Why is the Human Givens approach different from other forms of psychotherapy or counselling?

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. The Human Givens approach is fast, fluid and flexible, making use of whatever techniques and approaches will best suit a client all within its guiding framework.

The Human Givens framework is a set of organising ideas that provides a holistic and scientific framework for understanding the way that individuals and society work. This framework encompasses the latest scientific understandings from neurobiology and psychology, as well as appreciating current sociological impacts on us as humans.

The HG approach is a forward facing, outcome focussed and proactive therapy. Your past is only relevant if it is having a negative day-to-day impact on your life.  If you have some trauma that you have reconciled and packed away we don't need to 'talk about it.' A Human Givens therapist will concentrate on practical steps, the mastery of skills and understandings that you can use in the future to move on in your lives, rather than concentrating on, and being stuck in, what went wrong in the past. However if a past traumatic event is still very much living with you in the present all Human Givens therapists are taught a reliable, evidence-based method for de-traumatising people which in most cases works in one session. We use a similar powerful method for working with phobias.

Instead of being reliant on one ‘model’ of therapy – the human givens approach is fast, 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 the HG 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.

Reference:

Andrews, W P, Wislocki, A P, Short, F, Chow, D and Minami, T (2013). A 5-year evaluation of human givens therapy using a practice research network. Mental Health Review Journal, 18, 3, 165–76.