Dear
I want to tell you about the training for therapists in the body based method called the Pesso Boyden System of Psychotherapy (PBSP), which starts in April 2023, in the UK. You can join for the Foundation Level training (approx 10.5 days over 6 months) or the Full Training - which is Foundation Level followed by a further 18 month training. Early booking discount runs out November 30th. Scroll down for a FREE CHAPTER from Bessel Van Der Kolk - or to watch him talking about PBSP (3 minute video). For info about a talk on Child Sexual Abuse. And for info about the PBSP training.
This is what
Bessel van der Kolk
Author of The Body Keeps the Score and pioneer in trauma work) says about Pesso Therapy
TO READ (for free) 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.
The Pesso Boyden trainings are at post graduate level, for people who are
qualified counsellors and therapists
(or who are training as therapists at the moment).
WATCH A TALK
CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE: THE BODY KEEPS THE SCORE - TEN TOPICS FROM THE PESSO BOYDEN FRAMEWORK FOR TRAUMA INFORMED THERAPEUTIC HEALING
by Juliet Grayson
Live on 21st October online from 1pm - 4pm BST cost from £1
organised by Online Events
or pre purchase the recording
click below for info & booking
Juliet will be showing film of her using PBSP with clients, demonstrating some of the topics that PBSP therapists recognise have to be attended to when dealing with child sexual abuse - such as Control, Terror, Protection, Pain, Anger, Revenge & Sadistic Feelings, Eroticism and Openness, Murderous Hatred, Self Punishment, Love for the Abuser, etc
In the acclaimed The Body Keeps the Score, neuropsychologist Professor Bessel van der Kolk writes of the striking impact of his first experience of Pesso work:
"I’d spent several years in psychoanalysis, so I did not expect any major revelations.” Then, on the conclusion of his session (called a ‘structure’) he reports a dramatic body-mind event typical of Pesso psychotherapy:
Instantaneously I felt a deep release in my body – the constriction in my chest eased and my breathing became relaxed. That was the moment I decided to become Pesso’s student.”
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.
A three year professional training is offered in this revolutionary body-based technique that promises powerful results in record time. Contact [email protected]
Although first developed and used in groups, the Pesso method has been successfully adapted for use in one-to-one therapy.
PBSP TOUCHES PLACES OTHER THERAPIES DON'T REACH
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.”
THE STRUCTURE OF THE PROGRAMME
The Foundation Training starts on April 26th 2023 with an online module for 3 mornings. Then there are 4 days face to face in June 2023, and 3 days face to face in September 2023. In addition there are two 3 hour group tutorials online.
Between teaching modules students are also encouraged to meet for peer inter-vision to further their practice and learning.
The Full Training consists of the Foundation Training (as above), plus a further 2 online modules, two in person face-to-face three-day modules, and two more, four-day in person face-to-face modules.
The cost for the Foundation Training is £2,700 (with early booking discount).
Alternatively, for those wishing to complete the Full Training of 2 years the total cost is £6,600 (which includes both the Foundation Training plus a further 18 months trainins). This can be paid in instalments.
The programme will be held on an 138 acre organic farm in Monmouthshire, South Wales, and participants can choose to stay on site or find their own accommodation. Food and accomodation is not included in the prices.
ABOUT AL PESSO
The Lifetime Achievement Award Al Pesso received from the United States Association for Body Psychotherapy in 2012 recognised him as one of three living masters of body-based psychotherapy. He began his career as a dancer and choreographer, studying under the renowned Martha Graham. In the 1960s, he and his wife Diane Boyden established a unique dance centre with a special focus on helping dancers to more fully express their feeling through deepening their body movement. Al and Diane were amazed at the cathartic outpouring of emotions that resulted from their intense focus on physical movement. This was their first dramatic foray into ‘body work’.
New York in the l960s was awash with exciting psychological thoughts that helped the Pessos make sense of what they witnessed with their students. Gradually they moved into the use of movement and precisely choreographed responses to powerful emotional expression. They began helping not just dancers but people in general to express themselves more fully and creatively in life.
Before long before Al and Diane were invited to Europe, where they met Dr Lowijs Perquin, a Dutch psychiatrist. A rich partnership began between Al and Lowijs which located the Pessos’ formulation within the framework of developmental psychology. This collaboration continued over four decades during which key concepts from psychoanalysis, object relations, trauma research and latterly neuroscience were blended into a healing framework.
These influences are easily discerned throughout the approach, although the end result is a deeply original and singular model set apart from other approaches in its unique contention that a psyche – perhaps even a physical brain – can be ‘rewired’ through an act of imagination within a concrete yet ritualised context of a Pesso ‘structure’.
THE UK INSTITUTE TUTOR TEAM
A note from the three UK trainers: the tapestry of the Pesso method contains a strong thread of skill and craft. The model is robust and comprehensive and it takes time, discipline – and creativity – to learn to use it. We have successfully devised ways to teach and share this beautiful and effective approach. Give us a purposeful commitment over two years and we will provide you with a resource that will enhance the effectiveness of your healing work and also feed the joy in your life.
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 birthright of safety and love – what students of John Bowlby term an ‘earned secure attachment’.
Any questions, email [email protected]
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