Want to know more about Pesso?

Did you know that Bessel van der Kolk, author of The Body Keeps the Score, and pioneer in working with impacts of trauma describes PBSP - or Pesso - as his favourite therapy and has found the sessions to be invaluable not only for his clients but also for his own personal work? In fact he claims, PBSP "is the only thing that really works".

But what is PBSP?

Pesso Boyden System Psychomotor - or Pesso to keep it short! - is a system of somatic, or body-based psychotherapy that helps you connect with you life story, your body and creates the opportunity to help you experience a felt sense of what you most needed, but didn't get when you were a child, providing longed-for interactions that lead to emotional education and rewiring of the brain.

By engaging as many of our bodily senses as possible, the Pesso method capitalises on the brain's neurplasticity to rewire our exeperiences, and add a new story where we experience getting our needs met, at the right time, by the right (symbolic) kinship relationship, and in a way that feels right to us. Our new story, or new map, doesn't deny what has happened, it includes all that was good from the past, as well as what should have been to create a better basis from which to respond to whatever life sends our way.

What happens when our needs are met?

When our needs are met, we experience a life filled with pleasure, satisfaction, meaning and connectedness, and we begin to respond from this new map rather than responding from what was wounding in our history to create a better basis for life.

Want to know more?

Check out this audio file where I give a 15-minute overview of the basis of the Pesso method, and how it works with the brain's neuroplasticity, and what the current science says about how the method creates the effect that it does.

Find out about Pesso workshops here or get in touch if you're interested in working one-to-one before joining a group.

Resources and references:

1. Bessel van der Kolk, 2024, personal communication. Available at: https://pessoboydentraininguk.com/van-der-kolk-recommends/ (accessed Jan 2025).

2. Pesso A. Moving Psychotherapy 2020. Brookline books USA.

3. Hood B. The Self Illusion. OUP 2012.

4. Reddan MC et al. Neuron 2018;100(4):994–1005.

5. Horáček J, et al.Psychiatrie 2005;Suppl 3. Available at: https://www.tigis.cz/images/stories/psychiatrie/2005/suppl_03/15horac.pdf (accessed Jan 2025).