Embodied Inquiry

“[An embodied] inquiry should not be reduced to fact finding and sophisticated explanations and theories. Rather the goal is to hold reverence for the natural yet mysterious healing processes of the body, brain, soul and spirit”

—Sharon Stanley (2016, p. 122).

In order to support the innate healing process of moving toward a more integrated, regulated, and coherent sense of self, the client and health professional must mindfully study the client’s organization of experience together. This is done from a stance of curiosity, non-judgement, and impartial acceptance of all that emerges from the client (e.g., “all of you and your experience are welcome here”).

Through embodied inquiry, facilitators seek to bring the subjective inner world of clients into the intersubjective realm of the therapeutic relationship by helping them to give their inner experience description, both verbally and through expressed gestures, movements and facial expressions which can be mirrored. This joining promotes empathy and attunement such that the client feels genuinely accompanied and understood.

Embodied inquiry is another key skill for health professionals working in psychedelic-assisted therapy which has been meaningfully woven throughout the program.

With somatic inquiry, the client is empowered as the source of their own truth, and the health professional ‘leads by following’.

Importantly in psychedelic-assisted therapy, embodied inquiry supports an inner-directed therapeutic stance by assisting clients to deepen their psychedelic experience through embodied modes of self-exploration that may be new or foreign yet are often more accessible because of the altered states of consciousness.

SIBAM and Core Organizers of Experience

It is useful for embodied inquiry to have a framework that incorporates relevant aspects or “building blocks” of experience.

Please ensure that you read through all tabs before proceeding.

SIBAM

SIBAM is one such framework which has the general purpose of elaborating components of experience to help make the implicit explicit (bringing the inner experience of the client into awareness and relationship) which supports the inner healing process, and further, to uncouple or delink aspects of experience that together are overwhelming, and to couple or link aspects of experience that support greater self-regulation and integration.

Please ensure that you read through all items before proceeding by selecting each word in the acronym.

Sensation

These are direct sensations perceived from the body (interoception, proprioception, internal sensations). Examples include tingling, tensions, warmth, spaciousness, clenching, heaviness etc.

Sensation Question Examples

  • Bringing to mind your journey, what sensations do you notice?

  • You said you experienced immense freedom, how do you notice that now in your body, if you do?

  • Where do you notice freedom?

Image

These are images, colors, and external senses (sight, smell, touch, taste).

Image Question Examples

  • Were there images that stand out from the experience? Can you describe them?

  • If you had to imagine that experience as a color or image, what color or image comes to mind?

  • You said you imagined yourself as part of a tree during the experience? If you bring this experience to mind, where are you now? What is happening with that tree? Are there any desires, urges or impulses that arise?

Behaviour

These are observable (verbal/nonverbal, voluntary/autonomic (processes), conscious/out of awareness). Some examples include gestures, facial expressions, and other movements.

Behaviour Question Examples

  • I noticed when you talk about this part of your ceremony, your body starts to rock back and forth. Is it okay if we do that together? What arises as you engage in this behaviour?

  • When you speak about wanting to make that change in your life, your hands keep coming up in front of you. What happens when you notice that?

Affect

This refers to emotions. Emotions can also present as sensations (physical correlates).

Affect Question Examples

  • What (if any) particular emotions come up when you are talking about that?

  • Is it possible to allow that emotion to be there? What do you notice as you sit with it?

  • What words, colors, or sensations might be associated with the emotion?

Meaning

These are thoughts and language (associations, ideas, opinions, interpretations, conclusions). Some examples include verbal processing of information that arises directly out of the altered state of experience.

Meaning Question Examples

  • You stated that you have nothing to be afraid of; what does that mean for you going forward?

  • Can you tell me more about how this experience impacted you?

Core Organizers of Experience

Another framework relevant to embodied inquiry is the core organizers of experience. Embodied experience is the foundation of affect and emotion, impulses, and the images, meanings, and language that surface to higher order awareness.

pyramid of core organizers of experience. From bottom: interoception, impulses for movement, 5 sensory perceptions, emotions, cognition, meaning-making

Figure 3.1: Pyramid of core organizers of experience

Health Professional Tip

What are some phrases and questions that can be used for embodied inquiry?

Here are some examples of phrases and questions that can be used for embodied inquiry:

  • As you tell me about this, what sensations, images, or emotions, if any, do you notice?

  • Where in the body do you feel that sadness? If it has a shape, size, colour, texture, weight, how would you describe these?

  • I noticed you made a gesture when you spoke about (X) [mirror the gesture] - what might it be like to slow that down? What images, if any, surface? What might happen if we make it bigger? We can do it together.

  • When you feel this anger, what do you notice in the body, if anything? How does the experience change as you bring attention to it, if it does?

  • Just let yourself open to what’s happening right now; are there any areas of tension or discomfort? Can you describe them to me? I’m right here with you. If you can say yes (turn toward) to this discomfort, can you tell me a little more about it? Where is it exactly?

  • As you speak about that memory, I wonder if you can notice any sensations in your body right now.

  • That blissful feeling you had during your psychedelic experience - as you remember it now, what sensations or images, if any, are surfacing for you?

  • If that gray blob in your belly could have a voice, what would it say?

Video: Embodied Inquiry Demo

20:20

In this video, Numinus therapists Dr. Devon Christie and Dr. Kate Mulvihill demonstrate embodied inquiry in action. In this scenario, Dr. Mulvihill is the client and Dr. Christie is the therapist.

While you watch, please track Dr. Christie's communication. Consider the verbal communication and her body language. Think about the questions she's asking: are they are part of SIBAM, pendulation, or titration? Please also track Dr. Mulvihill's nervous system states including any activation, collapse, hypo or hyper arousal, and facial expressions.

Health Professional Tip

Thinking back to intention setting, what types of questions could you use to assist this process of setting intentions?

Here is a set of inquiry questions that you can use with clients to assist with this process of intention setting:

  • What are you hoping for from the psychedelic journey?

  • How will you know you received what you wanted?

  • What will be different, if anything?

  • What might get in the way of the experience?

  • How might you meet that?

  • What do you bring that could support you?

  • How might you meet the unexpected?

  • What would it be like to bring curiosity? How could you do that?

  • What might it be like to open to the unknown? To uncertainty?

  • What might it be like if fear were not dominant?

References

Stanley, S. (2016). Relationship and body-centered practices for healing trauma: Listing the burdens of the past. Routledge.