Experience the Body Based Method Pesso Boyden System of Psychotherapy
SCROLL DOWN TO HEAR WHAT BESSEL VAN DER KOLK SAYS ABOUT PBSP, FOR A FREE COPY OF A CHAPTER FROM HIS BOOK
THE BODY KEEPS THE SCORE
AND TO READ MORE ABOUT PBSP CONCEPTS
Juliet Grayson - one of the three trainers in PBSP in the UK - is leading a live Guided Supervision and Live Practice day. You can come and experience PBSP as a client, (having your own session), or as an observer participant.
Date: Wednesday 13th, Thursday 14th & Friday 15th November 2024
Venue: Drill Hall, Chepstow, Monmouthshire NP16 5HJ
Client sessions (option 3) are open to anyone who feels motivated to do some personal work. You don’t have to have experienced PBSP before, but you do need to feel motivated and willing to be open.
The contract, between you and the therapist, is that you bring the session to a ‘good end’ in the time allowed (approx. 50 minutes) and that your therapist will help you to do that.
Observer participant sessions (option 1) are open to anyone who is interested in learning more about the Pesso Boyden System of Psychotherapy. You do not need to have had any prior experience of PBSP.
Supervision slots (option 2) are only open to people who have completed at least one year of PBSP training.
Numbers are limited to four client sessions and four supervisee sessions per day.
IF YOU HAVE QUESTIONS PLEASE CONTACT JULIET [email protected]
Date: Wednesday 13th, Thursday 14th & Friday 15th November 2024
Venue: Drill Hall, Chepstow, Monmouthshire NP16 5HJ
Timings: Wednesday & Thursday 8.45am arrival for a prompt 9.00am start – finish by 7.15 pm at the latest.
Friday arrive from 8.30am for an 8.45am start and finish by 6pm.
FOR FULL DETAILS ABOUT THE DAYS CLICK HERE https://therapyandcounselling.co.uk/pbsp-guided-practice-with-live-supervision-13-14-15-nov-2024/
Booking: The price in brackets is the early booking price, which is for bookings made more than 1 month before the date
Client: Option 3: £150 (£130) to attend and have a guaranteed structure place as a client. The structure will be run by a group member who is being ‘live supervised’ by Juliet. Please note that booking this slot assumes you will allow a video to be taken, for your therapist to review later and learn from. NB You have the option to attend for just one day. There is no reduction for this. Please make this clear to Juliet juliet @ therapyandcounselling.co.uk at the time of booking if you are attending for 1, 2, or all 3 days (if we don’t hear from you we will assume you are attending for all 3 days). CLICK HERE TO BOOK FOR NOV 2024 TO ATTEND AS A CLIENT
Supervisee: Option 2: £180 (£160) to attend and have a 1 hour 15 min supervision slot leading a structure to a ‘live client.’ SOLD OUT
Observer Participant: Option 1: £90 (£80) to attend one day as an observer participant, i.e. watching and available to play roles for other people. Please make this clear to Juliet juliet @ therapyandcounselling.co.uk at the time of booking if you are attending for 1, 2, or all 3 days (if we don’t hear from you we will assume you are attending for all 3 days). CLICK HERE TO BOOK FOR NOV 2024
Bessel van der Kolk (Author of The Body Keeps the Score and pioneer in trauma work) says
· FREE CHAPTER: To read Chapter 18 from Bessel van der Kolk’s book The Body Keeps the Score click here The chapter is called Filling in the Holes: Creating Structures. It is all about van der Kolk’s work with
Al Pesso and the PBSP method.
Describing the group process in the Pesso method (also known as Pesso-Boyden System Psychomotor, PBSP), van der Kolk wrote, “Protagonists (clients) became the directors of their own plays, creating around them the past they never had, and they clearly experienced profound physical and mental relief after these imaginary scenarios. Could this technique instil imprints of safety and comfort alongside those of terror and abandonment, decades after the original shaping of mind and brain?”
The answer is yes it can and in so doing it provides individuals with a new internal basis for being in the world – where they live larger and more joyful lives. Through the Pesso Boyden Training Institute UK therapists can now study and become accredited in this remarkable system in Britain: see www.pessoboydentraininguk.com for details.
