PBSP is a body-oriented interactive therapy founded by Albert Pesso and his wife Diane Boyden (read more at the homepage www.PBSP.com ). The healing therapeutic work is based on the confidence, that there behind every pain and suffering is a strong genetic determined longing for and knowledge about, what is needed to fulfill life, and to bring it further on to the next generations: We are made to be able to be happy in an imperfect world, that is endlessly unfolding. And we human beings are the local agents of that cosmological unfolding. (Albert Pesso).

That‘s why you can be the true and only instructor of a new symbolic memory, where age and care fit perfect to each other. This is indeed a question of timing. If authentic on the emotional level, the brain takes this new memory for real, it heals the early wounds, and you can unfold with a much more fruitful view at yourself and at the world. Yes, there is a time for everything – also for breaking old patterns and putting something new in. There is a time for healing.

In this workshop, participants can work on their personal issues with therapeutic support.

Bent Falk (DK) 
Psychotherapist MPF, M.Div.

A „gestalt” is a unit of meaning in which the total is more than the sum of the parts. Gestalt therapy aims to clarify the process of how the clients interpretate and structure their raw data of perception into narrative, and how this narrative (values, wishes) supports their choices of action.

Much of the work will take place with the help of „the empty chair“, a guided dialogue where an empty chair represents another person with whom the clients have a conflict, or with some part of themselves that they try to deny. The basic tenet is the paradoxical theory that you cannot change something you do not accept (A. Beisser).

Some of the issues people bring up for a therapeutical dialogue with the trainer or “the chair” may be on a deep religious or existential level; others may be pedagogical, aiming at clearer communication about trivial annoyances in everyday life. Both levels are equally important for the purpose of the group which is introducing the participants to the thinking and practice of gestalt therapy. The process of the dialogue is more important for the contact with other people than the content, and an individual’s process of communication tends to repeat itself in his/her dialogues at many levels.

Ruth Knaup (D) 
Psychologist, Psychotherapist (HPG), Choreografer

In Contact-Improvisation (a contemporary dance), we miraculously train our intuition for the right timing. Instead of becoming „slaves to rhythm”, we put our trust in the perception of our own bodies and, as our movements flow, we develop a sense of what might happen next. There is no division between „leaders“ and „followers“. Instead all dancers are on an equal footing in shaping the dance. This creates gently flowing or dynamically powerful improvisations that at any point in time breathe the magic of being alive. Nobody knows what will happen in the moment after the next one – we trust our own intuition and equally that of our partners in the dance. In order to train this „trust in our bodies“, we take a lot of time practicing our own mindfulness, centering, body awareness and presence. Ultimately this is all about joyfully developing trust in our own sense of the right timing – and maybe sometimes having an inkling of God leading us therein.

In the workshop we use methods from contemporary dance and Gestalt-based Dance- and Theatrical Therapy.

Working language is English, if and when required there may be translation into German.

Mariann Hagbarth (S)

lic. psychologist and lic. psychotherapist, Tutor

Gerhard Marcel Martin (D)

Theologian and Bibliodramatist

A time for every matter under heaven includes also every person under heaven. We are here for some reason and it is not always easy to find out what to do or where to be in a certain time of our lives. In Kohelet – a famous poem in the Hebrew Bible as a document of Ancient Oriental Wisdom – are mentioned many different activities, often contradictory ones.

In our workshop we want to explore more about this in connection to our own lives at this moment; what purposes are we engaged in and what do these activities mean to us and the surrounding world.

We use two complementary approaches. One way is the inner meditation like in a daydream and with drawings (Hanscarl Leuner: Katathymes Bilderleben, Symboldrama). The other is action on an outer scene (Bibliodrama) combined with basic impulses from physical and spiritual body work. Both methods are good for pastoral care and psychotherapy. They will be used in an intertwined way during the days.

Helena Enoksson (S)

minister, reg psychotherapist

Lars Christiansen (S)

minister, reg psychotherapist

The background to this method of working in groups with existential issues is a cooperation, starting in 2011, between the Physiotherapist and the Hospital Chaplain in an Psychriatic Specialist Unit in Southern Stockholm, who are also both Psychotherapists. They were inspired by the person in charge of the Clinic, who has for swedish standards a rather wide-thinking idea of Psychiatric care, including that the person/patient must be seen as a whole, and that existential issues or pain can be included in this care. The common professional understanding is that body and soul is an entity, and that existential pain can be felt in the body and relates to your daily life.

For the theoretical and practical work with the groups were used concepts from i. e. Emmy van Deurzen, Director of the New School of Psychotherapy and Counselling in London, and Irvin D. Yalom, Professor of Psychiatry at Stanford University.

In the book Existential Psychotherapy, Irvin D. Yalom, brings out four existential themes for clinical work: Death, Freedom, Isolation and Meaning. In working with the existential issues in the groups this seemed a bit static, so an opposing factor to open up the discussion was put in.

Our aim with the Groupsessions here at the Conference is to talk about life as it is – not as it should be, to bring up what comes from your feelings, rather than what´s in your head. The role of the leaders is to be seen as guides rather than experts; not as teachers pointing towards the goal but as guides pointing out the road.

Each session starts -and ends – with a short Body-orientated meditation. In the first session all the participants give a presentation of themselves, if they like to do so. One of the leaders tells a short open-ended story to give some food for feelings and thoughts for the theme of the session.

The themes are:

– Meaning – lack of Meaning

– Life -Death

– Freedom – lack of Freedom

– Isolation – Connectivity