Author: alpesso

USABP 2012 Lifetime Achievement Award

We are very pleased to announce that the United States Association for Body Psychotherapy (USABP) will be giving Albert Pesso a Lifetime Achievement Award in a ceremony at their next annual conference in Boulder, Colorado on August 12, 2012. Since its inception in 1998 the USABP has given only six Lifetime Achievement Awards and we at PBSP are honored that Al is to be included in this group of leaders in the field of Body Psychotherapy. Prior award recipients are: John Pierrakos, Alexander Lowen, Ilana Rubenfeld, Stanley Keleman, Ron Kurtz, and Peter Levine.

EXCERPT FROM AN ARTICLE ON AL PESSO’S CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE FIELD OF PSYCHOTHERAPY IN THE MARCH 2012 USABP MAGAZINE

At age 82, Albert Pesso is one of three living masters of body psychotherapy. His contributions to the field over the past 50 years are innumerable; he has written or contributed to almost a dozen books and written more than 50 articles along with leading seminars worldwide in the Pesso Boyden System Psychomotor (PBSP) mind body approach he co-founded with his wife, Diane Boyden-Pesso. Pesso will be honored as the 7^th recipient of the United States Association for Body Psychotherapy’s Lifetime Achievement Award during the August 2012 USABP Conference in Boulder, Colorado. He is also presenting a pre-conference workshop on “The Drive to be Happy in an Imperfect World,” August 9, 2012.

“We’re made genetically to be able to be happy in an imperfect world that is endlessly unfolding, and we are the local agents of that unfolding process,” Pesso said during a recent SKYPE call. “Our lives are not predestined, the world is not done, and we are not puppets in it. We are part of an exciting unfolding and participate in it.”

To read the rest of this article by Nancy Eichhorn in the USABP’s magazine “Somatic Psychotherapy Today” online click here.

To listen to a podcast or read the transcript of an interview by Serge Prengel with Al Pesso in “Somatic Perspectives on Psychotherapy,” a joint publication by the USABP and EABP, click here.

The USABP is a practitioner-centered member-driven association that is committed to the goals of organizing, representing and shaping the emerging profession of Body Psychotherapy and is the only national organization of its kind in America. To learn more about the Lifetime Achievement Award and the USABP go to www.usabp.org.

La Terapia Pesso-Boyden, New Spanish PBSP Book

NEW SPANISH PBSP BOOK, “LA TERAPIA PESSO-BOYDEN”

“La Terapia Pesso-Boyden: Para Lograr Una Vida llena De Placer, Satisfacción, Significado Y Conexión.”

By Diane Boyden-Pesso, Lowijs Perquin, Albert Pesso, Translated by Montserrat Foz Casals

Primer libro en español con los mejores artículos escritos por los fundadores de la Terapia Pesso-Boyden. Ésta terapia se enseña en mas de 10 paises alrededor del mundo. Su trabajo sirve para educar a las personas. “Estamos hechos para ser felices en un mundo imperfecto” – dice el autor.

To order this book click here.

Humanitarian Work In The DR Congo

In 2009 Al Pesso, PBSP Co-Founder, was invited by the German humanitarian agency, GTZ, to come to the Democratic Republic of Congo to adapt PBSP therapy techniques to help victims of the ravages of the war there to recover from years of traumatic stress disorder. Al worked closely with government ministers and health care professionals in both Kinshasa and later in Boston to develop the adaptations of PBSP techniques for use in this war torn nation and culture. In 2010, 20 government ministers and healing professionals came to Boston to work with Al to continue developing the new therapy adaptations and develop a training program for helping professionals. In 2010, the noted documentary film maker, Djo Tunda Wa Munga, completed a film, “State of Mind – Healing Traumam” on Al’s humanitarian work in the DR Congo.

“Introduction to humanitarian work in the DR Congo and PBSP theory with clips from a PBSP therapy session.” (2009)

This short video provides a brief introduction to Al Pesso’s humanitarian work in the Democratic Republic of Congo, reviews some core concepts in the PBSP theory of “Holes In Roles,” and offers a few clips of a PBSP therapy session.

Trailer for “State of Mind – Healing Trauma” a documentary on PBSP’s humanitarian work in the Democratic Republic of Congo (2009)

“State of Mind – Healing Trauma,” Democratic Republic of Congo 2010, 52 min. A SUKA! Production by Djo Tunda Wa Munga. “In war torn countries people will not be able to be productive and development will fail until they overcome their trauma. Yet, Is it even possible for a country overwhelmed by the legacy of five million deaths to successfully heal and move on? That is the underlying question in Congolese documentary filmmaker Djo Munga’s powerful film STATE OF MIND, about the use of psychotherapy to talk about loss, forgiving, and finding new memories to overlay the traumatic older ones. Pioneering therapist Albert Pesso is invited to Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, where many people suffer from years of post traumatic stress disorder. Pesso is there to train health practitioners in symbolic interaction, a form of relatively short-term, group-session based, psychotherapy. In the training sessions the health care workers themselves, many of whom are also survivors of horrendous violence, work through the therapeutic process with Pesso. STATE OF MIND: HEALING TRAUMA captures the sessions in a series of fly-on-the-wall scenes, and candid, heartbreaking interviews with the participants put the effort in a larger context. A layered, engrossing and intriguing look at a national collective trauma and one ambitious initiative to try and heal wounds.

“Al Pesso, a Master therapist from the U.S. demonstrates how the language of trauma and recovery transcends language and culture, and that it is possible to install a sense of safety and protection in even the most traumatized individuals. A remarkable achievement.” —Bessel van der Kolk, MD, Director, National Complex Trauma Treatment Network

2010 International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam / 2010 Dokfest Munich / 2011 Western Psychological Association Conference

To order the DVD click here.