HERE IS AN 8 MINUTE FILM OF PEOPLE TALKING WHO HAVE BEEN ON A PESSO BOYDEN RESIDENTIAL WORKSHOP WITH JULIET GRAYSON
“PBSP is like alchemy – I feel so clear and supported in new ways.”
Fiona MacCallum, who is a therapist,
about a week after her structure as a client.
For other articles about PBSP personal development link on the menu bar at the top of the page
BESSEL VAN DER KOLK Author of The Body Keeps the Score SAYS
“It’s the only thing that I feel really works, and that’s the stuff I learned from Al Pesso, to actually give people a visceral experience of what it would have been like as a small kid to have people be there for you. It’s absolutely transformative.” (see below for 3 minute film of him saying this)
says Bessel van der Kolk, about the method Pesso Boyden System of Psychotherapy (PBSP), when talking about Trauma and Abandonment. Van der Kolk is a psychiatrist, author, and researcher based in Boston, USA. Since the 1970s his research has been in the area of post-traumatic stress. He is the author of The New York Times best seller, The Body Keeps the Score. Chapter 18 in this book is all about PBSP. Read that chapter here
To share this link with Bessel, use https://therapyandcounselling.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/1-Bvk-Best-One-reduced-size-not-tc.mp4
And furthermore, click below for another 2 minutes from him
Click here for the transcript from the first video on this page – Bessel van der Kolk on PBSP and trauma
PODCAST VIDEO
In 2021 Juliet did a podcast for Trauma Thrivers, which can be watched here explaining PBSP and the PBSP thinking about trauma and attachment – i.e. forming a secure relationship with the parents. You can download the same audio here.
ARTICLE
To read an article about PBSP for the SOLUTIONS TO TRAUMA E-BOOK – https://therapyandcounselling.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/PBSP-in-Solutions-to-Trauma-EBOOK.pdf
JULIET’S BOOK
Landscapes of the Heart: The Working World of a Sex and Relationship Therapist is about Juliet Grayson’s work with couples and with Pesso Boyden (over half the book is about the Pesso Boyden System of Psychotherapy). To purchase a copy to be posted within UK click here To buy a copy to be posted to other countries click her For more info about the book (which was shortlisted for the People’s Book Prize) click here
A REAL SESSION: A 15 Minute Film Showing Extracts From a Filmed PBSP Structure With a Real Client: Click here to watch
WATCH A 10 MINUTE ADVERT FOR THE TRAINING: Which includes short clips of client sessions click here
OTHER WEBINARS: Create an account on https://jandw.thinkific.com/ and then look for
‘Pesso Boyden System from the Client’s Perspective.’
This is a film of me talking to a client and we show 40 minutes of extracts from his session. If you use the code pbsp you can watch this for free. Otherwise it is £1.
There are other webinars about PBSP on this site.
WEBINARS: If you are a therapist and watch one of these, you can claim a CPD certificate for one hour, by answering a very short quiz.
PBSP: Transformation That Lasts A Lifetime: Click here to watch Juliet interviews a client who had one PBSP session 6 months previously. This was broadcast in April 2020
PRE-RECORDED: DISCUSSION WITH A CLIENT 4 MONTHS AFTER THEIR SESSION. INCLUDES 40 MINUTES OF FILM SHOWING HIS PESSO BOYDEN THERAPY SESSION: 1 HOUR 15 MINS
NB You will be asked to sign up, before you watch it. Ther eis no charge to watch this.
https://jandw.thinkific.com/courses/pbsp-from-the-clients-perspective
PBSP: Using Touch in Therapy With Extracts from a Video of a Client Session: Click here to watch (using the 15 minute film above, with Juliet commenting on what is happening). This was broadcast in July 2019
PBSP: Body Based Solutions Provide the Deepest Healing: Click here to watch This was broadcast in May 2019
Below is a short audio clip from a client describing their experience of a Pesso day. (audio clip 43 seconds long)
READ A BOOK: LANDSCAPES OF THE HEART: The working world of a sex and relationship therapist. Over half of this book is about PBSP, describing what happens in client sessions. See more here, and purchase a book. http://landscapesoftheheart.co.uk/
What is Pesso Boyden?
PBSP is the most powerful therapeutic system I have come across. It seems to reach, and often resolve, things that other methods based mainly around one-to-one talking do not quite touch. I have seen people make extraordinary shifts in limiting beliefs, change their sense of themselves, have huge realisations, or simply explore something in a way that gives them a much deeper understanding of themselves.
The thing is, PBSP seems to get to parts of an issue that other methods don’t reach. And sometimes that is what allows people to change.
PBSP is about attunement. It is about becoming sensitive to what is happening in your own body, and to what is happening in the interaction between you and other people. In ordinary life, most of us don’t pay much attention to our bodies. We tend to live from our heads, think things through, explain, analyse and carry on. And yet, in ordinary life, we continue to screw things up!
So in PBSP we pay attention to things such as posture, breathing, muscle tension, the sensations in the body, and what happens when someone comes close to us or looks at us in a particular way. We track these things. And often, simply by paying attention, we become aware of something from our own history.
For example, “When he looks at me like that, it reminds me of my first boss, who was always angry.” Or, “When people get too close to me on the Tube, it reminds me of being shut in a cupboard as a child.” Or, “Being in a group like this reminds me of being at school, when I was ashamed to say, ‘I don’t understand.'”
