What is Human Givens Therapy?

Working with what it is to be Human – the Human Givens

It is a truism to say that all good counselling should be working with what we know it is to be human. The question is to identify this in a meaningful and useful way.

Well, first we need an overarching Organising Idea.

Most mental distress (including depressions, anxieties, trauma, addictive and obsessive behaviours and psychoses) arise as coping mechanisms in the face of the high stress and arousal caused by essential human needs not being met.

And though the environment is often an important influence on needs not being met, most people in mental distress will be operating with certain essential resources being misused, damaged or overwhelmed. Often then, the mind/body’s coping mechanisms to the stress of needs not being met will further damage already malfunctioning resources.

Human Givens Therapy addressing human needs

And what do we know about Human needs and resources?

- The brain is a problem-solving organ, and it needs to interact with the environment, and contribute to the community to stay healthy
- There are differences between male and female styles of thinking, feeling, and communication. Relationship problems are exacerbated in the absence of this knowledge.
- Emotion precedes thought. Understanding this shortens the time therapy takes.
- The limbic system can swamp and inhibit the rational mind when strong emotions are aroused. Strong emotions put us in trance states which limit our perceptions.
- Healthy patterns can be promoted in the mind when the patient is calm and relaxed. True learning happens in the parasympathetic mode of the mind/body.
- The mind and body are an integrated system. Whether we are well or ill, the unconscious brain is involved. Our inner mind communicates with every cell of our body, and influences micro-events down to the level of DNA.
- We have a need for autonomy, a measure of control over our lives, and security, to feel well.
- We need to give and receive attention from others, have someone to share closely with, and have fun.
- Consciousness is a metaphorical process, and we are programmed to use metaphor in dreams (and hypnosis) to depotentiate emotional arousals.
- Human imagination can be used to produce mental health or, conversely, to create psychological problems.
- Our resources are always greater than we realize.
- We have a need to find meaning in our experience – without meaning we suffer boredom, depression, and despair.

And finally, what does the latest neurobiological understanding usefully have to say about perception, thoughts and emotion?

The unconscious mind is the greater, unknown, part of us, and it includes the central command network for all the vital physical processes of our bodies. The core self is summed up by the first three letters of the APET Model (Griffin and Tyrrell): the ‘APE’ (Arousing stimulus, Pattern-matching, and Emotion).

What happens is that all stimuli, including memories, sights, sounds, smells, and tastes, are pre-processed by the inner mind. The process involves pattern-matching current stimuli to stored templates, and generating, outside of awareness, customary responses in our mind and body. The body’s first response to a significant image is an emotion, which we may register shortly afterwards as a conscious feeling in our body.

Thoughts are formed in our minds on the basis of these felt emotions. The part of us which we know as our thinking self is a fraction of our total mental activity. It is represented by the T of the APET Model: the Thinker. Our thinking brains process information in two distinct and complementary ways: the right half of our brain registers the broad outlines, and the feel, of the situation, and the left half brings a focused, analytical attention to bear.

These differences are not normally evident to us, as they merge seamlessly in the stream of our consciousness. When we relax, sleep or use our imaginations, our right brain becomes more active than the left as our critical faculties are turned down. Use of the right brain offers opportunities for deep learning and access to the unconscious.

We filter our experience through mental templates or patterns. Who we are, on the basis of instinct and culture, and what we believe and value will affect how we respond to life, and what we get back from it. Therapy is about updating our mental maps so that we can enjoy more beneficial feelings, thoughts, and behaviours in line with what we want to achieve.

The essence of Human Givens Therapy

Above and beyond everyday feeling and thinking, there is a superior faculty of awareness known as the Observing Self. It is a pure form of awareness which correlates to our innermost being. To the extent that the Observing Self is utilised, the limited viewpoints of the personality are put into perspective. Alternative views and ideas can be given room to breathe and grow in the light of a fuller awareness.

This is the essence of what counsellors trained in the Human Givens learn as the essential framework of what it is to be human. And this in turn which informs and permeates much of what they are about in the therapy room.