71.What We Actually Needed – PBSP Series 1.3
What if some of the things you dislike most about yourself began as perfectly sensible ways of getting your needs met?
The person who can’t say no. The person who has to be needed. The person who takes care of everyone else and then feels resentful. The person who has to be in control. The person who finds it almost impossible to relax because, somewhere inside, they are convinced that if they stop paying attention, something will go wrong.
We often look at ourselves, at these behaviours and think, I need to get rid of this. What’s wrong with me?
PBSP invites us to ask a rather kinder question:
What is this behaviour trying to achieve?
One of the things I love about Pesso Boyden is that it gives us a useful way of beginning to answer that question. Albert Pesso and Diane Boyden identified five basic developmental needs: Place, Nurture, Support, Protection and Limits.
I don’t think human beings can be neatly divided into five boxes. We’re much more complicated than that. But these five needs give us a remarkably useful language for understanding what may have been missing.
Place is that sense of There is a place for me here. I belong. I am wanted.
Nurture is being cared for, comforted and responded to. Being fed!
Protection means having adults who are strong enough to keep danger at bay.
Support is knowing that somebody can be there for you, emotionally and sometimes physically, without you having to hold yourself up all the time.
And Limits are about having adults who can appropriately contain you, say no when necessary and take responsibility for what is theirs, rather than leaving the child to manage everything. This is about appropriate boundaries.
When one of these needs isn’t adequately met, we often develop ingenious ways of adapting.
A child who doesn’t feel there is a place for them might become exceptionally good at being useful.
A child who doesn’t receive enough nurture might learn not to need anybody.
A child who doesn’t feel protected might become hypervigilant and determined to control everything.
A child who isn’t supported might become the person who supports everybody else.
And a child who doesn’t experience appropriate limits might become extraordinarily compliant, terrified that saying no will mean losing the relationship.
Then we grow up.
And some of these strategies follow us into our adult relationships.
This is why I find it so compassionate to consider, What is this behaviour trying to achieve? rather than simply, How do I stop doing this?
Because sometimes what looks like a difficult adult behaviour began as a very intelligent childhood solution.
In PBSP, once we begin to understand the developmental need, we can explore something called direct satisfaction. Instead of endlessly analysing the hunger, we ask what the person needed and create an experience that meets that need now, through an Ideal Figure.
If someone desperately needed support as a young child. For example, they may discover what it is like to lean their weight against someone who can genuinely support them. If they needed protection, they may experience an Ideal Figure who is strong enough to take responsibility for keeping them safe. And then we invite the client to place that feeling of being held and supported, into their long-term memory. Putting the feeling they are having now, with an Ideal Mother or Ideal Father who would have supported them when they were 4 years old.
And sometimes something changes because the body finally discovers, Oh. This is what I have been looking for.
One client described their experience of PBSP. You help me to work out what I most wanted but was unaware of, and then you give it to me using the Ideal Figures.
That is why I find PBSP so hopeful. It doesn’t simply ask us to get better at coping with deprivation. It helps us to finally experience what we needed.
And once we have experienced that, another question becomes possible.
If I don’t have to spend my life trying to get my old needs met through the same old patterns, what could I do with my life instead?
That’s where we’ll go in the final talk: agency, choice and taking your life back.
BESSEL VAN DER KOLK RECOMMENDS PESSO BOYDEN
Click here to see a 3 minute video of Bessel van der Kolk saying the work of Al Pesso is the “only thing that really works” https://therapyandcounselling.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/1-Bvk-Best-One-reduced-size-not-tc.mp4
TRAINING AS A PESSO BODY THERAPIST
For therapists – our next training starts in June 2027. It is 6 months for Foundation Skills, or 2 years for the Complete Training
https://pessoboydentraininguk.com/pesso-boyden-training-course/
JOIN A PESSO BOYDEN EXPERIENTIAL WORKSHOP
If you are a member of the public who would like to experience a Pesso Boyden session, look here https://pessoboydenuk.org/workshops/
Juliet Grayson
October 2026
BESSEL VAN DER KOLK RECOMMENDS PESSO BOYDEN
Click here to see a 3 minute video of Bessel van der Kolk saying the work of Al Pesso is the “only thing that really works” https://therapyandcounselling.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/1-Bvk-Best-One-reduced-size-not-tc.mp4
TRAINING AS A PESSO BODY THERAPIST
For therapists – our next training starts in June 2027. It is 6 months for Foundation Skills, or 2 years for the Complete Training
https://pessoboydentraininguk.com/pesso-boyden-training-course/
JOIN A PESSO BOYDEN EXPERIENTIAL WORKSHOP
If you are a member of the public who would like to experience a Pesso Boyden session, look here https://pessoboydenuk.org/workshops/
Click here to give feedback, which Juliet loves to receive: https://bit.ly/julietmuses
See the list of Pesso Events that Juliet is leading: https://therapyandcounselling.co.uk/pesso-events/
If you are a therapist, counsellor or health worker, and interested in thinking more about conflict, and you are a therapist, you might want to attend the Couples in Conflict module of the Certificate in Working with Couples.
www.therapyandcounselling.co.uk
If you’re a therapist and watching this you might be interested in my six modular workshops on how to work with couples. Go to www.therapyandcounselling.co.uk and look either at the calendar or look at the course for therapists: Certificate in Working with Couples.
Juliet enjoys hearing comments about how these talks impact people – both positive and negative. If you have time, please let her know your thoughts
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To sign up for more of these – and info about CPD workshops – https://therapyandcounselling.co.uk/sign-up-for-info/
If you are a therapist, to join an email support group for therapists in the UK where you can ask questions, find out about CPD, and get referrals, go to https://therapyandcounselling.co.uk/counsellor-network-groups-uk/
You’ll find more Juliet’s Musings on https://therapyandcounselling.co.uk/juliets-thoughts-for-the-day/.