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"Most therapies help you cope with issues, PBSP helps to resolve issues, creating deep change and healing.”
Juliet Grayson - PBSP UK Trainer & UKCP Psychotherapist
From birth, we're driven to find pleasure, satisfaction, meaning and connectedness in the world.
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This unique and liberating therapy can help us:
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become more empowered
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let go of old, unhelpful patterns of behaviour that limit us in the present
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create new ideal memories to fit (countershape) what we needed to have happened in the past
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be aware of our own therapeutic process
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feel grounded and attain a greater sense of self
What can I expect?
PBSP is client led, moving at a pace suitable for each individual, and occurs one-to-one, or one-to-one within a group. Each session is called a structure because it follows a particular process, typically lasting 50-60 minutes.
During the structure, a safe possibility sphere is created where clients share what's happening for them in the here and now. The therapist evokes an imaginary witness figure that acknowledges and names feelings and emotions as appropriate.
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'Mind and body, and especially emotions and bodily movements, tensions, or sensations ... are
a primary focus of PBSP.'
sociologist and Chair of the Education Committee of the Psychomotor Institute
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Some specific techniques
PBSP is creative. As well as the witness figure, the therapist might utilise other imagined figures, depending on what each client needs. Objects called 'placeholders' are used to represent people or things to help build an external visual map of the client's internal perspective.
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Clearly we can't change the past, but a PBSP therapist will ultimately guide clients towards creating new memories and the concept of ideal (archetypal) parents. This might feel challenging at times, to experience other types of parents, but through these ideals clients can kindle a bodily/somatic-felt sense, comforting feelings and emotions that were denied in their past. It's these new body sensations, feelings and emotions that give the client's soul what it yearns for, at the age they needed them, from the right kinship figure. When our soul gets the right fit, it can let go of the unhelpful patterns of behaviour which inhibit us from living fully and freely in the present.
Bessel van der Kolk is a world-leading expert on trauma, a psychiatrist and author of The Body Keeps the Score, wherein he dedicates chapter 18 of his book to PBSP.
Here is a short film where van der Kolk testifies to PBSP's excellent and essential ability to give clients visceral experiences, helping them heal their trauma. In his words, 'It's absolutely transformative.'
History
This unique and powerful model formally became a psychotherapy in 1961 when two dance choreographers, Albert Pesso and his wife Diane Boyden, were found to have developed body-based techniques which helped their students move more fluidly. These techniques tapped into and released physical blocks.
They discovered that some peoples' blocks were connected directly to trapped emotions relating to past traumatic events, or their basic needs not having been met. Examples include not having had a safe environment in which to live or grow up, not having had appropriate protection, or having had parents who were too busy to support a baby or child in the way it ideally needs.
Albert Pesso with the three UK PBSP trainers:
Sandy Cotter, Sally Potter & Juliet Grayson
PBSP is an autonomous method that can also be used in conjunction with other talking therapies. It can be used as single-session therapy (a one off, to help clients through a specific issue, or to try the method) or as a course, working one-to-one and/or in a group. It's particularly helpful for those wanting to work through childhood/attachment issues as well as trauma.
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If you have questions about the method or would like to try PBSP, contact Emma and/or visit the Pesso Boyden UK website.
Emma offers online and face-to-face PBSP.
Structures:
£65 per hour one-to-one,
£75 per hour in a group.
(concession rates available)
Jacqui had a series of PBSP one-to-one online sessions
with Emma.
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Here’s what she had to say:
"After many years of looking deeply at my psychological patterns through periods of intense meditation practice and psychotherapy, in roles of practitioner and client, I was surprised that working with Emma and the Pesso method helped to transform an area of my thinking that had hitherto been sidelined.
"Emma enabled me to experience very deeply and to fully embody the emotions of early childhood in a very safe and reassuring way.
"For me, this experiential, embodied approach, along with the use of tangible objects as signifiers, has led to a deeper understanding [of myself].
"I can truly say that working with Emma and Pesso has had a transformative impact on my life, opening up, and enriching spaces that had previously remained closed."
