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  • Psychotherapy in West London
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Psychotherapy in West London

Psychotherapy & Counselling with Marcus Gottlieb

Counselling for LGBTQ Related Issues & Gender Identity

It is particularly necessary for LGBTQ people to work with a therapist who understands their experience and culture and who is free from homophobic prejudice. Understanding the culture, scene, concept of family and  attitude to monogamy. Marcus offers caring, understanding and sensitive Counselling for LGBTQ related issues, especially for those who are questioning and unsure of what they are feeling and thinking.

What are LGBTQ Issues, isn’t it just ‘life’?

Rates of depression, anxiety and other psychological and mental disturbance are relatively high among LGBTQ people, along with drug and substance misuse (cannabis, poppers, ecstasy, cocaine, ketamine) and a range of addictions. There are often issues in the background of homophobic bullying (at school, for example), being stigmatised, inequality, discrimination, violence, and early, painful rejections by their families and communities of origin. Experiences of shaming, fear, being on the receiving end of casual homophobia and stereotyping are fairly universal.

All the discrimination and rejection you may have experienced while coming to terms with your sexuality can be a source of mental distrsss and low self-worth that can endure for many years and devastate many areas of your life.

Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Counselling

The difficult process of coming out to friends, family and others is in many ways a lifelong, ongoing challenge

Working through your issues with an LGBTQ friendly therapist

By talking through your problems or concerns in the safe, non-judgemental and confidential environment of counselling, you can begin to build up a solid base of support that can equip you with the coping strategies to challenge the problems you face and help you explore complex and painful emotions including issues such as depression, anxiety or substance abuse. Therapy can also support you to manage complex issues around sex and relationships.

Take the first step and contact Marcus to discuss Counselling for LGBTQ Related Issues or Gender Identity.

 

Contact Marcus


Further Information, Articles & Advice about …

30 Ways to Combat Internalized Homophobia
(courtesy of Adam D. Blum of the Gay Therapy Center)

  1. Find gay friends with whom you identify.
  2. It takes a while: keep looking until you find them.
  3. Don’t expect your parents to “get it”, but don’t tolerate rudeness or disrespect.
  4. Only date kind men.
  5. Allow yourself the freedom to view all your fantasies in porn.
  6. Take a sociology class and learn about the arbitrary, made up rules that different societies create about what is okay, and why.
  7. Type in “love yourself workshop” on a search engine and see what comes up.
  8. Care deeply about what it was like for you as a gay kid in high school.
  9. Say “I love you” to yourself even though it feels ridiculous.
  10. Do something that feels “too feminine,” maybe in private.
  11. Avoid “friends” who put you down.
  12. If you are religious, join a church that knows that gay really is good.
  13. Practice coming out to friendly strangers and work your way up to telling the important people in your life.
  14. Notice when you are trying to be perfect and remember: it’s futile.
  15. Take small interpersonal risks every week, such as revealing something that feels slightly vulnerable.
  16. Read Randy Shilts’ The Mayor of Castro Street.
  17. Read Alan Down’s The Velvet Rage.
  18. If you are new-agey, read Louise Hay’s You Can Heal Your Life.
  19. Raise your political consciousness at a gay fund raising event.
  20. Love some of your most judgmental family members from afar, rather than in person.
  21. Never underestimate the power of childhood exposure to homophobia: it’s damaging, and repair will take your full effort.
  22. Commit to making self-nurturing a new lifetime habit.
  23. Work with a gay-friendly therapist or coach.
  24. View a mean homophobe with sadness, imagining how truly scared and insecure he is on the inside.
  25. Join a gay artistic, athletic, political, community service or support group.
  26. Get angry about injustice: righteous anger builds self-esteem.
  27. Treat other gay people especially well.
  28. Be a witness to your thoughts. By detaching, you’ll notice your illogical, self-critical judgments.
  29. If you live in a very conservative area, do something on this list at least once per day because you need extra support.
  30. Create your own list of things you can do. Then do them.

Gay Men & Mental Health
Guardian article on the mental health crisis among Britain’s gay men
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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