Coaching the Whole Person with the SIBAM process

In my recent article Coaching Emotional Resilience, we explored how sensations often speak before stories and how, when coaches invite clients to notice what they feel in the body, it builds both awareness and resilience. Even when resilience is not the client’s original goal, this deeper noticing can create new capacity for emotional regulation and insight. Building on this foundation, this article introduces an even broader practice, engaging the whole person through SIBAM.

Why Whole-Person Coaching Matters

When we coach the whole person, we hold space for clients to feel fully seen, accepted, and valued. We acknowledge them as complex beings, recognizing that we are all shaped by various internal and external factors, including identity, context, culture, and beliefs. We are curious about their thoughts, feelings, self-expression, perceptions, values, and worldview, understanding that these factors significantly shape their choices and actions.

By exploring these aspects of their experience, we create an opportunity for clients to navigate and make meaning of their situation in more expansive ways. Moving beyond the urge for quick solutions, clients can develop a deeper awareness of themselves within their context, often uncovering hidden beliefs that influence their thoughts, emotions, and behaviours.

Balancing the “Who” and the “What” in Coaching

Despite the importance of acknowledging and exploring each client's unique qualities, coaches may sometimes, under pressure to perform, become attached to outcomes and overlook the person in front of them. Goals are essential to the coaching process, but if we focus only on the 'What' of the client’s challenge, we risk neglecting the 'Who' of the client, their unique being. Balancing the “Who” and the “What” requires coaching presence, which takes intention and attention.

Coaching Presence and the Whole Person

Presence is a cornerstone of whole-person coaching, but it is not a passive role. The International Coaching Federation describes presence as acting in response to the whole person of the client (the who) and not just the “what” (issue, situation, problem, gap) that the client brings to the session. This attentiveness requires us to stay aware of what is happening within the client and within ourselves, whether as the client navigates strong emotions or when we notice ourselves steering the client toward a solution.

The SIBAM framework identifies five channels of experience: Sensation, Imagery, Behaviour, Affect, and Meaning. It invites exploration of physical sensations and how they are expressed, along with imagery, emotions, and the meaning we make of our experiences. This opens access to different layers of awareness that can deepen presence, insight, and understanding.

The Five Elements of SIBAM

Peter Levine, Ph.D., a psychotherapist and the developer of Somatic Experiencing®, developed a model that represents subjective experience from the perspective of the person experiencing it. This model uses the acronym SIBAM to explore the five components that build a complete experience.

These interconnected components contribute to our overall experience and understanding of ourselves and our world.

Sensations - Sensations are the physical experiences that we perceive as bodily sensations. They serve as initial cues that inform us about what is happening within our physical being in response to external or internal stimuli. Sensations can be powerful cues that indicate underlying emotions or patterns of tension and relaxation. By tuning into sensations, clients can gain insights into their physical reactions, expanding their self-awareness and informing their choices.

Images - Images are not limited to visual images but include all sense impressions. These can take the form of memories, visualisations, or imagination. By exploring imagery, clients access additional context and information that shapes their understanding of experiences. Powerful metaphors and symbols can also emerge, which can evoke awareness at a deeper level.

Behaviour - Behaviour involves observable actions, patterns, and both verbal and nonverbal expressions. In coaching, this refers to what can be observed within the session itself, including the client’s immediate words, tone, gestures, and physical expressions. By noticing these cues and, with the client’s consent, respectfully sharing them as observations, coaches can invite exploration of what these expressions might reveal about the client’s inner experience that has not yet been spoken or fully understood.

Affect - Affect includes the full range of emotional experiences and emphasises how these emotions are felt and expressed. It captures the nuances of both mood and emotion, shaping our overall state of being and influencing how we respond to different situations. For example, a client may show a fleeting sadness or a sudden surge of hope that invites further exploration.

Meaning - Meaning involves the language we use to express the significance and understanding of an experience. It is shaped by sensations, images, behaviour, and affect. Meaning is how we comprehend life events, relationships, and our sense of self. These meanings are not fixed but are open to new interpretations, which coaching conversations can help explore and redefine.

How to Integrate SIBAM into Coaching

The aspects of SIBAM interrelate and ideally form a fluid, integrated response to present-moment experience.

In coaching, we can support clients in exploring these aspects while also tuning into our own present-moment responses. As we navigate the conversation, SIBAM can help us stay aware of sensations, images, observable behaviours, emotions, and the meanings that we or the client are attributing to any of these or to their situation.

If we notice a shift in energy, posture, tone, or breath, we can invite the client to pause and reflect on these cues. These shifts might connect to an emotion or to a meaning the client is unconsciously creating. They may also lead the client to share a metaphor or image that reflects their experience. For example, we might notice that a client’s shoulders have slumped forward and share that observation. When asked what they notice, the client may respond, “It feels like I am carrying a heavy backpack I cannot put down.” That metaphor can then become an entry point for deeper exploration.

If the client expresses an emotion, we can invite them to explore it more fully. How are they experiencing that emotion as they share it? What meaning are they making of it? How does it impact the way they see themselves, others, or their situation?

Many clients will stay primarily in the meaning-making aspect of their experience, explaining what they think or believe about a situation. However, by noticing and responding to other SIBAM cues, such as visible changes in tone or body language, expressed emotions, and metaphors, we can help the client move beyond explanation into deeper self-awareness and understanding.

We can also explore the Sensation element of SIBAM by noticing our own internal responses. We may sense tension or ease in our bodies and reflect on whether that might mirror something in the client’s experience. We might notice images or metaphors that arise in our own awareness and use them as a basis for curiosity. We also stay mindful of the meanings we are making. For example, if a client names an emotion, do we assume we understand it based on how we have experienced that emotion ourselves? By noticing when we are drawing conclusions, we can pause and return to curiosity.

A Coaching Example Using SIBAM

This is a hypothetical example.

In a coaching session, a client shares a recurring frustration. She often feels dismissed during team meetings and has received feedback about appearing aggressive. Concerned about how this might affect her chances for promotion, she brings the issue to coaching.

The coach proposes an exercise, inviting the client to visualise her next team meeting. Drawing upon the SIBAM framework, the coach encourages the client to notice the details of the virtual meeting space. The client notices that one Zoom square stands out, belonging to a respected colleague. As she describes this, the coach observes tightness in the client's voice. With the client’s consent, the coach reflects this observation. The client reports unease and explores the sensations in her body, noticing a racing pulse and clenched fists.

Through this exploration, the client recognizes that her desire to impress this colleague has heightened her sensitivity to perceived criticism. She becomes aware of how this dynamic influences her communication patterns and physical reactions. This leads to new meaning, as she identifies her need for approval and how it has shaped her responses.

As we have seen, engaging the whole person through SIBAM allows both the coach and the client to access deeper awareness and new perspectives that might otherwise remain hidden. It invites a richer, more meaningful coaching conversation, where insight leads to growth not only in the moment but well beyond the session.

As you reflect on this approach, consider:

• How might becoming more aware of these five channels influence your coaching conversations or your personal interactions?
• What shifts could happen if you or your clients explored sensations, imagery, behaviour, affect, and meaning more intentionally?
• Are you ready to develop greater presence and deepen your capacity to support others in this way?

Final Thoughts

If you are ready to begin your journey as a coach or want to learn how to support others with the depth and awareness explored here, I invite you to join my upcoming cohort of the Coacharya Level 1 ICF ACC program. We will explore whole-person coaching across different contexts and frameworks and engage in deep self-discovery.