THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA
AT CHAPEL HILL
To whom it may concern:
I have been asked by the Psychomotor Institute for a letter of endorsement and am delighted to do so.
Pesso Boyden System Psychomotor is a theory-based method (actually, a set of coherently related methods) of psychotherapy. The theory is one of the few comprehensive theories of personality, psychopathology, and psychotherapy in existence. It accounts for normal development throughout the life span, describes in some detail how the psychopathologies arise through deviations from the normal developmental sequences, and is able to explain the various psychopathologies in terms that lead readily to psychotherapeutic intervention.
In part because the theory is well articulated and linked with the therapeutic techniques, it generates testable hypotheses, and a number of research papers have already been published. Much remains to be done. There are many points at which the theory is susceptible of empirical validation. Such studies would provide valuable insight into the relationships among developmental processes, personality factors, and both adaptive and maladaptive behavior. The effectiveness of PBS Psychomotor has already been demonstrated; further research would build on that foundation and because of the clear link between theory and practice, would contribute to the sharpening of techniques whose efficacy has already been shown.
The theory readily generates hypotheses which have implications well beyond the clinic. For example, the experience of hearing one’s own internal dialogue spoken by another person in a temporary and symbolic structural relationship appears to be a powerful facilitator of cognitive reorganization. Why this should be so is not yet clear. It is possible that similar effect might facilitate learning and, perhaps, cognitive (non-affectively linked) problem solving. This kind of exploration based on Psychomotor theory remains to be done.
In Psychomotor therapy, the Pessos have provided the clinician with a set of tools. These tools are both an art form and are the means to practice the art of therapy, like a Stradivarius is both a work and a producer of musical art. The Pessos and their students can, as it were, teach the clinician the principles of composition; the music itself is only just beginning to be written. There is much new knowledge to be gained from the study of PBS Psychomotor technique as a set of therapeutic tools, and from the study of the processes, both intrapsychic and interpersonal, through which powerful therapeutic effects are generated.
As a theory of personality and as a system of psychotherapy, PBS Psychomotor in the coming decades, in terms of contributions to the scientific study of personality, the understanding of interpersonal relations, and to further developments in the art of psychotherapy. Participation in those contributions or in making them possible, is an historic opportunity.
Sincerely,
William H. Friedman, Ph.D
Clinical Professor and
Director, Group Therapy Program