What we think about something can be very different from what our body is telling us. So in PBSP we pay attention to what is happening in the body, including the dissonance between what someone says and what their body is communicating.
Someone might say, “Let me tell you about my mum. She was a wonderful person,” while their face becomes completely rigid as they say it. Rather than ignoring that discrepancy, we become curious about it.
What happens in a structure?
A structure usually starts with a problem. The client might begin by talking about something in their life that isn’t going well, or a belief that seems to be holding them back: “I can’t…”
Alternatively, they might simply start with what is happening for them right now: “As I sit here, I don’t feel ready. I feel like I’m in the spotlight. And that is a common feeling for me…”
As a client, that is really all the preparation that is needed.
The other members of the group may then be asked to play particular roles. The role players do not improvise. The client tells them exactly what is needed, while the facilitator manages the process. In this way, the client’s inner world can be brought outside and represented in the room.
We might create what we call a true scene, perhaps with someone playing a supporting figure, or someone representing a negative voice. We can then look at any resonances between what is happening now and the client’s past, and explore what may have happened earlier in their life that made this particular situation so sensitive.
The next stage is to create what we call an antidote. This is a new experience that can sit alongside the old, real memory. It is not pretending that the past didn’t happen. Rather, we create an experience that gives the client something they needed but did not receive at the time.
The role players are asked to do, and say, the very things that would have helped.
So the new experience is not simply something the client talks about. It is something they experience. The healing can therefore happen at both a literal and symbolic level, and the client can begin to internalise this new experience.
Structures usually last around 50–60 minutes. We then allow a few minutes for people in the group to acknowledge anything in the structure that touched them, resonated with them or reminded them of their own issues. So, in practice, each structure takes a little over an hour.
The process is very much led by the client and overseen by the facilitator. The system is remarkably respectful of the client. There is no requirement to disclose anything, and the client remains in charge of what happens.
What about touch and Ideal Parents?
For those who want it, touch and close physical contact with Ideal Parents can be part of a Pesso Boyden structure. But every structure is different, and touch is certainly not essential.
The Ideal Figures are created to fit the individual client. So, for someone who has experienced intrusive or controlling parenting, the right Ideal Parents might be people who give them plenty of space and respect their boundaries.
For someone whose real parents were unhelpfully over-involved, we might create Ideal Parents who are much less interested in their children and who would, from the client’s perspective, be almost neglectful. In one such structure, no touch was needed at all.
For another client, who had experienced neglect, we might co-create Ideal Parents who would give their full attention, offer warmth, hugs and cuddles, and be genuinely delighted to be with their child.
There is no standard version of an Ideal Parent. The whole point is that the experience needs to be right for this person.
And sometimes a client isn’t yet ready to imagine that Ideal Parents would have been possible. In those situations, we can work differently. I have worked with an Ideal Book, for example, which contained wisdom and wise guidance, or Ideal Trees that were solidly present and quietly overseeing the client’s growth in a completely non-judgemental way.
What matters most is that the antidote is a good fit for the client on that particular day.
The client is encouraged to be their true self and to be honest about what they actually need in that moment. One of my clients described the process beautifully:
“You help me work out what I most want but didn’t know I needed or wanted, and then you give it to me using the Ideal Figures.”
I think that gets to the heart of PBSP.
Does everyone in the group get something from it?
During a Pesso Boyden day, we will normally run four structures. People volunteer if they would like to be the client. If more than four people want to do one, we put the names in a hat and choose.
But although only four people are the explicit ‘client’ during the day, everybody participates in some way and everybody can benefit.
I have had participants tell me that they made deep personal discoveries, or moved an issue forward, even though they themselves had not done any explicit personal work.
That is one of the things I love about PBSP. You don’t have to be the person in the middle of the structure for something to happen. Watching someone else discover something can touch something in you. A role can resonate with your own history. A particular Ideal Figure can make you suddenly realise what you needed yourself.
And sometimes, without quite knowing why, you find yourself thinking about something differently on the journey home.
TOPICS YOU MIGHT WANT TO WORK ON IN PBSP
- Neglect and not having had your needs met
- Trauma
- Pre-verbal damage
- Early attachment problems
- Over responsibility, and having to look after others as a child
- Excessive compassion and feeling oversensitive
- Sexual abuse as a child or adult
- Inappropriate aggression and sexuality
- Lack of boundaries
- Wanting to control others
- Almost everything!
BOOKS PBSP IS IN
BOOKS THAT INCLUDE PBSP:
• The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk (This book has 1 chapter on PBSP Chapter 18)
• Working with Traumatic Memories to Heal Adults with Unresolved Childhood Trauma: Neuroscience, Attachment Theory and Pesso Boyden System Psychomotor Psychotherapy by Petra Winnette and Jonathan Baylin
• Landscapes of the Heart: The working world of a sex and relationship therapist by Juliet Grayson (This book has 3 chapters on PBSP)
• Secrets, Lies, Betrayals: How the Body Holds the Secrets of a Life, and How to Unlock Them by Maggie Scarf (This book has 3 chapters on PBSP)
• Moving Psychotherapy: Theory and Application of Pesso System/Psychomotor edited by Albert Pesso and John Crandell
• 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