FEEDBACK AFTER PBSP WORKSHOP
PBSP has given me confidence in my abilities, the resilience to overcome adversity and an improved ability to work with client's reactions and emotions. It has improved my relationships with family members and enabled me to ask for help when I need it instead of soldiering on alone. Jill Jarvis (psychotherapist)
This powerful therapeutic method has deepened my practice substantially. It is creative, safe, and can really shift clients who have struggled with deep issues over years. The training is great - the theoretical aspects of the method sit alongside plenty of practice in a supportive atmosphere. I very much recommend it.
Sue Lewis (psychotherapist)
Cognitive awareness based on verbal interaction stimulates the rational ‘left brain’ creating awareness and understanding. Yet rational understanding does not change how a life is lived. We live life through our bodies.
As van der Kolk says, “We can get past the slipperiness of words by engaging the self-observing body-based self-system, which speaks through sensations, tone of voice, and body tensions. . . When you activate your gut feelings and listen to your heartbreak – when you follow the interoceptive pathways to your innermost recesses – things begin to change.” This is the essence of the process in Pesso work.
The importance of committed and precise body work – body work that engages with the emotional and ‘storyline’ right brain – is widely acknowledged in the healing of trauma. It is also central in the wider remit of an empowering release of personal potential.
Professor Van der Kolk reflects on the function of the left and right hemispheres of the brain in human interaction and puts Pesso work into this picture: “According to recent research, up to 90 percent of human communication occurs in the nonverbal, right-hemisphere realm, and this was where Pesso’s work seemed primarily to be directed.”
SINGULAR CONCEPTS IN PESSO PSYCHOTHERAPY
MICRO-TRACKING
Learning to read the symphony of emotions that plays across a client’s face during their hour long session or ‘structure’ is a central skill in Pesso Psychotherapy. Shifts in the muscles of the face along with subtle changes in body posture, tone of voice and eye gaze are all messages from the unconscious of the client. When tracked precisely, the client feels seen and therefore safe. Within a context of safety and respect, the dialogue deepens and the healing possibility is enriched.
THE WITNESS
While micro-tracking, the Pesso therapist evokes a helping presence whose sole purpose is to reflect back to the client the emotions signalled by changes in their body, many of which are out of their awareness. As the client unfolds their story, ‘the witness’ acts as a mirror reflecting the ebb and flow of feelings and excitement through noting changes in facial expression, tone of voice and posture. Accuracy is crucial and powerful. Precision in tracking emerging feeling has an impact on the brain, as van der Kolk points out: “A neuroimaging study has shown that when people hear a statement that mirrors their inner state, the right amygdala momentarily lights up, as if to underline the accuracy of the reflection.”
A STRUCTURE
A structure is a one hour session focused on a single client. With the guidance of the therapist, the help of group members and the use of symbolic objects, the client creates a tableau of present issues. Differentiating Pesso work from drama based therapies, van der Kolk writes, “. . . this work is not about improvisation but about accurately enacting the dialogue and directions provided by the client . . . every time I conduct a structure I’m impressed by how precise the outward projections of the right hemisphere are. ” Micro-tracking of emotions reveals the connection of current difficulties to past events. Projecting their inner world into the three-dimensional space of a structure helps clients clarify causative connections. The client is then invited to imagine what other better, indeed, ‘Ideal’ context would have given them an environment where they could have been fully alive and themselves. This ideal setting is an ‘antidote’ to the wounding scenario - one where the client as a child would have received the ‘right response’ at ‘the right age’ from ‘the right kinship figure’. This act of imagination - set in the hypothetical past - has a palpable impact on the body-brain. A ‘new memory’ is produced which may trigger a genuine shift in attitude and lead to enlivening life changes.
A NEW MEMORY
This notion is the most remarkable of Al Pesso’s contribution to healing. Traditionally psychological repair comprises facing our past and grieving the loss of what we should have had. Pesso Psychotherapy literally installs new memories that generate an inner worldview of secure optimism through direct interaction with the poetic soul and the literal brain of the client.
The scene recreated in the structure reveals the internal map and the hidden rules that the client has been living by along with a three-dimensional image of what they have had to face as a child. It then offers an antidote which creates a different outcome. Van der Kolk notes, “[the Pesso structure] offers, ‘the possibility of forming virtual memories that live side by side with the painful realities of the past and provide sensory experiences of feeling seen, cradled, and supported that can serve as antidotes to memories of hurt and betrayal.”’
With focused attention, these ‘new memories’ can be consolidated into a strong and positive inner framework based in our natural birth right of safety and love – what students of John Bowlby term an ‘earned secure attachment’.
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