A Mind-Body Approach To Emotional Well-Being
Tag: Pesso
Al Pesso, co-founder of PBSP, will be giving a presentation and demonstration entitled “Rewriting Our Story” on August 22nd at the 8th Swiss Festival of Learning, Body and Memory at Weggis on Lake Lucern.
For the for the brochure the 8th Festival of Learning click here.
For an overview of the demonstration and presentation in English click here.
For an overview of the demonstration and presentation in German click here.
For more about the festival click here.
AL PESSO, THE CO-FOUNDER OF PBSP, OFFERS TWO-DAY MODULAR TRAINING WORKSHOPS ON A VARIETY OF PBSP THERAPEUTIC TECHNIQUES WHICH CAN BE UTILIZED BY THERAPISTS AND HEALTH CARE PROFESSIONALS IN CONJUNCTION WITH THEIR EXISTING MODES OF PSYCHOTHERAPY.
Location: Boston, MA / Cost: $350 per workshop
Registration Requirements: Participation is limited to licensed or certified social workers and mental health professionals who have a masters degree or higher. / CE Credit & CEUs: Pending.
PBSP BODY EXERCISES MODULE
PBSP Body & Spatial Sensitization Exercises can be used as diagnostic tools and treatment techniques. The exercises designed to be used for diagnostic purposes help clients to surface and identify more powerful and accurate emotional truths than mere verbal speculation can produce. The exercises designed as treatment techniques help clients gain consciousness of the sources of emotionally disturbing states and impulses that register in their bodies. What clients report in therapy sessions about their emotional and psychological states of mind is usually a confabulation having little to do with the true source of their feelings. PBSP Body & Spatial Sensitization Exercises provide therapists with ways to help clients get in touch with and discover the triggers of emotional states that have registered in the body somatically. Participants will learn techniques to discover and interpret emotional information coming from the body and exercises to offer clients that utilize the body as a way to master and control those disturbing emotional reactions. (December 8 – 9 in Boston, MA) Click here for more information and to register.
PBSP HOLES IN ROLES TECHNIQUE MODULE
Learn about, experience, and practice an entirely unique and innovative system with a comprehensive theory to: a) reduce somatic overload of anxiety, panic, and distress states; b) overcome resistance to healing; and c) deal with negative transference from clients. When primary caregivers tell stories to children — who are not yet cortically bounded and have not yet reached emotional maturation — about something hurtful or painful that happened in the past to them or to members of their kinship circle, religion, or tribe/clan, the child unwittingly and unconsciously makes movies somewhere in the back of their minds where they personally provide the caretaker with whomever would have provided the missing justice and satisfaction of essential needs. The earlier in life that people hear such stories, the more unbounded their emotional and body reactions will be. When a child perceives a gap in the life of a caretaker, they feel distress and part of their persona develops to fill that gap. If this innate desire for justice is exercised too early before a child’s maturational needs are met and before they are bounded cortically, they develop an exclusive justice and a sense that they are the one and only healer (something akin to feeling like the Messiah or a Savior). As a result of unconsciously experiencing themselves as the ‘The One and Only,’ the two fundamental forces of life, aggression and sexuality, break loose leading to immense somatic overload. With PBSP Holes In Roles technique the primary nuclear forces of life, the capacity to create (sexuality) and the capacity to destroy (aggression), can be harnessed and therefore modulated resulting in greater comfort and fruition than can be achieved through any other therapeutic approach. In addition, this technique helps clients to step out of the role of Messiah and become more collegial and collaborative in life. Using PBSP Holes In Roles technique also dramatically reduces resistance to healing and shortens the length of therapy. (December 11 – 12 in Boston, MA) Click here for more information and to register.
PBSP TRAUMA TREATMENT TECHNIQUES MODULE
Trauma is an event that breaks the boundary between the self, the outside world, and the inner world. It is a forceful entry — physical, sexual, or emotional — into the self without choice. PBSP offers a set of powerful theories and techniques utilizing the body as well as language and imagery to provide clients with healing from trauma by strengthening an internal pilot that can regain control of their internal and external worlds. In this module, participants will have the opportunity to learn, experience, and practice a variety of PBSP Trauma Techniques that can be utilized for different aspects of the traumatic experience. (December 15 – 16 in Boston, MA) Click here for more information and to register.
