor, gravity, and sensory input to anchor the client in the present body and interrupt dissociation.
TTC Somatic Experiencing Methods 3
Peter Levine's SIBAM model in SE stands for: