The historical development of the pesso method
Diane Boyden Pesso and her husband Al Pesso, the developers of psychomotor therapy, were originally dancers and later trainers for modern ballet and expressive dance. In the course of their work they made the experience that their students found it difficult to express their feelings on stage. Anyone who has ever been to the theater knows that the emotions played on stage - if it works out well - can affect you very much as part of the audience, we resonate, so to speak. This is because the actors on stage are actually able to not only depict the emotions played outwardly with gestures and facial expressions, but also to let them arise within themselves. And it is similar with expressive dance. During training, Boyden and Pesso made the experience more by chance that their students succeeded in expressing emotions particularly well when a person stood at the edge of the stage to whom they could express themselves. And it felt particularly good when these counterparts responded adequately to the dancers' expression (to joy with mutual joy, to anger with concern, to sadness with consolation, etc.). Pesso and his wife began to experiment with this emotional fit of the other person into the shape of the dancers. In some cases, the students were accompanied in deep emotional processes, emotional blockages were released, the dance expression improved and the foundation stone for a new therapy method Pesso Boyden System Psychomotor was laid.
The idea of the Pesso method
In many, many steps, over a time of 56 years, Diane and Al continued to develop their method. It was always about the refinement of their technique and an underlying human image and development model, according to which we all have a unique genetic potential within us, which would like to develop and be carried out into the world. This works particularly well when certain basic needs (for nurturance, space, support, protection and good Limitations)
are satisfied age-specifically across different stages of development. In this way, we show people our needs as an externally perceptible form from the beginning (e.g. the feeling of restlessness or screaming of an infant who is hungry), which find fulfillment through a fit (e.g. a nursing mother). Everything we experience is imprinted into our body - even if we often do not have conscious access to it. So that we can develop our genetic potential well and with it begin to constructively shape our world, it is important that our basic needs are well nourished in the various phases of life. If we have been more or less lacking, we more or less secure ourselves as adults that these needs are met - and than there might be confusions in time, fixations in unfavorable patterns in terms of our needs satisfaction in the here and now. And the good thing is: it's never too late to have had a happy childhood :-) Everything we have experienced is a story, why not rewrite this story - or rather write a new one...! In pesso therapy, trusting the inner wisdom of each of us, we create new symbolic experiences that fill gaps and so, blockages in the here and now can be released.
Die Pesso-Methode als Selbsterfahrung
The pesso method is used by me in the context of my work based on depth psychology. In terms of depth psychology, Pesso's approach is very close to Heinz Cohut's self-psychology. Ultimately, it is central to this approach that we humans perceive, express and know how to answer all of our developmental needs. In this way they can then be integrated into our selves as an unconditionally accepted part. Pesso-methodical elements help to make what wants to be shown more quickly and easily perceptible and expressible on a symbolic level and to allow a concept of its fulfillment to arise.
But the pesso technique can also be viewed as a very systemic approach: We as humans are a system (intrapsychic) ​​as part of systems (interpsychic). We don't know how the systems work together. In a pesso structure we playfully listen to your soul, explore which changes are desired in a system, try it out, write a new story and suddenly a lot may be very different in life and in daily encounters (in perception, in behavior towards others and in their reactions).
At this level, psychomotor therapy is also very close to behavior therapy: I learn to feel myself and what I need and how it can be fulfilled for me / how I can fulfill it.
And above all, the pesso method is resource-oriented, because ultimately the focus is on gaining a (new) good experience in each unit and working towards it together.
Feel free to try it out in the course of your deep psychological treatment, as a self-experience with a so-called pesso structure in an individual session or in a group seesion ...