PBSP MICROTRACKING TECHNIQUE WITH WITNESS VOICE FIGURES MODULE
In this module participants will learn the theory and techniques of PBSP MicroTracking using Witness and Voice Figures and have the opportunity to experience and practice that technique as well. Present consciousness is a tapestry woven out of threads of memory. With the PBSP MicroTracking technique one can help clients discover the history and foundations of present consciousness and their emotional states and behavior. PBSP MicroTracking is akin to mindfulness in that it helps clients become more conscious of and gain perspective about how they feel and think without being so immersed in those states. It also reinforces the therapeutic alliance and a produces a sense of gratitude toward the therapist without it resulting in having the therapist become the healer of the events of the past. Thus, a secondary benefit of this technique is that it reduces the incidence of transference. (Training Dates TBD)
PBSP MAKING NEW MEMORIES, REVERSALS, & IDEAL PARENTS TECHNIQUES MODULE
There is no universal reality; people see and react to the present through the lens of personal memory. Individual consciousness of the present is based on: a) genetic memory, b) autobiographical memory, and c) significant stories of family and tribal events. We are born with an anticipation of an optimal unfolding and satisfaction of maturational needs. When that history is satisfied properly though anticipated kinship interactions, the body/brain releases rewards of pleasure in the present and hope for the future. When it is unsatisfied and frustrated, those needs do not disappear and we are under the influence of our autobiographical memory of the frustration of those genetic maturational expectations which produces pain, frustration, despair, and a lessening of hope for the future. The goal of this set of PBSP therapeutic techniques is to provide clients with new symbolic memories postulated in a ritualistic fashion as if they had happened in the past so that they will influence and improve how they experience the present and anticipate the future. In this module participants will learn the theory underlying these PBSP techniques and have the opportunity to both experience and practice the techniques themselves. (Training Dates TBD)
PLACEHOLDERS, PRINCIPLES, POSSIBILITY SPHERES, AND STAGES & SCREENS TECHNIQUES MODULE
The purposes of this set of techniques are: a) to awaken and include a client’s pilot, i.e. the higher cognitive aspects of their brain, so that they can look at all their associations and memories without being overwhelmed by them; and b) to distinguish when they have transferred or projected feelings associated with one person onto another person, including the therapists themselves. These techniques can be particularly valuable in couples therapy to help partners realize when they have projected associations with their parents or other significant figures onto each other and to help them disengage those associations. Participants in this module will learn the theory underlying this set of techniques as well as having the opportunity to experience and practice them. Participation in this module is restricted to therapists who are currently enrolled in or have completed PBSP certification training. (Training Dates TBD)
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 7th 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.
(Excerpted with permission from Nancy Eichhorn’s article in the Spring 2012 issue of the USABP‘s magazine, “Somatic Psychotherapy Today.”)
Visionaries see what has never been seen. Entrepreneurs bring these visions to life. Teachers impart concepts so others can use them. And Masters? They see what hasn’t been seen, do what hasn’t been done, and embody the teachings of a lifetime enabling the survival of the Self and the human species.
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 7th 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.”
As a writer responsible to create Pesso’s character with words that do justice to his truth, I feel stymied—nouns and verbs cannot convey the body and the immense actions of this man. Pesso joked saying that “the body guy got into language,” but his essence doesn’t conform to a unidimensional character placid on a page. Pesso has choreographed his professional footfalls starting as a dancer studying under Martha Graham before moving into his roles of teacher, researcher, therapist, director and co-founder of PBSP.
Early in his career, Pesso believed that truly talented performers knew their instruments intimately—a flutist fingered her flute, a drummer drilled his drums with a synchrony of beat and sound, and a dancer knew his body’s movements—and what created and maintained each action and reaction inside and out. His drive to understand the body’s mechanisms led to dancers connecting with their deepest emotions to bring forth on stage. The release proved cathartic in many ways but nothing truly changed, healing wasn’t achieved. When he and Diane started cathartic healing groups, unconscious family-of-origin holes and roles resulted in mismatches between participants. Pesso knew healing was an interactional process but something was missing.
“The participants were touching stuff in the body that never got answered, but we had to learn how to give them what the body needed rather than simply let it out. The old idea that you have to get it out to get new in is absolute nonsense,” Pesso said.
Pesso has introduced a multitude of topics to the field of psychotherapy including theory and terminology. His views on trauma and its triggers in the amygdala include the standard three—flight, fight, and freeze—and he offers a fourth—appease—a novel and accurate action that saves lives as surely as running, striking back or playing dead. His concept of “Holes and Roles” within family networks that translate throughout our lives include what he calls our “stem-selves” , the parts of ourselves that are able to fulfill any role be it father, mother, sister brother, teacher, friend, minister or miser, murderer, or demonic monster.
Pesso speaks of the mind’s eye and the mind’s body: the mind’s eye sees mental imagery; the mind’s body feels the sensations of mentally enacting what was seen (aided by mirror neurons) or what was perceived as needing to be done. Pesso articulates that first we see in our mind’s eye and then we do in our mind’s body before there is a single thought. “Seeing and doing” become recorded as sensorial and motoric memories based on past experiences that create our current reality. Accessing memories of how we see and what we do with what we perceive to foster new memories creates lasting change in our lives. Pesso’s latest venture into the brain’s memories and their impact on our lives involves getting into the brain without cutting it open.
To read the rest of this article click here.
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.
Pesso Boyden System Psychomotor 
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