Mental Illness

More than any other measure, a country’s rates of mental illness, whether rising or falling, indicates how successful its society is. This is because mental illness is directly related to how well the environment is able to get the innate needs of children and adults met. And the government is ultimately responsible for ensuring this can be done.

In the current heroic effort to deal with the rising rates of distress and mental ill health, the clear thinking offered by the human givens approach gives society the best hope for developing realistic strategies to reverse the trend.

Two simple truisms underline human givens philosophy:

• Those whose needs are well met in the world do not have mental health problems and are better integrated with other people;
• Those whose needs are not fulfilled, for whatever reason, suffer considerable distress and may develop mental illness or antisocial behaviours.

It is the way our innate emotional needs are met and the way we use the resources that nature has given us that determine the physical, mental and moral health of an individual. As such, therefore, the human givens are the starting point for anyone involved in education, mental and physical health and the way we organise and run our lives.

HGI members therefore, like many others, are often frustrated by the NICE guidelines for treating mental ill health. Deriving from evidence-based practice, these are often out of touch with what practitioners actually do. By contrast, ongoing practice-based evidence shows that mental distress such as depression, anxiety disorders, anger, addiction, psychosis, eating disorders and self-harming can all be treated using human givens principles, often remarkably quickly.

The startling success produced by the efficacy, adaptability and practical nature of this new approach, is borne out by the speed at which the human givens ideas is moving into new areas, ranging from psychotherapy, education and social work to international diplomatic relations and the corporate world of business.

Why is the human givens approach to psychotherapy important?

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For information about research projects into the human givens approach, visit: www.hgi.org.uk/sections/research.htm