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Psychotherapy in West London

Psychotherapy & Counselling with Marcus Gottlieb

Cognitive & Behavioural Therapy for Sleep Disorders & Therapy for Insomnia & Relaxation

Sleep Tips Video

This simple but useful video gives you some great ideas on getting a better night’s sleep

If your sleep is disrupted, fragmented or of poor quality, Insomnia and Sleep Therapy with Marcus can help you address the underlying difficulties, so that you can restore a healthy pattern and get the rest and recovery time that your body needs and is designed to enjoy. A behavioural therapy approach is an effective way to treat sleep disorders and insomnia.

What Is A Healthy Sleep Pattern or Sleep Cycle?

A normal, healthy pattern, repeating several times each night, is a cycle of 5 sleep stages as follows:

Stage 1: During the first 5-10 minutes of sleep, your eye movements and muscle activity slow down. You may experience sudden muscle contractions, followed by a sensation of falling.

Stage 2: Breathing and heart rate remain regular, body temperature begins to drop, eye movements stop altogether. Your brain waves slow down, with only the occasional rapid burst, and your memory is ‘backed up’ to long-term storage, which is essential for learning (so interruptions at this stage of sleep may be detrimental to your intellectual or cognitive capacities). Some cell repair occurs in Stage 2, although much less than in Stage 3 or 4.

Stages 3 & 4 (Deep Sleep): Breathing and heart rate slow, muscles relax, and hormones are released which promote tissue growth and repair.

REM Sleep: In the fifth stage, 90 minutes into the cycle, the brain becomes very active and energised, which is probably why dreams occur at this point. Hormones called ghrelin and leptin are released, which regulate not only your immune system but also your feelings of hunger and fullness – hence, you may eat more and gain weight if you’re deprived of REM sleep. Cortisol, another hormone, will begin to increase in order to promote alertness in the morning – if you miss out on this phase of sleep, you’re likely to be anything but alert the next day.

Insomnia and The Effects of Poor Sleep Patterns

Adequate sleep is a fundamental requirement for health and wellbeing. According to the US-based National Sleep Foundation, sleep is essential to help maintain mood, memory and cognitive performance. It also plays a role in keeping the endocrine and immune systems functioning normally.

Conversely, not getting enough sleep, or obtaining poor quality sleep, has been linked to obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Chronic suppression of melatonin has also been associated with increased risk of certain cancers.

One of the things that commonly suppresses melatonin nowadays is the use of light emitting devices before sleep, especially the blue light that comes from the screens of most eReaders, laptops, smartphones, tablets and certain televisions. Research has shown that iPad users take longer to fall asleep, feel less sleepy at night and have shorter REM sleep compared to regular, non-electronic book readers. The iPad readers secrete less melatonin and are more tired than book readers the following day, even if both get eight hours of sleep.

Guidelines for Better Sleep Patterns

These are simple guidelines for maximising your chances not only of longer sleep, but also of better quality sleep, which is just as important:

  • Routines and regular times for sleep
  • Self-care generally, including taking care of your fitness levels during the day
  • A dark, comfortably warm bedroom (not too warm)
  • No electronic devices (see above)
  • A hot bath before bed helps some people
  • No caffeine (caffeine stays in the body for many hours)
  • No stimulating food before sleep (bacon, cheese, nuts and red wine trigger the release of noradrenaline, a hormone that can keep you awake)
  • No alcohol before sleep (it’s been shown to reduce the usual six or seven nightly cycles of REM sleep to 1 or 2 cycles, so that you wake feeling tired)
  • No worrying thoughts before sleep (a busy mind is the enemy of sleep)
  • If you’re lying in the dark, unable to sleep, it can be best to get up and do an activity which distracts your mind from worry – such as a puzzle – before trying to sleep again
  • Snoozing and daytime naps are generally beneficial if you feel the need for them, but keep them no longer than 20 minutes or else deep sleep may set in, which confuses the body’s cycles

How Can Insomnia Therapy Improve Your Sleep Patterns?

Often the underlying difficulty in managing sleep is anxiety or stress that will benefit from being addressed with professional, skilled therapeutic support.

