What is 'Human Givens Therapy' and 'What can It do for You' ?

THE HUMAN GIVENS APPROACH is a set of organising ideas that provides a holistic, scientific framework for understanding the way that individuals and society work.

There are many hundreds of different therapy models, and whether they work or not depends on how closely they are aligned to biological, psychological and behavioural functioning. 'Human Givens Therapy' encompasses biological, psychological and behavioural functioning into its approach, therefore it is a truly holistic, scientific and practical approach to therapy and life coaching.

At its core is a highly empowering idea - that human beings, like all organic beings, come into this world with a set of needs. If those needs are met appropriately, it is not possible to be mentally ill. Perhaps no more powerful a statement could ever be made about the human condition: If human beings' needs are met, they won't get depressed; they cannot have psychosis; they cannot have manic depression; they cannot be in the grip of addictions. It is just not possible. In the last ten years we have come to a new and deeper understanding of the ways in which the human mind works and how to help it heal. The 'Human Givens' approach to psychotherapy, focuses on helping each individual to develop their skills so they can meet their own emotional and physical needs, with the innate resources with which they were born.

As well as limiting themselves to a particular stance, most schools of therapy, even the better ones, ignore the huge role of the social context in which individuals operate, and the influence culture and ideas have in shaping personality and conditioning behaviour.

In the Human Givens approach we primarily focus on what people need to have happen in their lives in order for them to be mentally, physically, and emotionally healthy. We look as objectively as we can at these needs because they have to be fulfilled in the right balance for individuals to flourish.

This means that 'Human Givens Therapy' has not only been informed by anthropology, psychology, sociology and biology, but by the latest scientific understandings in neurobiology, along with knowledge that has accumulated outside of those particular disciplines. These are sometimes called the wisdom traditions (holistic approach to understanding human nature), which have of course extended over thousands of years.