Home  About me
|
Why I'm a Human Givens therapist |
|
|
For many years, I considered becoming a psychotherapist. But I just could not feel any confidence in the effectiveness of the various approaches on offer. And
I couldn't bear the thought of listening to hour after hour of people's
miseries without any clear idea of how to cheer them
up.
Conventional psychodynamic theories were fine ... but I simply couldn't see how 'psychoarchaeology', delving into your past, could magically change things. Of course it's helpful and sometimes vital to recognise how past learning is affecting us. But what were you supposed to DO with the knowledge? After all, lots of people have a good idea how their problems began. Knowing this hasn't cured them.
When I was at university behaviour therapy was the fashion. It was underpinned by the work of psychologists like Skinner and Eysenck who did not believe that people were conscious or thought that, even if they were, it didn't actually make any difference. Well, I think I'm conscious. I think you are. And I'm sure it makes a difference. Whatever behaviourists were offering therapy to, it wasn't humanity as I know it. Behaviour therapy does work ... but not that well. It's painfully, step by step slow. And so-o-o-o boring for both patient and therapist ...
Then came cognitive therapy, based on Albert Ellis' Rational Emotive therapy. The idea was, when someone's thinking is distorted, then their feelings are too. Straighten their thoughts, by educating them in all the many logical and factual errors they've fallen victim to, and they'll be fine. Well (lapse of political correctness coming up, please look away if you're squeamish), I felt only an academic man could have believed that people were really ruled by reason and logic. Surely feelings, instincts and human nature come first? Again, this isn't humanity as I know it. Cognitive therapy does work ... but it's hindered by the fact that it's working against the grain of human nature.
A psychiatrist friend came to stay and kept trying to persuade me to be a therapist. I gave in. But what sort? He'd got tired of pill-pushing and was training in one of the analytical schools of therapy. "It's simple," he said. "You only need about ten patients, they're with you for years. It takes about six months to find the root of the problem, which is probably guilt. That'll be caused by masturbation or the Oedipus complex ... takes a few more months to find which ..." The postman arrived in time to stop me from real impoliteness. He dropped a prospectus for Human Givens seminars through the letterbox. I went to one, and was hooked.
It was talking about real people working the way real people worked. It explained why some other therapies were effective to some extent ... when they were in line with human nature. There was no cult or dogma or school, because Human Givens is based on an ever-expanding base of knowledge, not theory or belief. And it had some VERY powerful insights and techniques based on the fascinating and exciting new knowledge about the brain.
With Human Givens, you don't listen for hours to people's unhappiness, both of you getting more and more depressed. Instead, as a therapist, you have the powerful reward of seeing real results as depression lifts, stress calms and phobias and traumas fade away... and people move on to richer, fuller, more satisfying lives.
... But why Human Givens? "Gibbons? You mean monkeys?" people have asked more than once. Well, it refers to the givens of human nature ... the tools, needs and capacities we're born with. I did suggest to one of the pioneers of the approach, surely he could find a better name? But he pointed out that at least people remembered this one ... even if they did get the 'b's' and 'v's' mixed up sometimes ...
|
|
|
Jane Firbank
Therapist, writer,
psychologist
 |
B Sc. (psychology), HG Dip, ETSI, GHGI, GHR Reg, GQHP, CCC Reg. Psychotherapist
|
I'm an experienced psychotherapist, in practice in London, UK.
I also comment on and write about psychological issues for TV, the radio and the UK national press. I have a regular column, 'Mind Matters', in one of the UK's top slimming magazines, Rosemary Conley's Diet & Fitness.
I'm happy to be able to offer people reading this site insights and advice from my Human Givens training and my background as a psychologist. |
|