It is common to get into a self-fulfilling cycle where your anxious mind is left free to wander while you’re waiting for sleep. You lose track of time, and your anxiety about not sleeping will only make the not-sleeping worse.

People often nod off and wake up again, but you’ll feel as if you’re getting no sleep at all. This delivers fragmented sleep with much less time spent in the important ‘deep sleep’ stages.

As you’re struggling to sleep, head full of thoughts, the deeper underlying thought at an unconscious level could be (for example):

  • “I hate my job, but haven’t spent any time thinking about how to change it”
  • “Lying in bed, awake, in the dark evokes the terror I felt as an 8 year old child in the dorm at boarding school”
  • “I really resent having to take care of myself, I don’t think I should have to”
  • “I don’t believe I am capable of relaxing”
  • “I want to resist the physical changes that go with ageing”

The sources of your stress and anxiety may be within your awareness or not. Part of the function of Cognitive & Behavioural Therapy for Sleep Disorders, Insomnia and Relaxation is to use the tools of psychotherapy, in particular behavioural therapies like Somatic Experiencing, to engage with the issues and conflicts that are impeding your healthy functioning.

Cognitive & Behavioural Therapy for Sleep Disorders & Therapy for Insomnia & Relaxation

Take the first step to sleeping better and contact Marcus for a chat about Behavioural Therapy for Sleep.

Contact Marcus


Further Information, Articels & Advice about Sleep Disorders, Insomnia & Relaxation

BBC | ‘Tidal wave’ of sleep disorders
Read the article

The Guardian | The best thing you can do for your health: sleep well
Read the article

The Guardian | Insomnia: Britons’ health ‘at risk’ as 50% fail to get enough sleep
Read the article

Sleep Routines of the Experts | They are great at telling us what to do, but what do the experts get up to for a better night’s sleep?
This Huffington Post article will tell you more …

6 Steps to Better Sleep | This Oprah article gives you more ways to improve your nightime slumber, read more …

Why Reading Before Bed Helps You Sleep | Another Huffington Post article on the science behind a good nights sleep,
Read the article

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Pesso Boyden Group with accredited practitioners Deborah Clarke and Marcus Gottlieb

Pesso Boyden Group with accredited PBSP practitioners Deborah Clarke and Marcus Gottlieb

Pesso Boyden Therapy (‘PBSP’) is a philosophical process for becoming whole.

It is a respectful, interactive group process that heals by embedding new memories in the brain and in the body

Most people consciously or unconsciously have memories – explicit or implicit – of 

1. deficits 

2. traumas 

3. having to take care of others when we were too young – e.g. protecting a sibling, providing the joy in the life of an unhappy parent, unconsciously becoming the ‘spouse’ of a widowed parent, or making the world right after hearing stories of injustice. 

When any of these three categories of memory appear in the client’s work, the client and therapist work together to externalise them, in order to illuminate the client’s ways of handling life and to facilitate change. The client is always in charge of this process – people and incidents from the client’s past will be symbolised in the here-and-now either by people in the group or by objects in the room, all chosen and placed by the client. 

The therapist then works with the client to facilitate an antidote to what happened in the past – a new memory which provides what the client needed at that particular time in their past, from a specific kinship figure. This new memory may be developed over several sessions in a number of steps. In the Pesso approach we don’t change our history; however, we do change our response to our history, leading to a new perspective. 

The way is opened to possibilities of greater pleasure, satisfaction, meaning, integration and connectedness.

 



Deborah has worked as a Performance Coach for over 16 years having trained with Coach U. Her background is in the arts as an actor, theatre director and artistic director. She has worked with a wide range of people from all walks of life. Having first encountered Pesso Boyden as a client, she felt inspired to do the training herself. Since graduating in 2013 she has been running Personal Development workshops using the Pesso Boyden system and is now accredited by the official PBSP U.K. organisation.

