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Psychotherapy & Counselling with Marcus Gottlieb

Therapy for Midlife Crisis & Transitions in Life

Society is generally negative about the process of ageing, but that doesn’t mean you have to be. As you go through life, it is possible to retain a youthful spirit, a sense of wonder & possibility, and the desire for adventure.

Many people reach an age when they start to examine their lives and perhaps confront their mortality as their sense of identity undergoes a shift. ‘Midlife Crisis’ is a loosely defined term for a set of experiences that can be very challenging at various points between your 30s and your 60s. Midlife Crisis can affect anyone regardless of gender or background.

Loss can trigger a Midlife Crisis

A Midlife Crisis can be triggered by regrets about unfulfilled dreams, a discontent or dissatisfaction with how life has turned out, or a feeling that you are not at peace with the passage of the years.

Alternatively, any of the following losses can provide the ‘shock factor’ that opens the door to a Midlife Crisis.

The loss of:

  • Your youth – a ‘milestone birthday’, perhaps 40th or 50th, but it may be the 39th or the 47th that is the trigger.
  • A sense of an open-ended future, and of the possibilities and opportunities that went with that.
  • Your younger body – the physical signs, less energy or flexibility, greying hair, slower recovery from illness or physical exertion.
  • The illusion of immortality.
  • Children – children growing up, leaving home, leaving behind an ’empty nest’.
  • Parents or friends – bereavement, and fears about one’s own old age and death.
  • Work or career and the established identity which went with that (redundancy or retirement and the ‘post-retirement void’).
  • Libido (sex drive).
  • Fertility and its possibilities, and the ending of menstruation (menopause).
  • Vigour, and the feeling of being attractive and vibrant. This may be linked to a change in hormone levels such as testosterone.
  • Relationship or marriage – separation, divorce or the death of your partner.
  • Confidence, self-esteem and trust in yourself.
  • Security, which can come about in many ways, such as an alteration in your work role or responsibilities.

Therapy for Midlife Crisis and Life Transitions supports you in finding out what, for you, may be the gains that outweigh the losses.

A real-life example of Midlife Crisis might be a married man of 50 who starts drinking more often, spending more money and fantasising about going to a prostitute. He tells himself it’s just a phase which will soon pass. Midlife Crisis Therapy helps him to identify that he has been depressed for a while and that this has been triggered by feeling that his youth has ended and that he has not accomplished what he wanted to. He might also acknowledge his disappointment that his wife is not more adventurous and no longer seems to care about her appearance and that he does not know how to discuss this with her.

“Everything except language knows the meaning of existence. Trees, plants, rivers, time know nothing else. Even this fool of a body lives it in part and would have full dignity within it but for the ignorant freedom of my talking mind.” Anon.

Midlife Crisis and Regression

The stereotypical male Midlife Crisis involves regression to a younger time of life, and it can involve chaotic, reckless changes in behaviour – suddenly buying an expensive sports car, abandoning career and family, or having affairs with younger women – that seem ‘out of character’.

There is an urgent, driven quality to all the activity. It can sometimes seem as though the man is unconsciously putting in a lot of effort to keep sadness, boredom, lethargy, anxiety and depression at bay.

Women at this point in their lives may suddenly become more assertive, engaging with study, work, politics or travel. Some abandon domestic ‘bliss’ in favour of pursuing ‘freedom’, adventure and exciting new horizons.

Both men and women are seeking, through such behaviour, to express something to the world and to themselves about their true self and their unique potentiality.

Midlife Crisis Therapy and Midlife Opportunity

Everyone will have to deal with times of major life transition, which require adjusting to new identities and new perspectives. These transitions are not always smooth, but people experience a midlife crisis for a purpose:

To step into more of who they are and to make life more meaningful.

For most people the years from the mid-20s through to the mid-50s are the ‘Alpha Adult’ stage of life, the period when you construct your place in the world – home, family, career. It is an outward-focused phase.

Then, as you move through your forties and fifties, you begin the transition into a dawning, self-focused phase sometimes called the ‘Second Adult’.

Ending the ‘Alpha Adult’ is a major transition, and forming the ‘Second Adult’ is little discussed outside of therapy. This is a largely ‘uncharted’ life stage, between about 60 and 75, when we are not yet truly ‘ageing’, where there lie wonderful opportunities for reflection and renewal, and for a deeper, more meaningful experience of life.

Midlife Crisis Therapy provides a safe space for honest introspection, processing and exploration of your feelings, assumptions, fears, hopes, longings, yearnings and ideals. When supported in therapy, people may re-evaluate and review their careers and change them, or choose to return to education, or take up a renewed interest in travel, new sports, and new skills. It can be an exhilarating time in your life.

“I thought of you a lot yesterday while attending a lecture on Envy and Gratitude. The more we talked about gratitude, the more I thought of you and how much I am grateful for your help in seeing how I can move on to new things.” – C.

An Existential Approach to Therapy for Midlife Crisis, Ageing & Life Transitions

Midlife Crisis Therapy with Marcus helps you to know yourself, appreciate your values, strengths and resources, and consolidate what you’ve learned on the bumpy road of life.

One particular strand of therapy which is important when working with Midlife Crisis issues and Age Transitions, is existential psychotherapy. This therapy helps you to view your life experience as a journey rather than a trial – and a journey that’s full of wonder and curiosity.

The existential perspective starts with four, potentially frightening ‘givens’ of life:

  • Mortality
  • Free will (and personal responsibility)
  • Aloneness (alongside our longing to be connected to others)
  • Apparent or perceived meaninglessness

Therapy moves you towards being honestly aware of these realities, but in a balanced way, and without feeling overwhelmed by dread or anxiety about them. Rather than paralysing you with fear, the ‘givens’ will help you by constructively informing the choices and opportunities that lie ahead of you.

Therapy for Midlife Crisis & Transitions in Life

Take the first step and contact Marcus to talk about your worries and anxieties at his point in your life.

 

Contact Marcus


Here are some interesting articles and pages on Life Transitions and reaching your Mid Life that you might find helpful

Robert Waldinger:
A recent TED talk on “What makes a good life? Lessons from the longest study on happiness”
Watch the video or read the transcript.

How Baby Boomers Retire – An article updating the image and meaning of ‘late mid adulthood’: Read the article here.

Creative At 94 – A different perspective on ageing: Read this 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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