Psychomotor therapy is the creation of Al Pesso and Diane Boyden-Pesso. The Pesso's began the work that resulted in today's psychomotor therapy in the mid 1960s. For an excellent review of the history of their entry into the world of humanistic psychology, see the chapter written by Louisa Howe in Moving Psychotherapy. Similar to the process of the development of psychodrama by J.L. and Zerka Moreno, the Pesso's have changed and refined their approach to psychomotor therapy over the years. Bessel Van Der Kolk has referred to psychomotor therapy as a “gold standard” treatment for the effects of trauma from all causes. While the implementation of the process has changed over the years, the basic philosophy remains the same.

Psychomotor therapy, as we practice it, is an intense and specialized form of psychodrama. Like psychodrama, psychomotor therapy lives under the umbrella of surplus reality. The rules of time, space, person, reality itself, are suspended, and anything becomes possible, anywhen. As such, it has in common the elements of the process of psychodrama: stage; director; protagonist; auxiliaries; and audience. In addition to these five elements, psychomotor adds a sixth element, that of purposeful, empathic, attuned touch. In psychomotor, touch is used to help the protagonist anchor a feeling state and from that state allow access to implicit memory, retrieving often long-buried information about the “who, what happened, when”, and the all important knowing of what should have happened instead.

Psychomotor therapy operates from some simple premises. We grow, develop and become human through our interactions with other humans. As we proceed through life, the right interaction with the right person as the right time meets a maturational need for nurture, support, protection and limits. Over time, we internalize the sensations and information, making them part of who we think we are. In the ideal, this allows for a felt sense of security with ourselves and others, a sense of having our own Place in the world. Problems in this process may come from: deficits—not enough of the right stuff came in at the right time from the right person; traumas—painful and undesired stuff came in and we were powerless to keep it out; and holes in roles—someone important in the family template was missing and we took on the role assignment, often unconsciously.

A presupposition in psychomotor therapy is that we know what we need, and the body retains a memory of what was and is needed. While this is true, knowing how to get what is needed may have been blocked early on. The simple knowing of what should have happened can be accessed, and through the use of “Ideal” auxiliaries, the immediate need met in a satisfying and lasting manner. This “knowing” is not just a one-way process, and the action of the psychomotor structure impacts the auxiliaries in the drama, the audience, and the director as well. Goleman, in Social Intelligence, speaks to this: “Our brain has been preset for kindness. We automatically go to the the aid of a child who is screaming in terror; we automatically want to hug a smiling baby. Such emotional impulses are “prepotent”: they elicit reactions in us that are unpremeditated and instantaneous. The flow from empathy to action occurs with such rapid automaticity that it hints at circuity dedicated to this very sequence. To feel distress stirs an urge to help” (p 60)

“Knowing” is two-way, as this previous paragraph indicates. As the protagonist begins to sink into the structure created by the director and the group, group members begin to recognize their own “urges for completion:, either in the form of wanting to offer nurture, support, protection and limits for the protagonist, or a realization that they need for themselves what is happening. A good “hands-on” structure not only “takes a village” to create, it also nourishes the villagers who are part of the process.

From our use with a model that blends psychodrama, psychomotor therapy, sociometry and group psychotherapy, we have come to believe that this is an effective way to bring about change for all involved in the process. We believe that psychomotor therapy, like psychodrama, is an art form that changes the mind-body-emotional self in a deep form, quickly. Research indicates that positive changes in the brain of traumatized individuals begin as quickly as with one psychomotor structure. If our goal in this field is the betterment of all mankind, this is a process that has the potential for creating great good for all of us.

© Georgia A. Rigg, LCSW, T.E.P.