Notting Hill Therapist | Marcus Gottlieb Psychotherapist & Counsellor
Marcus Gottlieb is a highly experienced London-based psychotherapist with a particular interest in boarding school survivor syndrome. Having trained alongside Deborah directly under Al Pesso and his closest collaborator Lowijs van Perquin, he is steeped in the work of PBSP and a strong believer in the client’s genetic impulse towards health and expression of their unique potential and individual destiny. He became an accredited Pesso Boyden therapist in 2021.
An Introduction to the Pesso Boyden Method

 

An opportunity to learn about and observe the distinctive techniques of this respectful body-based psychotherapy.

Suitable for both psychologically interested professionals, people seeking personal development/CPD and for people not in the therapeutic professions seeking to address entrenched issues. For all those who are interested in living a larger life. A special price of £35 for the day includes lunch and refreshments. CPD certificates will be available.

PBSP (Pesso-Boyden System Psychomotor) is a powerful, deeply respectful, psychotherapeutic process that uses feedback, ritual, objects and role players in a unique manner to heal the traumas, wounds and losses that affect our personal map of the world.

Its central goal is the imaginative creation of an ‘ideal’ healthy past that a person’s brain processes so that they emerge feeling differently about themselves. As Albert Pesso said, ‘Humanity is responsible for the meaning that surrounds us. The task for each person is to create a meaningful life and then live it with existential courage and passion.’

As well as gaining new perspectives, clients often experience increased pleasure, satisfaction, meaning and connectedness following a PBSP session and find themselves psychologically freer to make the changes they wish for in their lives.
Date: Saturday 7 October 2017
Venue: Notting Hill, London W11
Time: 10.00 am – 4.30 pm
Cost: £35 (inc lunch & refreshments)

 

Register Your Interest


Boarding School Survivor Syndrome Conference

BOARDING SCHOOL: Surviving the Syndrome
Broken Attachment and Childhood Trauma

University of Brighton

Saturday 9 September 2017
9.30 am to 5.00 pm

Conference for psychotherapists, counsellors, mental health workers, boarding school survivors and other interested people.

Conference overall aims are to:
§ Present key aspects of what has been published about the psychological and other effects of boarding.
§ Explore helpful therapeutic approaches for clients who are former boarders.
§ Consider current research and a possible agenda for future research
§ Enable networking amongst those interested in this important topic

Chair: Pam Howard, School of Applied Social Science, University of Brighton.

Speakers: Nick Duffell, Joy Schaverien, Alex Renton, Thurstine Basset, Anni Townend, Olya Khaleelee.

Group Discussion Facilitators: Marcus Gottlieb, Leslie Lund, Nicola Miller, Simon Partridge, Boarding Concern Directors.

For more details, contact Laura Williams:
southcoastevents@brighton.ac.uk

Pesso Boyden Workshop with Ana María Ruiz Sancho and Marcus Gottlieb

 

Pesso Boyden Therapy is a respectful and highly respected, body-based psychotherapy with distinctive techniques aimed at addressing entrenched issues. It is an interactive process that creates new body-based memories to heal emotional deficits of the past.

An exceptionally powerful personal development tool, it uses feedback, systematic procedures, objects and role players in a unique methodology, in order to repair the early traumas, wounds and losses that can powerfully influence the brain’s map of the world.

In shifting underlying perspectives, the way is opened to the possibility of greater pleasure, satisfaction, meaning and connectedness, and an enhanced freedom to effect longed-for changes.

It is expected there will be between 8 and 12 participants, with an absolute maximum of 15. The day will start with an explanation of Pesso Boyden and an experiential introduction, followed by 4 actual client sessions of an hour each.

Venue: Philadelphia Association, 4 Marty’s Yard, London NW3 1QW
Date: Saturday 3 June 2017
Time: 0930 to 1800
Cost: £75

Register Your Interest



Ana María Ruiz Sancho is an experienced psychiatrist and a psychotherapist. She is also a specialist in group dynamics and an Institutional and Team Motivation Consultant.

Ana is the Founder and a Director of VocAcción, as well as being a qualified Pesso Boyden psychotherapist.


Notting Hill Therapist | Marcus Gottlieb Psychotherapist & Counsellor

Marcus Gottlieb works with relationships, sexuality, abuse and trauma, with a particular interest in boarding school survivor syndrome. Qualified in Pesso Boyden as well as other psychotherapies, he is also an Alexander Technique teacher.

Contact Marcus

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