Training Curriculum
Pesso Boyden therapy training programmes are part-time and normally last three years. Each year consists of 12-15 days formal training, Intervision group practice days, and individual study and practice. Trainees are expected as part of the programme to undergo their own therapy. Much of the teaching is in the form of ‘live supervision’ and demonstrations, interspersed with formal lectures.
Example of Curriculum of the first year of Practitioiner Training
Who may apply for the first year of the training?
If you wish to expand your psychotherapeutic range by integrating bodily aspects into your daily work, both in individual therapy and in group-settings, you may subscribe to the first year of the PBSP training as an independent module. You are prepared to study the relevant training-literature, to participate in local intervision-groups and to bring in therapeutic work for supervision. In case you wish to continue with the advanced training (second and third year) the first year will be preparatory. The three years all together form the route to become a recognized PBSP psychotherapist of the National Association for Pesso Boyden psychotherapy. Admission to the second and third year will be in accordance with the requirements of the national PBSP association (see supplement).
What is the goal of the first year of the training?
The goal of the first year is to make you familiar with basic principles of PBSP, to help you to become more acquainted with the body in psychotherapy and to expand your knowledge and awareness of the non-verbal aspects of communication in a verbal psychotherapeutic setting.
- You will be trained in to use PBSP-exercises in a group-setting and in an individual context.
- ‘Structures’, individual therapeutic sessions in a group, will have an experiential goal in the first training year as a means to help you further to discover your own resources.
- You will be trained to offer a safe therapeutic climate, in which group members feel respected and are allowed to experiment and to discover hidden aspects of themselves.
- You will learn how to assist the client to understand bodily sensations and impulses as important sources of information, like changes in voice-modulation, facial expression, body-posture and movement
- You will be trained how to help to awaken and stimulate the observing, integrating, and executing part of the client’s ego (Pilot Ego).
- You will receive support in accessing your own bodily information as a source of therapeutic knowledge about what is going on within the client.
The training is practice-oriented:
- demonstrations will support your understanding of theoretical lectures;
- you will master new interventions and exercises on an experiential and a technical level;
- you will enlarge your experience as a therapist by practical training in duos and subgroups of colleagues;
- video feedback, supervision by the trainers, case-discussions and homework in intervision groups are elements for evaluating your learning process
For further details on the training curriculum contact Sally Potter, Training Co-ordinator at sally.potter@zen.co.uk