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How Can Human Givens Therapists Help?
Sarah Morris has trained with the highly respected Human Givens Institute. She continues regular supervision, update training and CPD to ensure that the therapy she provides in this highly specialsed area is absolutely the right therapy for her clients and in line with the effective principles of the HGI.
Human Givens psychotherapists offer practical help that deals with mental and emotional distress in the here and now. They do NOT waste time just endlessly listening to you or attempting to dredge up real or imagined miserable memories from the past. Nor do they deal in time-wasting so-called voyages of 'self-discovery'. Their training ensures that they have a sound body of scientifically-based knowledge and the proven skills to help people as quickly as possible (both adults and children) with a wide variety of emotional and behavioural difficulties.
They can help:
•reduce anxiety — generalised anxiety, panic attacks, fears, phobias, obsessions (OCD), lack of confidence or overwhelming stress and pressure can be treated effectively.
•break the cycle of depression — the human givens approach is the best available psychotherapeutic treatment for depression, even chronic depression can often be lifted quickly and the meaning and joy returned to life.
•resolve trauma — dissolve the symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and complex PTSD, however severe, safely and quickly.
•manage anger — anger disorders damage health, increase the likelihood of an early death and cause enormous misery among relatives, colleagues and innocent bystanders.
•stop addictive behaviour — people can be freed from all forms of addiction - alcohol, drugs, gambling, sex, TV and computer games, eating disorders - providing they want to make the effort to stop. •relieve medical conditions — many conditions such as psoriasis, eczema, asthma, irritable bowel syndrome, chronic pain and migraine, have an emotional component. Stressful events often trigger an outbreak because emotions affect health - and vice versa.
•improve relationships — relationship difficulties are often self-perpetuating because our beliefs and reactions to one another trigger patterns of behaviour which stop us solving them.
When our emotional needs are not met, or when our resources are used incorrectly, we suffer considerable distress and so can those around us. A human givens practitioner, therefore, will focus on helping their client to identify their unmet emotional needs and empower them to meet these needs by activating their own natural resources in new ways.
How Human Givens Differs From Other Therapy Approaches
People often ask how the human givens (HG) approach differs from other therapeutic approaches. Indeed, we were asked by the Professional Standards Authority when the HGI register was being assessed for accreditation. This is what we told them.
The human givens approach – which was developed 20 years ago – derives from the understanding that, when essential emotional needs are met and our innate mental resources are used correctly, a human being will be emotionally and mentally healthy. Essential psychological needs identified over decades of work by health and social psychologists include needs for autonomy, sense of control, security, connection, attention, achievement, status and meaning. Innate resources, much studied by neuroscientists, include our abilities to learn from experience, plan, judge, imagine, relate one thing to another, empathise, develop a moral sense, remember, etc.
It is when emotional needs are not adequately met, or are met in unhealthy ways, or when innate resources are damaged for any reason, or are unintentionally misused, that undesirable mental states such as anxiety, anger, depression, addiction and psychosis develop. For instance, misuse of the imagination – to conjure up worst possible or threatening scenarios – is a common feature of all these states. What makes the human givens approach different from other therapy approaches is that its therapists look to see what is missing, or being misused, in clients’ lives, with the aim of helping them find ways to better meet their needs.
For instance, someone who is bereaved may seek to mask their sadness through drinking, and then try to mask the drinking by withdrawing from activities and friendships, resulting in depression; similarly, someone who is laid off work with a back injury may, wrongly, become frightened to take any exercise and, as a result, not only lose companionship at work but cease to take part in previously enjoyed physical activities, resulting in increased physical disability, isolation and depression. While the symptoms of depression in such scenarios are important as guides, it is the learning of coping skills and making specific life changes that will shift the depression.
To achieve this end – and to help with any other presenting problem – human givens therapists draw from the essence of a variety of tried and tested therapeutic methods (such as cognitive therapy, behavioural therapy, interpersonal therapy, solution focused approaches, motivational interviewing, reflective listening and hypnotherapy) as well as the latest neuroscientific findings and new insights derived from the HG approach which increase our knowledge of what it means to be human and our understanding of what people need to maintain emotional wellbeing.
Thus, assistance in changing unhelpful thinking styles (cognitive) will be just one part of a holistic process that involves, usually all in one session, giving psychoeducation (explaining the experience of anxiety and depression in a way that normalises it and takes the fear out of it – this includes an understanding of the role of dreaming in depression); helping clients take a different perspective on their situation (through the use of reframing, metaphor and storytelling); problem solving (helping clients recognise times when they are not experiencing problems, what is different about those times, and how they can build on that); teaching whatever skills are required (for instance social skills, communication skills, assertiveness skills); and rehearsing making desired changes successfully (through guided imagery). It is a practical, forward-focused approach, which concentrates on mastery of skills and understandings that people can use in the future to move on in their lives, rather than concentrating on, and being stuck in, what went wrong in the past. This is the case even if people have suffered horrific traumatising events – all human givens therapists are taught a reliable, evidence-based method for detraumatising people, which in most cases works in one session.
Instead of being reliant on one ‘model’ of therapy, the human givens approach is fluid and flexible, making use of whatever techniques and approaches will best suit the particular client being worked with, and all within the guiding framework of helping clients meet missing emotional needs and use innate mental resources in the healthiest ways possible. The success of this fluidity of approach is evidenced by research findings that show it helps an unprecedented three out of four clients achieve significant improvement or cure, usually in between one and six sessions.1
Learn More about Human Givens
Please click on the Link below learn more about the Human Givens Institute.